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.

Busy summer, hope to start posting more often soon.

Its been a busy summer and again I've neglected this blog for far too long.  The next few months should give me lots to write about, I should be receiving three items from Kickstarter campaigns I funded.  Within a few week my Searzall should arrive.  To get ready for this I went and purchased the recommended torch head to replace the really cheap one I originally bought at the hardware store to make creme brulee.  This should come in handy this winter when I won't be able to fire up the grill to sear my sous vide cooked steaks and chicken.  Next month (or soon after) I'm expecting my Anova Precision Cooker to be delivered.  I love my Nomiku but I've heard good things about Anova so when I had the chance to grab one at the $99 level I jumped at it, never can have too many circulators!  A little further down the road (estimated March 2015) will be the next iteration of the Nomiku!  This kickstarter is still ongoing for the next few days so if you want a great circulator at a good price go there now!

With the exception of Labor day I haven't really been cooking anything new.  I have been experimenting with different times and temperatures for eggs, the yolk of a 63C egg if perfect but the loose white is a turn off for me.  So far I've tried 75C for 13 minutes, which is nice but the yolk just isn't the same, and dropping a 63C egg in to simmering water long enough to firm up the white.  I think the latter technique will work best but I'm still trying to figure out how long it takes to get the firm white I want without overcooking the yolk.

I was able to play around a bit on Labor day.  Both the potato salad and asparagus were cooked sous vide at 85C for 45 minutes.  In the past I've soaked asparagus at 90C for 10 minutes, I think the lower temperature and longer time gives a better texture to the finished product.  For the potato salad I tossed the potatoes in a mixture of Dijon mustard, dill pickle juice, salt, pepper and some dried dill.  This was sealed in a vacuum bag and cooked along with the asparagus.  The next day the potatoes were mixed with some diced onion and bell pepper, sliced asparagus and Mexican sour gherkin cucumbers that we had.  I added a little mayo to half of the potato salad and left the rest mayo free for those who didn't want the extra fat.  Both were excellent, this really is the best way I've found to cook  the potatoes so they are complete permeated with flavor.

We were having polish sausages as the main course, so I wanted to make one more thing... really good sausage rolls.  I'm a fan of New England split top rolls, the kind that are used for lobster rolls on the east coast, but they're a little hard to find in Chicago.  I've grown fond of a recipe in an old King Arthur Flour catalog to which I've made a few changes.  I prefer my bread doughs to have a long, cold fermentation in the refrigerator instead of letting them ferment at room temperature, I find the long ferment allows better flavor development, improved texture and makes the dough easier to work with.  To do this you just need to decrease the amount of yeast in the formula, I halved the yeast in the original recipe for these rolls.  This technique is particularly good for pizza dough, it not only gives you a great yeasty flavor in your crust but the dough is also much easier to stretch out.  But the main advantage to this technique, and the reason that most pizzerias use it, is that it significantly increases the window in which the dough is usable.  My dough is ready to go after 24 hours, but it will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days and still give me a great crust.  The one disadvantage is that you can't just use the dough right out of the fridge, it needs to warm up first before being shaped.  In the past I've just left it sitting on the counter for a few hours but this time I still had the Nomiku set up on the water bath from the day before so I thought I try something new.  The dough had been cold fermenting overnight in a large zip-lock freezer bag.  I set the temperature of the water bath to 35C and forced as much gas out of the bag as possible, closed it and clipped it to the side of the bath.  After 7 minutes the bag had started to float due to the gasses being produced by the yeast, I flipped the bag over and let it go for another 7 minutes.  Using the Nomiku I was able to bring the dough up to temperature in around 15 minutes, something that usually takes well over an hour!  This is going to open up a lot of possibilities for week-night baked goods!