I Tried 9 NYC Slices in a Day: Here's What I Found

I traveled all the way to New York to eat at some of the city's best pizzerias with the goal of answering one simple question what actually defines a great New York slice now if you've been following this series you know that we've already gotten pretty close in replicating this style of pizza at home but I'm not aiming for pretty close I want to make a great slice one that Rivals some of the top spots in the city and I want to create a foolproof method that anyone can follow to do the same but in order to do that I need to try some of these spots for myself but I've only got one day to hit all nine of these spots so we better get started Pizza time all right first place of the day here Bleeker Street Pizza let's give it a try a lot of cheese on this one pretty good charring on the bottom not a super dark crust on the top though so let's see what it tastes like forgot to hit record at first hopefully at least got some decent footage but again my main takeaway nothing really too special crust doesn't have a lot of flavor not super crispy I mean there's nothing really that sets it apart I'll take down a couple notes here and then we'll head to the next place when I get and I take a shower read a book and feel empowered all right so this is Two Bros honestly this one kind of looks better to me than Bleaker Street it's got some nice Browning on the cheese not too much cheese but then when I flipped it over there's absolutely no Browning on the bottom of the crust so for me it's not looking too good labor-wise is really not bad I mean my biggest problem with it is that the uh the sauce is really sweet does seem to have some oregano in there obviously the other problem is just that the crust is so soft there's absolutely no Christmas to it whatsoever kind of just tastes like a generic cheap Little Caesars or Chuck E cheese type Pizza I mean it's a dollar so you can't really expect too much but I think it's time to head to the next place so not a great start the cheese fell off the slice immediately but let's see how it tastes flavor-wise it's not too bad I do think it has a little bit too much cheese for my taste could use a little bit more charring on the bottom otherwise the sauce definitely has some oregano in it although I don't think it has much of anything else I'd say the actual dough recipe is the best of any I've seen yet I just would have preferred a little bit more crispiness but now it's time to hit the one I've been waiting for for this whole series let's head over to scars [Music] foreign [Music] the best one yet it's got a really nice thickness to it nice crispiness good amount of cheese good amount of sauce smells really good so curious to give it a try I had super high expectations after all this build up but that is a really really good slice possibly the best slice I've ever had again the crust is perfect the sauce is nice and tangy with a little bit of sweetness not too much spice I did see them using some oregano but I don't think there's anything else other than the oregano and the cheese there's something about it as well it's got a slightly different flavor than most other New York pizzas I have to do a little bit more research see if I can gain any more insight but otherwise really good [Music] [Music] so visually very similar to scars actually the only difference I really noticed right off the bat is here they grate a little bit of parmigiano over top and of course they also add some basil here pretty Dark Crust very good structure let's give it a try [Music] yeah that's another really really good slice it is pretty similar to scars it seemed like scars cheese had a little bit of a different flavor maybe they used a little bit maybe they use a little bit of provolone at scars but sauce is very similar it's got a really nice Tang to it a little bit of sweetness great sausage cheese ratio really well seasoned nice Airy crust honestly there's not much you can really improve about this slice I do like the addition of the basil I don't know if it's classic or traditional based on some of the other places I've tried but we'll just see how it goes the rest of the time honestly this one and scars are the most similar to the slices that I've been making so I think I'm definitely on the right track with mine based on this I'm leaning more towards my basic sauce maybe with the addition of Basil but I really don't think I should be adding the garlic I haven't detected any garlic in any of the pizzas I've tried so far anyways let's keep it moving foreign this one's best pizza and I've been sitting there for a while it looked like so it's not Super Fresh but otherwise it looks pretty good so let's see how it tastes they do use fresh mozzarella so you can definitely tell looking at it looks a little different than the rest but I still want to give it a try because I've heard good things about it again really good structure nice crust umpire with scars and Industry lindastry the industry this is another really good slice first thing I noticed though I'm not the biggest fan of the fresh mozzarella when it's on the pizza like this it kind of has a weird soft mushy texture to it crust is really good though not big too dark not too crunchy but not too chewy honestly pretty much spot on