FOOD NEWS
What You Should Know About New Haven-Style Pizza
By Elias Nash
New Haven, Connecticut's population is a fraction of New York's, but its pizza is a legitimate challenger to the Big Apple when it comes to America's finest.
It's properly known as "apizza," pronounced "a-beetz," and the three main factors that make New Haven-style pizza unique are the crust, the cheese, and the oven.
It's made with an extremely high-hydration crust, typically around 70%, meaning the dough is made with 70% as much water as flour, making it so wet that you can barely knead it.
Unlike other pizza styles, "apizza" doesn't have a big handle of crust at the edge to grip, and the sauce almost reaches the edge. It should also never, ever flop at the tip.
New Haven's pizza also stands out for its toppings. Its standard base is tomato sauce and pecorino cheese, and mozzarella is considered an additional topping rather than a given.
Lastly, the coal-fired oven is heated to nearly 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. At such a high temperature, the pizza cooks very quickly, becoming super crispy and charred.