Homemade Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

I've never had a good Chicago style deep dish pizza outside of Chicago.  When I'm visiting friends and relatives in other areas of the country they often want to take me to a local place that serves "authentic" Chicago deep dish, but it rarely delivers.  Most often they just serve a version a pan pizza, a thick crust topped with standard toppings baked in a walled pan.  Chicago deep dish is baked in a similar pan, but has a much thinner crust that's pressed into the pan and up the sides.  For some time I've been experimenting with my recipe for Chicago deep dish pizza, but because I don't want to weigh 300 pounds I have to take it a little slow.  Here is my latest attempt...

The pans used for deep dish pizza are usually made of blue steel and have to be seasoned, I used to have a nice blue steel one like this one from Ottinetti but at some point over the years it was lost.  Blue steel pans have to be seasoned, but once that's done they'll last for years and years as long as you take care of (and don't misplace) them.  Lacking an authentic deep dish pan I opted to just use a large cast-iron skillet.

I used the following recipe for the dough...

300 grams AP flour
174 grams water
70 grams corn oil
7 grams EV olive oil
9 grams IDY
4 grams sugar
6 grams salt

The sugar was dissolved in the water and the yeast sprinkled over top and mixed in.  After allowing that to sit for a few minutes all the rest of the ingredients were added and mixed for about 1 minute.  The dough was then put in the refrigerator overnight.  The next morning the dough was put out at room temperature and allowed to ferment all day while I was at work (about 9-10 hours), my theory on the buttery flavor in good Chicago deep dish dough is that the long, warm ferment allows for the formation of diacetyl which is a component of artificial butter flavor.  When I got home I pressed the dough in to the pan and up the sides.  The dough was a little too slack in my opinion, next try I'm going to cut the oil down by about 25% to try and get something a little easier to handle.

Slices of mozzarella were placed on top of the dough going up the sides, I also had some shredded mozzarella that I put on top of the slices.  Next came Italian sausage (from Bari here in Chicago), sliced onions, pepperoni and green peppers.  All that was topped with sauce and more cheese was sprinkled on top.  Normally the cheese on top would be a combination of pecorino romano  and parmesan but due to a recent refrigerator failure my food stocks are still a little low.

The sauce was simple, just a can of 6-in-1 crushed tomatoes seasoned with a a few teaspoons kosher salt, a clove of garlic (minced), 1 teaspoon of greek oregano and a little sugar to taste.

The pizza was baked at 400°f for 30 minutes, then the oven temp was lowered to 350°f and baked for another 30 minutes.  Once removed from the oven it was allowed to cool in the pan for ~ 5 minutes before being de-panned and put on a brown paper bag to wick away excess oil.

A pizza wheel isn't much use for this type of pie, a long chef's knife can be used but I prefer a rocker style pizza cutter.  The dough cooked well, but the excess slackness caused the edges to be a little thicker than I would have liked, reducing the oil in the recipe (to 50 grams corn and 5 grams EVOO) should remedy this problem the next time.  Flavor was spot on but I might go for a fennel or hot Italian sausage for the next go.  Still a work-in-progress but getting very close to where I want it to be.