it's got a nice flavor as well and again the sauce really nice too not quite as Tangy maybe as the industry and scars but pretty good [Music] definitely a little bit more heavily topped than the others it's the first thing I noticed it's got a nice crisp crust pretty decent structure though otherwise this has a lot of sauce on it it is a really good sauce though lots of oregano cheese seems to be really high quality pretty sure they just use Grande whole milk but anyways another great slice I don't think it's quite as good as the last few but definitely very solid [Music] all right this slice is pretty similar to the last few and honestly it's getting a little bit harder to discern each one the point here is not to compare them just to get a feel for what they're like and this one's definitely up there with scars in the industry is my favorite so does got a really solid structure that nice crispiness great cheese to Sauce ratio really basic but delicious sauce with that little bit of tanginess and honestly my only complaint would be that the dough could use maybe a little bit more flavor but overall very solid slice so this is the last slice of the day new Park Pizza in Queens first thing I noticed it has a very Flappy structure they also use fresh mozzarella so it's a little bit different than most so it is a little bit too floppy for my taste I prefer a bit more structure but flavor wise it is a really good slice I mean again a very basic sauce I don't even think they put oregano in this one so it's basically just tomatoes and salt maybe a little bit of sugar but it's hard to tell so despite how it looks when you pick it up there's really no crunch to the crust the chime does add a bit of flavor but that's about it so after all this I definitely have a much better idea of what's authentic so let's head back and dial in this final recipe I'll see you there so I learned a lot on this trip and throughout the series in general really more than I have time to talk about in these videos so I actually decided to start a free newsletter that you can check out right here but basically I'll be sending out additional insights about pizza making and other food related topics that I don't have time to cover in these videos so if that sounds like something you're interested in be sure to check out the link in the description below all right now one thing I do know after this trip is that I'm good on the cheats the most traditional taste definitely comes from a low moisture mozzarella along with the addition of some parmigiano or pecorino on top of the sauce and I talked all about that in The Cheese episode of this series so I'd recommend checking that one out if you haven't seen it yet and as far as the sauce I think I'm also good there that is using my basic recipe which is an uncooked sauce consisting of just tomato salt sugar and oregano and since the sauce is so simple the tomatoes you use become even more important and for me I'm still really happy with red pack they have that nice Tang that I recognize from my favorite spots in the city like scars in the industry which the other brands and the other more mediocre slices I tried just sort of blend now 7-Eleven and Bianca de Napoli which is actually what both scars and lindistry use are both great as well honestly I'm not sure whether I like those or red pack better I would just recommend trying whatever you have available to you and see what you like best so I think overall we're very close but we're not all the way there and if you've watched the series up until this point you know that by far the most elusive part of this pizza is the dough but after this trip I think I finally have all the pieces I need in order to perfect it so my top three pizzerias in terms of dose structure were lindistry scars and Joes but with that said there are a couple areas that I think my dough is still lacking in the first being The Chew Factor even using a high gluten flour I'm struggling to achieve enough Chew in my crust as I should be so to address that I actually decide to remove olive oil from the dough you see oil inhibits gluten development so even though some pizzerias do include it I think they can get away with it because they're making their dough in such large batches and they're using heavy duty commercial mixers so for us who are making small batches of dough by hand removing oil from the dough helps us to get that much nicer chew that we're looking for now the other main thing I noticed is that compared to some of the top pizzerias I tried my dough is noticeably lacking in flavor when I compare to scars and Industry though their flavor is a lot more interesting bready and complex and honestly mine is just sort of bland by comparison and there are two main things that I could think of that might help with that the first would be to use a pre-ferment like a bigger or a poolish which I actually found out on my trip that Linda Street does and I actually tried it too in the very first episode of the series but I thought that I gave the dough a little bit too much of a fun fermented flavor for a New York style pizza but scars doesn't use a pre-ferment and their dough still tastes great what they do do though that I haven't been doing is use fresh yeast now this stuff can be pretty hard to find it took me