Chicago style deep dish pizza

[wilburpan]

I haven’t made a Chicago style deep dish pizza in a while, so Sunday night I put one together. I basically follow the recipe at the Real Deep Dish website, using sausage.

There are a couple of modifications that I made to the recipe. First, I turn my oven on to 100ºF, and then turn it off. For the dough rising, I place the bowl with the dough in the oven, and let it sit for several hours.

Second, I’ll add a good amount of fennel seed to the sausage. The Italian sausage here in NJ doesn’t seem to have fennel in it — at least not the ones I can find at our local grocery store. Back in Chicago, where I grew up, Italian sausage always had fennel seed in the mix.

Third, I use a 10” cast iron pan instead of a deep dish pizza pan.

Final product. This was cooked at 450ºF, indirect, for 40 minutes.

It was great. I really should do this more often. Other than planning ahead enough to let the dough rise, it’s very quick to put the pizza together.

My wife mentioned that this pizza had the best crust of all my attempts at making Chicago style deep dish pizza so far. It was firm enough to keep the cheese and toppings in place but still was very light at the same time. I think one of the keys was that I let the dough rise for a longer period of time than my previous cooks. My kids were out playing, so I waited for them to come back before starting the cook, which resulted in extra rising time for the dough. 

Edited April 19, 2016 by wilburpan

[MacKenzie]

Wilbur, you deep dish pizza looks delicious.  I agree with the use of a cast iron pan for this type of pizza. 

[CeramicChef]

Wilbur - Ca-Ching!  That's pure money, 24 karat money!  What a great looking money shot!  Kudos all over this great pizza pie.  Wonderful cook.  Very nicely done.  Thanks for posting.  

[ckreef]

Great looking Chicago Deep Dish Pizza. That is the same recipe I use. Excellent recipe. I do agree you definitely can't skimp on the rise time since the it uses very little yeast.

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I think it would make an excellent dough for calzones or stromboli. Double the recipe then divide into 3 balls for the rise.

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[tony b]

Thanks for the post, Wilbur. Gonna add this one to the list of upcoming pizza cooks! 

[tinyfish]

Great looking pizza Wilbur and I sure it tasted as great as it looks.

Did you cook on the main grate or upper grate or does it matter?

[wilburpan]

Hi Tony,

I cooked the pizza on the main grate. I know a lot of folks cook pizzas on the upper grate on the baking stone at high temps because the pizza benefits from the heat coming off the inside of the lid. But that’s for thin NY style pizza. A Chicago style deep dish pizza is more like cooking a pie or a lasagna, so putting it on the main grate is fine.

[tinyfish]

On 4/21/2016 at 6:41 PM, wilburpan said:

Hi Tony,

I cooked the pizza on the main grate. I know a lot of folks cook pizzas on the upper grate on the baking stone at high temps because the pizza benefits from the heat coming off the inside of the lid. But that’s for thin NY style pizza. A Chicago style deep dish pizza is more like cooking a pie or a lasagna, so putting it on the main grate is fine.

Thanks Wilbur. 

I have to live a little and try a deep dish pizza.

[kjs]

That's one fine pizza.