Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza
Why I Love This Recipe
We made one large pizza instead of two smaller ones. It was wonderful. I made my own sauce with tons of meat and bacon and skipped the sausage on top.
-Sarah
Ingredients You'll Need
For the Dough:
3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
2 1/4 tsp instant (rapid rise) yeast
2 tsp white sugar
1 1/2 tsp table salt
1 1/4 cups room temp water
3 TB melted butter
4 TB softened butter
olive oil
For the Sauce:
3 TB olive oil
1 small onion, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes with juices
1/2 tsp white sugar
2 TB dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste
Toppings:
1 lb (4 cups) freshly shredded mozzarella
1 lb bulk Italian sausage, browned and crumbled
4 TB freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Directions
For the dough: Using stand mixer and dough hook, mix flour, cornmeal, yeast, sugar, and salt on low until combined. Add water and 3 TB melted butter and mix 2 minutes, scraping down bowl as needed. Increase speed to medium and knead until dough is glossy and smooth, 4-5 minutes. Pliable dough should pull away from sides of bowl.
Coat large bowl with olive oil and place dough ball in bowl. Turn dough around in the bowl to ensure all sides of dough are protected by oil. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let rise at room temp until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
For the sauce: Saute minced onion and garlic in 3 TB olive oil over medium heat until soft. Add rest of sauce ingredients, except for salt/pepper. Bring sauce to simmer and cook until reduced to 2 1/2 cups, about 25-30 min. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and set aside.
Heat oven to 425F with rack on lowest position. Turn dough out onto large surface. Roll into 15×12 inch rectangle. Spread 4 TB softened butter evenly over top of dough, leaving 1/2 in border along edges. At the short end, roll dough into a tight cylinder (see photo.) With seam side down, flatten cylinder to 18×4 in. rectangle. Slice rectangle in half crosswise. Working with one half at a time, fold dough into thirds and pinch seams together into a dough ball. Return dough balls to oiled bowl, ensure all sides of the dough are protected with oil, and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let rise in fridge until doubled, 40-50 min.
Coat two 9-inch round cake pans with 2 TB olive oil each. Transfer one dough ball to large surface and roll into disk, 1/4 in. thick. Transfer to cake pan and gently press into pan, working into corners and up sides. Repeat with other dough ball. (If dough resists stretching, let it sit for 5 min covered and try again.)
Divide the 4 cups mozzarella in half and sprinkle on top of each pizza dough. Follow by browned sausage (plus any other toppings desired.) Next, spread 1 1/4 cups tomato sauce per pizza. Last, sprinkle 2 TB Parmesan cheese per pizza. Bake until crust is golden brown about 20-25 min. Remove and let sit for 10 min. before serving.
