A few weeks ago I had a strong desire to make deep dish pizza, even though I really don’t have any personal history with the large, sauce-topped pies. I’ve never had it in Chicago, I’ve been to an Uno Chicago Grill franchise once, and one time I visited Nancy’s in Buckhead (wasn’t impressed).
The Neapolitan (or tongue twisting Neo-Neapolitan) is my true pizza love, but something about the buttery, flaky crust, stuffed full of cheese and toppings, quite literally a “pie”, was calling my name.
I Googled a recipe for Gino’s East (a pizzeria in Chicago I’ve heard of, not sure where) and of course found a website and video detailing how to replicate it. Later I found another version, with a great picture. I followed the recipe for the most part, with a few variations due to lack of ingredients and overall forgetfulness.
I mixed the dough as described, though I didn’t have yellow food coloring. I also forgot the cornmeal. My dough was probably too sticky – it should almost be wet, but not sticky, due to the high amount of cornmeal and oil. I let it rise in my oven from about 8AM until that evening when I cooked the pizza.
The dough will quickly rise and the texture will get very puffy. I punched it down once around lunch time, and let it rise again.
My quick, standby pizza sauce is very easy. It’s an uncooked tomato sauce, which will work just fine on normal pizzas, especially if cooking with high heat. With a Chicago pizza, which will cook for a long time, I think the raw sauce works even better.
It’s simply a can of pureed/crushed Roma tomatoes (you can crush whole tomatoes if you want), with garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, red pepper, and sometimes I use a microplane to add just a tablespoon of good parmesan cheese. Don’t store your sauce in the fridge, or if making it earlier, take it out about an hour before cooking to let it come up to room temperature.
For the toppings, I purchased some Tuscan sausage from Star Provisions. I sliced them in an obvious phallic nature, then cooked them a few minutes each side.
I used Sargento cheese for this pizza. I think you’re going to get better results with mozzarella like this, versus fresh mozzarella in water. The high moisture content of real deal mozzarella will cause the cheese to break down, and the pizza will be too wet for the slices to hold together.
I also purchased pepperoni from Star Provisions. It was just a few bucks for these 10 slices, so worth it.
When I was ready to cook, I greased my cast iron skillet heavily with butter. I rolled out my dough, did my best to throw it evenly into the pan, then trimmed the sides. Start the layering process with the cheese. I did an even layer of Sargento, then used some shredded mozzarella to ensure an even cheese layer.
After the cheese I added the meat, then a healthy dose of sauce. The pizza cooked on the lower rack for roughly 40 minutes. I started at 350 as instructed, but it didn’t seem to be cooking fast enough so I bumped it up to 400. I also broiled it for a minute before taking it out and letting it rest for a solid fifteen to twenty minutes.
You can see the sides pulled away, making it very easy to cut.
The pizza was very gloppy, even after 20 minutes rest.
A few notes on this pizza:
- I could have used more oil in the dough, more cornmeal, and I could have added more oil to the pan. Oil is your friend when it comes to this type of crust.
- I probably could have used just a bit less sauce, but the cooked sauce was delicious
- It was agreed that the high quality pepperoni and sausage was the tipping point for this pizza – the quality was apparent and everyone loved it
- Cooking at 350 is probably too low, next time I’ll try a bit higher the whole time
- Man this was delicious, everything I had hoped it would be, a true pizza gut bomb
So of course, after that pizza, we ate some Ad Hoc Fried Chicken. Awesome. The poulet rouge chickens are about $8-10 each at Whole Foods, and they are so worth it. Chickens aren’t supposed to be fifteen pounds. And as Keller mentions, a smaller chicken is better for fried chicken due to the better meat to crust ratio.
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