The mind behind the IACP-nominated, bread-baking newsletter Wordloaf, Andrew Janjigian is also a recipe developer, writer, teacher, and photographer. For 11 years, Andrew was a test cook and editor at Cook’s Illustrated, and he has developed recipes for publications as varied as Serious Eats, King Arthur Baking, and Epicurious.

Andrew Janjigian

Greek pizza is a hyper-local style of pan pizza made throughout New England—especially in Massachusetts and New Hampshire—in shops owned by Greek immigrants, which for some reason often have “House of Pizza” in their names. There aren’t a lot of great Greek pizza shops, but that doesn’t mean Greek pizza can’t be great. When done right, Greek pies boast a tender and airy crumb, a puffy rim, and a crisp bottom crust, and they’re topped with a reduced, slightly sweet tomato sauce and a generous amount of aged mozzarella and sharp white cheddar—the sharpness of the cheese mix is a defining element of the style. The trick to getting the crust right is dialing in the dough hydration, which hovers around 55% for this recipe (see the “Before we begin” note for more on this). Add too much liquid, and the dough is less puffy and tender than it is just doughy; too little liquid and it’s too dry. The other key is using milk instead of water, since milk has unfermentable sugar (in the form of lactose) and proteins, both of which help with browning. Olive oil enriches the dough (along with a little assist from milk fat) and keeps the crust from taking on a Styrofoam-like texture—the hallmark of bad Greek pizza.For the crisp crust, it’s important to use a baking steel (or stone) and to heat it properly before baking, which means cranking the oven during the preheat before turning it down for the actual bake. There will be enough stored energy in the steel to crisp and brown the crust, so you don’t have to use a long, hot bake, which would hammer the cheese. (This applies just to conventional ovens; if you have a pizza oven that gives you the option to control deck and top temperatures, we’ve got instructions for you in Step 6.)

New England–Style Greek Pizza