How to Make Chef John's New England Beach Pie
Join Chef John as he demonstrates how to make his delicious New England Beach Pizza with a simple, classic cheese topping. Ideal for a quick and satisfying meal, this pizza is a delightful tribute to New England's laid back seaside vibe.
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00:00Hello, this is Chef John from FoodWishes.com with New England Beach Pizza.
00:08That's right, when I heard this called America's worst pizza, I knew I had to give it a try.
00:14And as promised, it was terrible, but also terribly good.
00:18And is it possible for both those things to be true?
00:21Well yes and no.
00:22And we'll discuss this later, but for now let's go ahead and get started with the sauce.
00:27Which we'll start by sizzling some garlic in some olive oil over medium heat.
00:31And not a long sizzle, just a brief sizzle, like 30 seconds.
00:35Okay we want our oil infused with that garlic flavor, but we don't want the garlic to brown.
00:40So after about a half a minute we will add our tomato paste, which of course has a lot
00:44of moisture, and that will basically stop the garlic from getting any darker.
00:48And once we have stirred things around for about a half a minute, we will transfer in
00:52some plain tomato sauce, or a prepared marinara, or anything similar.
00:57And as you know, we always like to rinse out the jar with a little bit of cold fresh water.
01:01Just to rinse out that last little bit.
01:04And then we will season this up with a little bit of dried oregano, as well as a nice big
01:08pinch of optional chili flakes.
01:10And then we will follow that with the star of the show, a stupid amount of sugar.
01:14Oh yeah, New England beach pizza is supposed to be very sweet.
01:18As in borderline dessert sweet.
01:20So against my better judgment, I stirred that in.
01:23And that is pretty much going to be it for our sauce.
01:26We'll just wait for that to come back to a simmer, and then cook it stirring for about
01:2910 or 15 minutes, at which point it will be ready to use.
01:34And depending on how much salt was in your tomato sauce, you might want to taste and
01:37adjust with more of that.
01:39And once we do have our way too sweet pizza sauce done, we can move on to rolling and
01:43stretching our pizza dough.
01:45And for this you're going to need 24 ounces of prepared dough, which you can make from
01:49scratch using one of our many recipes.
01:52But one ball of pizza dough from the store should be just about perfect.
01:55And what we'll do using just enough flour so it doesn't stick, is roll that out until
01:59it's about a half inch thick, using a rolling pin.
02:03And once we get it to about here, we'll switch to our hands, and we will attempt to stretch
02:07that into a rectangle that's approximately 15 by 10 inches.
02:12And no, it certainly doesn't have to be exact.
02:14Because what we'll do once we're close, and we've dusted that with maybe a little more
02:18flour so it doesn't stick, we will flop that over onto our hands, and then transfer it
02:23onto a very generously olive oiled sheet pan.
02:25And because the pan is generously olive oiled, that dough is going to slide around quite
02:29easily as we press it and stretch it where we need it.
02:33And as you may have experienced, sometimes the pizza dough is too elastic and it won't
02:37stay in place.
02:38Well, if that happens to you, just stop and let it rest for a couple minutes, and then
02:42come back and try again.
02:44And what will happen is that dough will relax, and you'll see you'll eventually be able to
02:48get it right up to the edge of the pan.
02:50And once we've achieved full coverage, we will grab our sauce, and we will spread that
02:54over evenly.
02:55And by the way, the sauce recipe is going to make a little extra, so don't feel like
02:59you need to transfer it all on.
03:01That's probably going to be too much.
03:02Oh, and apparently we're supposed to go all the way to the edges, but I do like to leave
03:07a little bit of dough peeking through.
03:09But anyway, you decide.
03:10I mean, you are after all the Bruce Lee of how much crust we're going to see.
03:15But either way, once that's sauced, we'll go ahead and apply some shredded mozzarella
03:18to the top.
03:20And just like the sauce, we're not supposed to use a lot.
03:23So it wasn't easy for me, and it's probably not going to be easy for you, but we need
03:27to be a little bit stingy with the cheese.
03:30And please keep in mind that we are going to top this with provolone cheese at the end,
03:34so there's more cheese a-coming.
03:37And that's it.
03:38Once mozzarella'd, this is ready to transfer into the center of a 475 degree oven for about
03:4315 to 20 minutes, or until our crust is cooked and our cheese is browned, and it hopefully
03:49looks like this.
03:51And then as promised, while still piping hot, we will top this with 12 slices of provolone,
03:56or as the guy at the deli calls it, provolone.
04:00And if you do this right away while everything's still hot, that cheese is probably going to
04:03melt sufficiently, at which point we could cut this up and start enjoying it.
04:08And by enjoying, I mean making fun of it.
04:11We can also top it with the cheese and then pop it back in the oven, if we want it hotter.
04:16But anyway, that wasn't my main concern.
04:17It was more that the appearance was so boring and uninteresting, so I decided to sprinkle
04:22over some chopped Italian parsley, which somehow made it worse.
04:27But hey, that's fine.
04:28If it's going to taste terrible, it might as well look terrible.
04:32Although at this point I was just assuming, so I went ahead and grabbed a piece to go
04:35in for the official taste, and I was happy to see we got at least a little bit of browning
04:39on the bottom.
04:40Okay, if you don't get any color, put it back in until it browns a little bit.
04:45But anyway, I bit in, and really, honestly, I did not know what to think.
04:49Yes, it's true, this kinda is a terrible pizza.
04:52Alright, the sauce really is too sweet.
04:55And even though we did add the extra cheese on top, it was still quite uninteresting and
04:59very one-dimensional, which made the fact that I kept eating it and wanted more very
05:04confusing.
05:05I mean, can a pizza really be good and terrible at the same time?
05:09Well, if it can, this is the one.
05:11Although by now this pizza was pretty much room temp, so I wasn't sure I was going to
05:15be able to do an accurate analysis.
05:17So I went ahead and heated a piece up, and continued my highly scientific evaluation.
05:23And as I mentioned, you will hear this described as dessert-like, and it really is almost that
05:27sweet, which is probably the thing that keeps having you take another bite, especially since
05:31I used a little bit of chili flake in the sauce.
05:33And no matter what the format, that combination of sweet heat, especially on a starchy
05:38cheesy delivery system, is almost always an enjoyable thing to eat.
05:43So to summarize, would I ever make New England beach pizza again?
05:46Well, the answer is no, definitely not.
05:50But if I was on a beach in New England, near a snack bar or pizza place that served this,
05:54and I was very, very hungry, and I wasn't sure where we'd park the car, I would maybe
05:59possibly order a piece of this.
06:01So there's really no way for me to tell how you're going to feel about this, and the only
06:05way to find out is for you to make one.
06:07Which is why I'll end the video by saying, I really do hope you give this a try soon.
06:12Allegedly.
06:14So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much
06:18more info as usual.
06:21And as always, enjoy.