The Scarr's Pizza Cookbook: New York-Style Pizza for Everybody

For Scarr Pimentel, slice pizza is synonymous with New York. Old school, “thin but sturdy enough to fold, crispy but soft, with the perfect balance of crust, sauce, and cheese.”  Judging by the lines at his Orchard Street shop, many other people agree.

But there’s more to Scarr’s than just nostalgia. To begin, a distinctive attention to ingredients, which begins with flour. He recommends using 20 to 30 percent fresh-milled flour in a mix that also includes high-protein flour and all-purpose.

And keep in mind that this is pizza made by someone dedicated to great pizza. If you want pizza for dinner on Saturday night, start that dough on Thursday so that it has plenty of time for a long, slow rise. 

Scarr provides four pages of instruction on making dough, another two pages on stretching and shaping it into rounds, and two more on how to sauce and top the rounds. Sicilian pies get their own section.

There are only 8 pizza recipes, but the dough and the sauce are clearly what you need to do your own thing. You will find calzone, garlic  knots, focaccia, some heroes, and a few cocktails. But as good as all those things are, it’s the pizza people come for.

Hardcover. Color and black-and-white photographs throughout.