Pizza here in the United States is one of those things that, especially if your city's known for it, people tend to fight to the death over
And perhaps there's no better gleaming example of this than the city of New Haven, Connecticut
Connecticut. Connect-I-Cut. It's a small to medium-sized state right up there in New England
Maybe you're asking yourself, how did such a tiny town of less than 200,000 people garner such a praised and beloved position in the American pizza conversation
Well that has to do with a long-standing history, long-standing in American standards of course
which includes the story of an influx of pizza-loving Italian immigrants who came to the States back in the day
But first let's talk about the pizza and how you can make it at home, or as they call it in New Haven, a beets
I read old articles, read forums, and even watched a full-length documentary all about New Haven Pizza
but lucky for me, I have a primary source and friend who just so happens to have experience in this department
All right, Max the Meat Guy, let's go. Our East Coast connection. You are in Connecticut right now
Yes, sir. Good to be here. Thank you for having me. Dude, of course my man. Thanks for being here
So new Haven style pizza what sets it apart? Well, it's funny you mentioned that I actually have two right here
Any excuse to get pizza I'm going for it. Which one is this? So here we have a cheese as you can see I may have taken a slice or two pretty big pizza
Round dish most notably check out that undercarriage great. Oh, okay wood fire ovens probably huh
Wood-fired ovens, you can see the front, looks really crispy, relatively thin
I can tell you it is delicious. Okay, so you got the cheese though, so what's underneath that
I hear there's some pretty wacky signature flavors out east. You are right about that
I was a little skeptical about this one, I'm gonna be honest, but once again, I did take a bite
and it looks pretty bomb. We got lemon wedges. I should probably use them
Why don't I go for a little? Oh yeah. Is there cheese on there
There is cheese. This is the clam white sauce one. So there's cheese, that white sauce
I was sort of expecting like whole belly clams. It looks like it's more just strips
That looks nice. Maybe chopped clams, huh? It looks like it. All right, Max, in a nutshell
New Haven pizza, traits, characteristics, go. New Haven style pizza to sum it all up
Extremely hot oven they cook very fast. Relatively thin, but a really nice char
Simple but well thought out ingredients. Even though we have that nice char
it's still nice and chewy, so you get that balance of both. That is one thing about this
it's not like a super crackery pizza. It's actually a bit chewy once you get through that initial char
Relatively light on the toppings, just one or two, and absolutely delicious
A beets! A beets! What do we go? A beets! I still can't pronounce it right
A beets! A beets. Oh yeah, dude. New Haven, Connecticut style abits
The dough is super simple. Flour, water, salt, yeast, that's it. The magic comes from the oven
Stir the dough by adding three grams of fresh yeast to 510 grams of warm water in the bowl of a stand mixer
Just mix that all up by hand and let it sit and activate for about five minutes
In a separate bowl, sprinkle 17 grams of kosher salt over the 750 grams of bread flour
and again, mix things up by hand. Once the yeasty water is bubbly, pour the flour-salt mixture over the water, then attach the dough hook to the stand mixer and stir things around for about 15 seconds, just until things come together into a shaggy mess
Stop the machine and let the dough rest for 20 minutes. This step is called the auto and it going to help the dough get a jump start on gluten formation After 20 minutes run the mixer on medium speed until the dough balls up into a smooth shiny blob thing It should be very supple and very elastic Because we auto the dough this should take anywhere from 6 to
8 minutes, so pretty quick. Lube up a big bowl with some olive oil for the dough to
ferment in, then dust a clean work surface with some all-purpose flour and turn the dough
blob onto the table. All we're doing now is shaping the dough into a tight round ball
to help it rise during fermentation. And remember, this is a wet dough, so feel free to use plenty of flour
This is what I mean when I say elastic. Notice how easily the dough stretches and doesn't split or break
This is well-developed gluten. Transfer the dough ball to the oiled bowl
cover with plastic wrap, and let ferment at room temp for five to seven hours or until basically it's quadrupled in size
All right, so New Haven-style sauce is just as simple as New Haven-style dough, right
It's literally tomatoes, oregano, and salt. Here I have a 28-ounce can
of the world-famous San Marzano tomatoes from Italy. They come peeled and canned in tomato puree
Now I prefer to use the whole tomatoes then take them down to the desired consistency
for ultimate control. Take the tomatoes out of their sauce and place them in the food processor
Alright, so you can use any oregano you want. Technically, classic New Haven style calls for dry oregano
I also happen to have fresh oregano and I'm just usually a fan of fresh herbs over the dry variety like most of the time so I'm gonna use fresh
Chop up a tablespoon of fresh oregano then toss that in with the tomatoes along with with a teaspoon and a half of kosher salt to start
