New York style pizza by the slice (two ways)
You could write a whole book on New York’s most iconic of dishes. At the end of the 19th century, hundreds of thousands of Italian migrants moved to New York, and with them came tomato-topped Southern Italian pizzas. Gennaro Lombardi, on Spring Street in Little Italy, opened a restaurant with a coal-fired oven and started selling whole pies by the slice—two innovations to feed hungry, time poor, and cash-strapped factory workers, and both unheard of in the homeland.
Following World War II, returned veterans with a taste for Italian flavours fuelled pizza’s spread around the country—and by that time, almost every street corner in New York had pizza by the slice.
In 2008, 2 Bros. Pizza started selling pizza slices for $1 to outprice the standard $2 subway fare, and competitors soon sprouted throughout the city, giving rise to the ‘dollar slice’—a not good, but perfectly acceptable, student and drunk alternative to the artisan slices found everywhere else.
New York pizza is characterised by a medium–thin, lightly crisped and chewy crust—a sturdy structure to support a wide-cut slice that droops slightly at the tip and can be folded in half to eat. Glass cabinets display a range of toppings. The best loved are still the classics, including tomato-sauced pepperoni and white slice—here with ricotta, mozzarella, and lemon.
This recipe is an extract from EAT NYC by Yasmin Newman (Smith Street Books)
Next why not try this sourdough pizza recipe?
