The Pizza Melting Pot
No matter what your vice is, there is a pizza for it
The love for Pizza runs through all Americans’ lives. From the dinner to the physical supplement after the all-night party in college, to the comfort food in adulthood.
Pizza consists of three parts at its core: dough, sauce, and toppings. It’s hard to believe that this simple dish can create hundreds of variations and generate $4 billion in sales worldwide, not to mention the huge number of chefs and pizza makers who perfectly specialize in this single dish.
Although pizza started in Italy, now pizza has undoubtedly become famous all over the world. Whether in restaurants, pizzerias, pizza trucks, or even large chains, pizza surrounds us. Despite this, when we want to taste it in the pizzeria, we always tend not to know how to choose between the various garnishes sometimes far from the Italian recipe. To tidy up this dilemma, we’ve provided you with a list of the best pizzas in America.
1. Naples Style Pizza – The Original
Naples Style — Naples-style pizza widely known as Neapolitan Pizza, was the first pizza to leave Italy and arrived in the United States with Italian immigrants. This is the pizza that started the American pizza fanatic. Italy sought UNESCO heritage protection for Neapolitan pizza.
When we think of pizza, we think of Italian pizza, and when we think of Italian pizza, we think of Neapolitan pizza. In the past, pizza was despised because it was eaten by the poor in Naples, but now it has become a representative food of Italy. To make Neapolitan pizza, you have to stick to the authentic way. They use Italian flour and make the dough only by hand, and they bake it as simply as possible while preserving the original taste using a minimum of topping ingredients. Pizza Margherita, the most representative and basic, is named after Queen Margherita, who led pizza to become a national dish.
The dough is made with Tipo 00 flour and the crust is thin, crispy, and baked in a wood-cut oven. Pizza should have minimal toppings, perhaps San Marzano tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella cheese, and basil, as too much sauce or cheese lowers the crust and makes it.
2. New York Style Pizza: All About the Cheese and Sauce
NY Style —New York-style pizza dates back to the 17th century. When the Spanish soldiers occupied Naples, Italy, one of the most popular snacks by the soldiers at that time was a soft, crispy noodle with fillings called “Sfiziosa” by the Neapolitans.
As people who lived in Italy moved to the United States, pizza culture spread to the United States as well. It is estimated that the commercialization began in 1905 in a store in Manhattan, New York. The obvious difference from Italian pizza is its size. It is characterized by spreading the dough thinly and widely and making it more than 18 inches in diameter, and it uses tomatoes and various spices as the sauce. It’s a busy city, so pizzas are often sold in slices, and the toppings are simple so that you can eat while walking.
New York Pizza is famous for folding by hand. A pizza with a thin crust and topped with cheese. New York has a lot of Italian immigrants, so it was heavily influenced by ‘Neapolitan Pizza’, a local pizza. If I had to pick a region, I could understand it as somewhere between the Neapolitan style and the Roman style. The tomato sauce feels like it is spread lightly on the dough, and the cheese is also added only enough to give the feeling of covering the sauce. The toppings are also very simple, limited to cheese, pepperoni, or Italian sausage.
3. Chicago Style Pizza: Pizza or a Casserole?
Chicago Style — Chicago-style pizza is sometimes called deep-dish pizza or stuffed pizza. The exact origins of Chicago-style pizza are not known, but it is generally believed that it was developed in 1943 by Ike Sewell, the founder of Chicago’s Pizzeria Uno.
The biggest feature of Chicago pizza is that it is delicious enough to make you salivate from its visual appearance. It’s not a pizza, it’s like a big pie, but the bottom of the dough is about 2-3cm thick. In some cases, the sauce is applied once again on top. A fork and knife are essential as the number of toppings drips down and makes it difficult to hold and eat with your hands.
The main difference between deep-dish pizza and other pizzas is that, as the name suggests, the crust is very deep, making it a thick pizza. Deep dish pizza is baked in a round steel pan, and before baking the pie, the pan must be lubricated to make it easier to remove the baked pie. In addition to regular wheat flour, the pizza dough contains cornflour and semolina to give the crust a distinct yellow color. It takes longer to bake a pizza than a normal pizza, and it was completed with a recipe that puts the sauce on top of the cheese so that the topping does not burn.
4. Greek Style Pizza: Adopting an Italian Trend
Greek-Style — Interestingly, Greek pizza is not Greek, but it is a very popular pizza that began to be made by Greek immigrants in the Boston area.
The dough is not as thin as Napolitan or New York pizza, nor is i it like Chicago pizza. It’s not too thick. Greek pizza is just in the middle, a little fluffy, but it’s a chewy dough. The basic shape is round, and when baking, apply plenty of olive oil to the pizza tray before baking. Therefore, the outside of the dough is browned to a golden brown color.
The pizza crust lies between a crunchy New York-style pizza and its thicker Sicilian cousin and is baked in a heavily greased cake or cast iron pan that creates a thick, golden, crispy crust. Greek pizzas can be simply topped with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese, but typical Greek ingredients like pizza, artichokes, and kalamata olives make up many of these pizzas.
5. California Style Pizza: Breaking All The Norms
Cali Style — California-style pizzas are similar to Neapolitan and New York-style pizzas, but with ingredients that aren’t originally used in pizza dough.
The person who started this style of pizza was a chef named Ed Radow who made pizza using ricotta cheese, mustard, red pepper, etc. around 1980. The famous chef (Wolfgang’s Steakhouse) who ate it ate it and liked it so much that he hired Ed to open the restaurant. Ed continued to make new pizzas with smoked salmon and more. In 1985, he created the first menu of the American pizza chain, California Pizza Kitchen, and barbecue chicken pizza, and more spread throughout the United States.
The protein content of the dough is the same as that of Chicago-style pizza, but the dough is very smooth. The dough is placed in the baking tray and can be fermented inch by inch. Many times these bottoms are pre-baked, which will help maintain the height of the pizza after baking and also reflect the characteristics of crunchy taste. The bottom of the cake is light, porous, and soft, which is derived from flour and fermentation. The selection of fillings ranges from shrimp and asparagus to smoked salmon and other seafood, and vegetable combinations are also popular.
Whats your favorite pizza? If we missed one that you feel needs better attention let us know!