Usually this is done with a food mill, which leaves you with a nice chunky textured sauce
I don't have a food mill, so I'm gonna use my food processor, which many of us probably hopefully have
and I'm just gonna pulse it so that it doesn't turn into a puree. We want texture. As you can see, the sauce could not be any easier, right
There's no reduction, you don't add any sugar, no nothing, bare bones. I actually really like it like this
Okay, we have to talk about it. New Haven style clam pie
This one was invented at a spot called Pepe's back in the 1950s or 60s, as the story goes
but I'm also sure a lot of people think otherwise. There's a fierce rivalry amongst New Haven, Abit's spots
Everybody has their own go-to favorite. The big boys are Pepe's, Sally's, and Modern, just to name a few
Regardless of pizza lore, this topping combo is actually incredibly delicious. We're going to use a clam knife to carefully shuck enough clams
until you have about a half cup of the meat, then run through them once with your knife, leaving some pieces whole and others chunky for variety
These are cherry stone clams that I bought from a fish market. Subscribe to the channel, dude. For sure
Real Pecorino imported from Italy. Yes, Pecorino Romano cheese. This stuff is super salty, sharp sheep's milk cheese
You can sub for parm if that's what you got, but let me tell you, this stuff is different. If you can find it, grab yourself some
Next, the finely chopped garlic. We're going for a super rough chop here
There's about 20 cloves in there, and that's overkill, yes, but in this case, it's better to have more toppings than not enough, you know
Then, of course, the garnish. We're gonna have some fresh chopped parsley. Just chop that up set it aside. All right, so our dough's been fermenting for about five six hours ish
It's gonna take a little longer if it's colder. So like in the winter it will take longer, but it's pretty warm today
It's pretty humid. So we ready Check it out I also made a ton of extra dough to so now that the dough is finished with its first stage of development
We're going to pre-shape it a dust yo surface with plenty of flour because remember this is a wet dough
Then measure it out my recipe makes enough dough for either 4 12 inch pies or 3 14 to 16 inch pies
If you'd like to make these smaller 12 inch pizzas measure out four balls that weigh
320 grams each if you'd like to make a larger pie measure out roughly
425 gram balls regardless of what you decide to do the shaping technique is very simple use your hands to pull the dough over
over itself so that you're left with a smooth ball, pinch the back closed, plop it on the bench
and use your fingers to pull the dough back to create surface tension The more tactile strength the dough has the better it gonna rise I using these nifty proofing boxes just like you find in bakeries or pizza joints
These are just a lot smaller than the actual professional ones, perfect for fitting into
a tight, domestic fridge. The benefit here is that you can fit a lot of dough into each
box, then stack them on top of each other. And no, you don't need these. A sheet tray
and plastic wrap or a Tupperware container will work just fine, but if you plan on making
a lot of pizza, I'd say it's worth a small investment. I shall leave a link below
Cover the dough, then transfer it to the fridge to chill and develop overnight
I just got a very, very special, very cool new toy just for this video, actually
So let's go check it out downstairs. In New Haven, the abits is shaped by hand, and there are many techniques to do so, but I found that an easy and effective one is to use your fingers and the pads of your fingers to push the dough down and out, sort of like in a tree shape
Before starting, make sure that you pull the dough from the fridge to let it warm up at least an hour, preferably two hours, before you're going to cook
Cold dough is really hard to work with because it tends to snap back easily when you try to shape it
Okay, very important. Before you build the pizza, be sure to get it on the peel
Here I have some coarse semolina flour which sort of acts like ball bearings to help the dough slide on and off the peel
Whereas normal all-purpose flour might just you know get sticky For a 12-inch pie spoon on about three ounces or one and a half of these tiny little ladles worth of sauce
Less is more here. We don't want a wet pizza This first abitz is what's known in New Haven as a plain or sometimes tomato pie
All we got to do is tomato sauce a little dried oregano and olive oil
Some people add pecorino which is delicious and totally optional you can do that if you want to
Plain pie. Traditionally, the style of pie are cooked in large wood-fired ovens, which are massive
They can do like 10 pies at a time. Though this Ghazni Dome is a badass backyard oven, it's really not that big, and the good
news is that it gets really hot. Hot enough to give us charred crust and caramelized cheese for that classic New Haven style and
its signature look. It's important to keep movement on the pizzas because there are hot spots in the oven
You can use your hands, or if you have one, a turning peel to rotate the pizza about every
30 seconds or so to avoid any excess burning. There's a fine line between burnt and charred abits. We want a relatively flat pie with char marks in the middle on the crust and definitely on the bottom