about a dozen grocery store trips before I finally found some and there are mixed opinions about whether or not it'll even make a difference but most New York pizzerias do seem to use it so there may be something to that so let's see what we're working with here fresh yeast compared to the instant dry yeast that I've been using so the fresh yeast definitely has a much stronger yeasty sort of funky smell to it it may just be because it's already hydrated though so what I want to know is if it's still noticeable once it's mixed into the dough it's just barely noticeable once it's mixed into the dough but what I really want to know is if it's still noticeable once the pizza is baked it's not still noticeable once the pizza is baked at least to me and I mean that's kind of what I expected from the beginning in theory they're the exact same stuff one is just pre-hydrated and one isn't I think that the actual fermentation process you use is a lot more important because as dough ferments the sugars and proteins in the wheat break down into more complex alcohols acids and other flavorful compounds so a longer fermentation means more flavor but it also means a weaker dough structure because of that breakdown so I've been playing around with longer fermentation times in the fridge and I found about two to three days to be The Sweet Spot I think the dough develops plenty of flavor that way without the need for a pre-ferment but another thing that really stood out to me about Linda Street was just how Airy their dough was that was probably my favorite thing about it even though that's not always characteristic of a New York style pizza and it's not just about texture more air in the dough actually means more flavor I mean air is the whole reason that bread tastes so good those aromatic flavor compounds get trapped within the bubbles in the bread only to be released when you bite into it so aside from using a longer fermentation period another thing that Linda Street does to create an airier dough is to use a higher hydration than most other pizzerias and I know I made a whole episode about how using a lower hydration is better and so far it has been I think the main reason the industry can get away with it is because they use such a high temperature oven but I've made a lot of changes to this dough since the beginning of the series so I wanted to give the hydration one more try now I was still playing around with fermentation times here and so my does were definitely overproofed and therefore the pizzas ended up flatter than I would have liked but that's okay because the main goal here was just to test the hydration levels so here I've got three pizzas same exact recipe and process this one's 55 hydration this one's 60 and this one's 65 what I'm also gonna do is reheat the slices so usually when you go to a slice shop you'll get a slice from the pizza that was baked anywhere between about 10 to 30 minutes ago so before they gave it to you they'll throw it back in the oven for a couple minutes to reheat it which of course will have an impact on the texture of the pizza so I had to give it a try so after my usual baking process I just let the pizza cool for 10 to 15 minutes with my oven still running at its highest temp then I tossed the slices back onto my pizza steel which I have set on my oven's second highest rack for about two minutes or until they were charred to my liking all right time for the Moment of Truth wow I think we finally did it I kind of feel stupid for not thinking about it earlier but the reheat makes all the difference with that said I think any of these three hydrations could work it really just depends on what your preferences are so if you don't want to mess with a reheat I would say the only one that was acceptable to eat after the first bake was just 55 that lower hydration allows it to crisp up with just a single bake so I would say around 55 to 57 is the sweet spot if you don't want to reheat if you don't mind reheating though and you want the absolute best results I would go for 60 or high the reason being with higher hydration does you can develop gluten a lot easier and so these were noticeably chewier than the 55 the problem was that they didn't quite crisp up enough after the first bake but by the time you reheat them you kind of get the best of both worlds both with the chewiness and the crispiness so I would say 60 is kind of more like a classic New York slice that isn't too Airy whereas 65 or higher gives you a little bit of an area though more likely industry or scars and for me I really like that so I think I'm actually going to experiment a little bit more with fermentation times and hydration levels and I'll discuss the results in the next episode which by the way will finally maybe the step-by-step guide for how to make this pizza so you can watch that video right here once it's uploaded but in the meantime if you haven't seen the first few episodes of the series you can check those out right here thanks a lot for watching and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Charlie Anderson

Views: 107,421

Keywords: How to cook, how to become a better cook, how to become a better home cook, how to cok

Id: l9X18j0ww4o

Length: 12min 54sec (774 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 22 2023