Finding the BEST cheese for New York-Style pizza

So when it comes to New York style pizza, the cheese is one thing that nearly everyone can agree on. New York traditionally, you're looking at a low moisture mozzarella. Low moisture mozzarella. But that still leaves us with a lot of choices to make. So today we're gonna figure out which cheese or combination of cheeses is gonna help us make the best New York slice. Now this is episode three of my New York pizza series where the goal is to recreate a perfect authentic New York slice at home. And in the first two episodes, we tackled the dough, but today is all about the cheese. Now, one thing that I definitely know going into this is to avoid pre-shredded cheeses because they nearly always contain anti-caking agents that mess with the texture of the cheese. So already that narrows down my options quite a bit, but now I have a major decision to make. So here I have two different types of low moisture mozzarella from my local grocery store. This one is full fat, otherwise known as whole milk mozzarella, and this one is part skin. And as the names imply, the difference is really just in the fat content. So what does that mean for our pizza? Well, in the same way that whole milk is richer and more flavorful than say 2% milk, the whole milk mozzarella is richer, fattier, and more flavorful than its part skin counterpart. So full fat sounds like the obvious choice, and it's what I've been using in my testing so far. But as I found out the hard way, that higher fat content also leads to one pretty big issue. Getting a little bit of cheese separation, meaning that the cheese is getting too hot. And I am getting a bit of separation here between the fat and the cheese. So in theory, that greasy fat separation shouldn't be as big of an issue with the part skin mozzarella, simply because it contains less fat to begin with. And based on my research, a lot of pizza shops do use some portion of part skin mozzarella, primarily for that reason. And Joe's Pizza, which I'm using as sort of a guideline for this challenge, is one of those places. For their classic cheese slice, they only use part skin cheese. But of course, by doing that, they are sacrificing some flavor. And when I tasted their pizza, it definitely showed. Now in terms of the cheese, again, it's not too greasy, so I think they really nailed the cooking temperature there. I think it could have a little bit more flavor. If I had to guess, honestly, I don't think that they're using a full fat cheese. It just doesn't really have a ton of flavor to it. In my opinion, the cheese was the weakest part of that pizza. So personally, I don't wanna use part skin mozzarella unless I absolutely have to. But I definitely need to change something. So next, I look to Scars, which is the other New York pizza shop that I'm using for guidance on this series. And I found that they use a blend of three different cheeses. Unfortunately though, they keep that blend a secret. So I guess I'm kind of on my own here. But I think I know where I can start. So whole milk, low mozzarella moisture. That's not right. So whole milk, low moisture mozzarella can be pretty hard to find. And actually, I looked at four local grocery stores and this was the only one that I could find. But looking at other New York pizza videos online, I seem to be having a bigger issue with fat separation than most others. And then I came across something that Adam Ragusea said in his original New York pizza video. Time to think about cheese. And yes, I use string cheese. It is ridiculous, but where I live, this is the only form in which I can get whole milk, low moisture mozzarella. So I figured it was worth a try. The original cheese is quite greasy. While the string cheese is a little greasy, but it's more of like an emulsified grease, if that makes sense. So not very ideal, not ideal at all. And that's what we've been working with up until this point. So the string cheese is definitely better. I mean, sure, quite a bit of the fat was squeezed out, but the remaining cheese has a much nicer, richer texture to it. I mean, you really don't get the full effect just by looking at it. I mean, the minute you taste it, you can tell a massive difference. So sure enough, I was able to confirm that the brand of cheese definitely makes a difference. And I was happy to see that, because I mean, these are craft cheese sticks, so they should be pretty easy for most people to find. And honestly, if this is all you can find, I think you'll be just fine. But it is kind of a goofy solution. I mean, this isn't Chuck E. Cheese. We're trying to make an authentic New York slice. So I think what we need to do is find out which specific brands of cheese are used by New York pizza shops and see if we can get our hands on some. So there's one brand of low-moisture mozzarella that I saw repeatedly mentioned online that pretty much seems to be the gold standard for pizza shops. So the brand is called Grande, but unfortunately, it's not really easy to get your hands on unless you're a restaurant, which obviously I'm not. However, there is a restaurant supply store near me that sounds like it might have some decent alternatives. So immediately, I can see a pretty big difference. I don't know if it really comes across on camera, but with my original cheese and the cheese stick, there's almost like little holes in the cheese where it looks like maybe the grease kind of got squeezed out, whereas the Gordon Foods cheese doesn't really have that, and it seems to be the least greasy overall as well. So taste-wise, the cheeses are all pretty much exactly the same, but when we look at the texture, that's when things get really interesting. My original two cheeses here are a lot more sort of rubbery and stringy, and I think that becomes a lot more evident once the cheese starts to cool down. Biting into the pizzas, those original two cheeses have a much chewier, again, sort of rubbery, stringy texture, whereas our Gordon Foods cheese maintained a nicer, creamy, and soft texture. So it's become pretty clear that this is gonna be my best option as far as low-moisture, whole-milk mozzarella goes, but I still do wanna try out the part skin. Unfortunately, Gordon Foods also sells one of those, so I'm gonna do just a bit more testing, and I'll get back with the results. Actually, first, I have one more thing I wanna test. You see, one problem with mozzarella is that it is pretty mild-tasting. Even the whole-milk version, while it does have a nice sort of buttery richness to it, it doesn't have a lot of that tangy, cheesy flavor. So one way that a lot of New York pizzerias enhance the flavor of their pizza is by adding some grated Parmigiano or Pecorino cheese. And for me, I also picked up some of this Kraft Parmesan for good measure. So you know the drill by now. Let's bake some pizza. So honestly, the differences between the three are kind of subtle. They all added a noticeable saltiness to the pizza, but I could definitely taste the Parmigiano and the Pecorino a little bit more than the Kraft Parmesan. The Kraft Parmesan pretty much just added saltiness. Overall, I think they all did improve the pizza, but if I were to pick one, I would go with the Pecorino. I think it added just the right amount of saltiness, and I could still taste the nice sort of cheesy, tangy flavors of it. But again, I don't think you could go wrong with the Parmigiano either. I just wouldn't recommend the Kraft Parmesan. One thing I do know though is that I would use a little bit less cheese than I used during this test. But of course, ultimately, the amount you use is just gonna come down to personal preference. Now with all that figured out, it's time for our final, most important test, whole-milk mozzarella versus part-skin. So I baked one pizza using entirely whole-milk cheese and another pizza using a blend of 50-50 whole-milk part-skin. And honestly, when I pulled the pizzas out of the oven, I thought I had gotten them mixed up. The 50-50 blend seemed just as greasy, if not more than the full-fat version. So to fix this mistake, I baked another pizza, this time using entirely part-skin cheese. But sure enough, it was just as greasy, and it tasted noticeably worse than the full-fat version. So based on my testing, I see no reason to use any part-skin cheese. The negative flavor impact is just way too noticeable. And even though my pizza is still a little bit greasier than I would like, I think that's something we can largely fix by, again, tinkering with our baking method. And that's exactly what we're gonna do in the next episode, where I'm gonna try to bake my pizza exactly the way that a New York pizza shop does, or at least as close as I can using my home oven. So in the meantime, if you missed the first two episodes, you can check those out in the playlist right here. Otherwise, thanks a lot for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.