All right One thing you can do if your dough is pulling back on you if it's cold and pulling back on you
Just let it chill let it chill for a couple of minutes Let it rest it'll loosen up and get easier to work with
Now shaping by hand is fun and it's the authentic technique to learn when talking about abits
However, it can definitely be challenging to get these pies to stay flat So I figured out a couple of tricks that you can try to maintain that signature flat New Haven style crust
It might break some rules, but it works. If you're having trouble with your dough being a little too puffy, you can dock it
This is a docker, right? Basically, it punches little holes in the dough and this keeps it from rising
Or at least it helps it rise a lot less. Dough docking is a good idea for any thin crust pizza
Once that's done, go ahead and dust up the peel, lay on the dough and build once again
Now, I've learned that in New Haven, you're not going to go around and order a cheese pizza, right
They don't know what that is over there. I've learned it's called moots, a.k.a. mozzarella, a.k.a. mozzarella, a.k.a. mozzarella
Pop some of that on there, along with a healthy dusting of Pecorino Romano cheese, dried oregano, and olive oil
Then it's into the heat dungeon. A 12-inch pie like this should be turned 3-4 times and take anywhere from 3-5 minutes to fully cook
It's hot in there, this happens fast, watch your pizza. Now I not gonna front here It took me a few tries to get this right which also meant that we had a ton of leftover pizza But lucky for me and the squad of construction workers nearby was quite hungry and there were also a couple neighbors walking around so we fed the block Knock knock
How you doing man? Good. I got some extra pizza. That's for you my friend. Thank you. I appreciate it
We got all this stuff. There's plates underneath. Thank you guys. Thank you. Good job. Thank you
I understand most people watching might not have an outdoor oven to cook on, so I want
to show you guys how you can make an abyss inside using a regular oven and a pizza stone
or steel. Again, as I mentioned with the dough docking, you're not going to see any spots in New Haven
without a rolling pin either. It's all done by hand there. However, if you're having trouble with thickness, there's no shame in the game
The rollout dock combo is undefeated for making thin pizza. Also, unlike other styles, New Haven pizza is not always a perfect circle
Matter of fact, most of the time it's not. So no worries if your pie is slightly deformed and misshapen, it just adds to the character
Notice this pie is slightly bigger. I wanted to show you guys the difference between the 12-inch smaller pizzas and this 16-incher
Last but certainly not least, we've been talking about it all day, the classic New Haven style clam abits
We're going to start by laying on fresh clams, then drizzling over the olive oil
make it rain that chopped garlic, add a pinch of dried oregano, and be generous with the pecorino
romano. Then onto a hot pizza stone it goes in a 500 degree oven that's been preheating for at
least an hour. We're gonna use a peel to turn the pie. Just like our outdoor fire oven, be sure to
give it some turns. This pizza takes about seven to eight minutes to fully cook. But you know, it
doesn't always make sense to go by time, so just make sure that it's nice and brown and starting to
char. Then, once your abits has some nice leberding, as they call it, on the bottom of
the pie and all around, turn on the broiler and let it ride for one to two more minutes
or just until that crust and cheese are charred and crispy. Bada boom
That is clam abits. Yeah, this is maybe the weirdest part about pizza in New Haven
And when I say it's cut differently, I mean like, you know, how Jason might treat one of his co-eds having an unwelcome stay at Camp Crystal Lake
New Haven-style pizza really did quickly climb to the top ranks of my favorite pizzas of all time
And I live in a place that's pretty known for pizza. There's plenty of great pizza everywhere
So I was pretty surprised. Uh, Beats. New Haven might be a tiny little town, but boy, does their pizza have a lot of personality
After all, Yale is right around the corner from a lot of these very famous New Haven-style pizza
joints, and those guys tend to know a thing or two about most things. Next episode, we are heading
down the East Coast to a tiny little state called Delaware. If you think you know what we're making
as usual, comment it below. Also, guys, I've pretty much said this ad nauseum, in other words
a lot, but my website is up and running, which means that you can go see all the recipes
written out that we talk about here on this channel and from Instagram and TikTok there
So check it out. I know a lot of you guys prefer to just read a whole written out recipe and follow that
and sort of watch the video as you cook. Others like to watch the video for the recipe
So I'm really trying to accommodate everyone. If you have any feedback for how I can do that
how I can be better at that, also comment that below. Shoot me a DM, just let me know some way
That would be very nice of you. Thank you so, so much for watching. Thank you for being a part of the Omnivore niche
and I will see you next time