Monday, November 26, 2012

Best Pizza Dough Recipe - NY Style



NY Pizza Dough Recipe


Pizza Dough for your Italian Recipes
This NY Pizza Dough is the start of an excellent Italian meal


Pizza is one of my all time favorite foods.  What can be better than homemade pizza!   This is the Best Pizza Dough Recipe I have come across! During all of my travels throughout the world, I have not enjoyed pizza anywhere else, as much as I have in New York.  This recipe comes from the Bronx, where I learned it from a friend, when I was a teenager.   He worked as a delivery boy for a pizzeria, and we always liked hanging out with him, because it usually meant free pizza!   This authentic Italian recipes is about as NY as it gets!

Here is a video of how I make the NY Pizza Dough


When I speak to folks who make pizza in New York, they say that the secret is the water.   I am not sure if that is true.  If you feel that your water may contribute to problems making bread dough, you can opt to use bottled or filtered water.  
This recipe is the most important part of a pizza, the pizza dough.  This Pizza Dough Recipe can be used for making not only Sicilian style pizza, but also Napoli style, and other various types of Pizza, like Grandma Pizza pie.
  •  1 envelope active dry yeast
  •  1 tablespoon light brown sugar
  • 1 1/4 cup warm water (Not HOT!)
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup semolina flour (May be called Pasta Flour)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup olive oil, plus extra for coating dough
Directions
Dissolve the brown sugar in the warm water
After sugar is dissolved, and water is still warm, add the yeast to the water.   Wait about 15 minutes to see the yeast start to activate.
Note:  If you want to knead by hand, skip the Mixer/Bread Machine section and see the Hand kneading method.
Using a Mixer or Bread Machine
Put the water and yeast mixture into either your bread machine, or heavy duty mixer, such as Kitchen Aid, fitted with a dough hook.   Add the olive oil and remaining dry ingredients.
If you are not hand kneading, mix with your mixer starting slowly.  After the dry ingredients are wet, raise the speed and mix until a nice, smooth ball forms, about 15 -20 minutes with the Kitchen Aid mixer.   If you are using a bread machine, simply use the dough cycle.   If your bread machine's dough cycle has a rise portion of the cycle, end the cycle early, before the rise portion.
Now you should have a dough ball.   Go to the section called Dough Ball.
Hand Kneading Method
Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Add the olive oil to the yeast mixture and pour into the well. Incorporate the wet and dry ingredients to form dough.
On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough using the heels of your palms, folding it over and over until it is smooth.  Add a little amounts flour as needed until the dough is no longer sticky. Shape into a ball.
Dough Ball Section
Shape the dough into a ball.  Coat with Olive Oil and place in a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap.    Place in the refrigerator overnight, or age for a few days.  If you don’t want to wait, refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

Notice that we did not do the standard rise/punch down. Don't do that for Pizza dough.

Now, you can use this dough to make Pizza, Calzones, Pin-Wheels, Panini Rolls, or even stuffed rolls, such as: Chicken Rolls, Sausage and Pepper Rolls, Broccoli Rolls, Spinach Rolls….    Really anything you want.
I hope you enjoyed making this NY Pizza Dough Recipe!   You can use this pizza dough for a lot of authentic Italian Recipes.

14 comments:

  1. Hi Anthony,

    This recipe is for Pizza Dough. What you do with it determines the temperature and baking time.

    For instance, I have a grandma pizza recipe posted on this blog, that uses this dough. The calzone recipe also uses this dough. In a nutshell, for thicker pizza, like sicilian and grandma pizza, I opt for a lower temp and cook for a longer time, like 425 for 25 minutes. For thinner pizza, I opt for a higher temp, like 500+ for a shorter time.

    For things like calzone or stromboli, a lot of times I do a lower temp for longer. Hope that helps, and thanks for stoping by.

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  2. Thanks a bunch! Definitely going to try this out! YUM!

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  3. I noticed when you put the dough on the plate you didn't have flour on your hands. You don't need flour on your hands?

    I have hi-gluten flour would it work for this recipe? Want to make real NY pizza dough. Nancy

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    1. Hi illucy2,

      You don't really need to flour your hands at all. The dough is not that sticky that you would have to.

      The hi-gluten flour may work ok, give it a try and see what happens. I like to use organic all purpose flour, but any high quality all purpose flour should work good. I have used Heckers and Pillsbury's best, but I really like the King Aurthur's flour.

      I think All Purpose flour works better than Bread Flour for this recipe and I have actually asked many different pizza places what they use, and they use all purpose flour. I spoke to a supplier to pizza places and they say all the pizza places order the same type all purpose flour in my area...

      I hope this helps answer your question.

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    2. Thanks for getting back with me quick. You don't need to devolve the yeast in water first? Nancy

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    3. Yes, after you dissolve the sugar in the water, you put the yeast in and wait a little for it to activate. I thought I showed that in the video. I will have to go back and check...

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    4. When you take the completed dough out of the fridge the next day, how long does it take for the dough to warm up and become stretchy and workable again? Excellent web site!! Thank you.

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  4. Is there any possible substitution for pasta flour?

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    Replies
    1. Yes, you can use just all purpose flour. That works fine and I do that when I don't have the pasta flour.

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  5. this is a great recipe!! thank you for sharing!!
    after kneading and putting it in bowls, how long do we have to wait till we open the dough??

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  6. Please help me...I live in Washington State. I have done EXACTLY as you said, followed recipe to a T, put the dough in the fridge from anywhere between 1 and 3 days, and still, it comes out DRY...it is not doughy to stretch. It is like three day old play dough. Any ideas?

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    Replies
    1. Hmmmm... I would add a little more water... Use bottled water... What four are you using?

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