Traditional New Yorker Pizza Recipe

This recipe is a simple traditional Italian pizza recipe prepared largely throughout Italy and later Italian-American communities. Traditionally pizzas were cooked in large wood burning brick ovens at high temperatures. Unfortunately many of us at home do not have access to a brick oven but we can still enjoy the quality taste.

Dough Ingredients:

2 cups lukewarm water
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon yeast
½ tablespoon salt
½ teaspoon virgin olive oil
3 cups all purpose flour
3 cups semolina flour

Tomato Sauce Ingredients:

1 29 oz. can of tomato puree
4 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves chopped garlic
1 chopped Bell pepper
1 large chopped onion
4 sliced olives
½ tablespoon dried crushed oregano
½ tablespoon dried crushed basil
¼ tablespoon dried crushed thyme
½ tablespoon garlic powder
¼ tablespoon black pepper
½ tablespoon salt

Cheese:

2 cups of mixed Italian cheese
(Mozzarella, Provolone, Romano, Asiago, and Parmesan)

Dough Preparation:

In a large container, mix by hand or by mixer, water, sugar, yeast, and olive oil.

Set about 1 cup of flour aside to be used later during the handling process.

Slowly add the flour and mix until mixture becomes a moist dough. The process should take about 5 minutes.

Add the salt to the dough and mix thoroughly.

Cover container with a moist towel and set aside in a warm place (80° F) and for roughly 3 hours or until dough has doubled in size.

Tomato Sauce Preparation:

In a small sauce pan, add olive oil and sauté garlic, pepper, onion and olives for roughly 10 minutes or until golden brown. DO NOT BURN!

Add can of tomato puree and stir until well blended.

Cover and let the tomato sauce simmer on the stove for 30 minutes.

Remove from stove, and add seasoning.

Let sauce cool and absorb the flavor for at least 30 minutes or overnight for best results.

Pizza Preparation:

Set broiler as high as it can go. The hotter the better.

Brush olive oil onto a 16" metal pizza pan. Smoothly cover the greased pan with a thin layer of flour set aside from earlier.

Place about ½ of the dough mixture onto the pizza pan.

Cover the dough and hands with flour to prevent sticking.

Slowly begin to shape the pizza into a circle working the dough from the center outward.

Shake the pan back and forth occasionally to prevent any sticking.

Place the dough just under the broiler and allow to cook for roughly 3 minutes or until golden brown.

Take the pan out of the oven and flip the dough to allow the underside to cook.

Place the dough under the broiler for another minute.

Remove from oven and place tomato sauce and cheese onto the pizza shell.

Slide pizza back under the broiler for another 2 minutes or until crust becomes golden brown and cheese is melted.

*This recipe yields 2- 16" thin crust pizzas*

*Extremely hot temperatures are needed to cook pizzas. A traditional oven only gets up to about 550° F. Pizzas should be cooked somewhere in the temperature range of 800-1025° F, this prevents the crust from drying out during cooking.*