Deep Dish 101: Lesson 5 – Making Deep Dish Dough – VIDEO

Monday, March 25th, 2013

Just joining us?
You can start Deep Dish 101 from the beginning by clicking on the image above.

Lesson 5 – Making Deep Dish Dough:

This is a quick lesson,
featuring a video demo I threw together today
on making deep dish dough.

I’ve tried to give you the basics so even you can make a ball of deep dish dough in under five minutes.

A Quick FAQ:

1) Can I use any kind of oil?
You should try to stick to oils that have a higher smoke point, so stay away from the non-refined extra virgin oils (or use them in a smaller amount in combination with another oil).
The recipe calls for corn oil and olive oil (the regular kind).
I like to skip the olive oil altogether and just use all corn oil.
Some people use butter, coconut oil, canola, lard, bacon grease, or crisco.
You can use any combination that you like.

2) Do I have to get half of the flour on the countertop while mixing?
No, in fact, you probably want to use a little more care than I did when mixing.
I sometimes get a little overexcited in front of a video camera.

3) How hot does the water need to be?
The water should be hot, but not scalding. The term they use is ‘luke-warm’,
which should be about 105 degrees fahrenheit. If the water is too hot, it can kill the yeast. The easiest way to get the right temp water without a thermometer is to put your hand under the water tap while it’s heating up and if the water is too hot for your hand, it is too hot for the yeast.

4) Do I have to use semolina?
No, you do not have to use semolina. I list semolina as an optional ingredient for those who like to use it, but I prefer to make my deep dish dough with just all-purpose flour.

5) Is it really that easy to make deep dish dough?
Yep.

If you have any questions that the video did not explain, feel free to post a comment and I’ll try to post a reply as soon as I can.

Here, watch another deep dish video that you may have missed: A Deep Dish Video

25.03.2013 chicago pizza, chicago style deep dish pizza, dd101, deep dish, deep dish 101, deep dish pizza, dough, flour, How to make Chicago deep dish pizza, ingredients, oil, pizza, pizza dough, real deep dish pizza, recipe, salt, sugar 3 Comments

DD101 Extra: Always Room For Improvement – Deep Dish Dough Update

Friday, December 28th, 2012

There’s always room for improvement!

In Deep Dish 101: Lesson 3,
I gave you a dough recipe with instructions for making deep dish pizza.

Here’s my latest version with minor adjustments.
If you try it, please let me know how it turned out (and take photos).

(click the link below to download the PDF)

Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza – The Real Thing – 201211

(click the link above to download the PDF)

Happy New Year!

28.12.2012 chicago pizza, chicago style, chicago style deep dish pizza, dd101, deep dish, deep dish 101, deep dish pizza, dough, How to make Chicago deep dish pizza, pizza, pizza dough, real deep dish pizza, recipe 5 Comments

Deep Dish 101: Lesson 4 – Nuts and Bolts

Monday, October 15th, 2012

Hi. Welcome to

Deep Dish 101: Lesson Four – Nuts and Bolts.

In the previous lesson, I told you about the main styles of Chicago Pizza : Thin crust (box-cut), Deep Dish, and Stuffed,
and then finally gave you a workable Deep Dish dough recipe with detailed instructions to make your deep dish pizza at home. Soon, I’ll give you more on pizza assembly and dough preparation, but first I’d like to briefly go over a sometimes overlooked part of pizza-making.

I call this lesson “Nuts and Bolts” because I want to talk a bit about the hardware part of making deep dish pizza.

Without the proper hardware, you may not get good or consistent results with your pizzas. If, while impatiently waiting for the next DD101 lesson, you finally got around to reading The Pizza Rants like I told you to, you would know that one of the first things I did on my journey for the perfect deep dish pizza was to locate a deep dish pizza pan.

Do you REALLY need a special pan just for deep dish?

Yes and no.
Ideally, you want a pan that is sturdy and heats fast, hot and evenly.
Original deep dish pans were made of straight-sided round cake pans made of steel, possibly tin-plated, that, having been “seasoned” over time with repeated use, had darkened on the outside of the pan, helping it to absorb even more heat.

I use my 9″ Wilton dark non-stick cake pans all the time for deep dish, but I have a few lighter colored, super thin cheapo 8″ aluminum cake pans that don’t work so well.

Is a darkened pan necessary for good deep dish pizza?
That depends on who you ask, but I’ll say no, it’s not a deal-breaker. I have a 12″ heavy-gauge silver-colored non-stick straight-sided cake pan that I’ve been using since day one of my deep dish baking excursion, and have found that it makes really good pizzas without having a super dark coating. Dark pans do, however, absorb heat faster, which could make your outer crust crispier than a lighter colored pan.

Why does a dark pan absorb more heat than a lighter one?
Ever go outside on a hot day wearing a black tee shirt? Dark colors absorb more light and heat than light colors. Isn’t science awesome?

My optimal pan for deep dish pizza is a round steel cake pan with an aluminum coating (aka aluminized steel).
The steel is mainly for strength and the aluminum coating is for better heat conduction. Aluminum also extends the life of the pan, as it is corrosion-resistant. What happened to the tin-plated steel? Tin melts at about 450 degrees F, so I don’t expect tin to be used widely in deep dish pans any more, but many bakeware manufacturers interchange the words “tin-plated steel” with “aluminum-plated steel” or “aluminized steel”, so you’ll have to verify if your pan supplier is using tin or aluminum. Many modern varieties of this pan also have special coatings to improve durability and/or baking performance. PSTK (Pre-Seasoned Tuff-Kote™) is one of the popular coating processes. Allied calls their coating “Black Buster” and Chicago Metallic calls theirs “Bakalon”.

You can also still get the non-plated, or “bare” steel pans from restaurant supply houses. Often, those pans have been coated in some kind of oil (or protective mystery substance) that must be baked empty, (preferably in a well ventilated area, or outside on your bbq grill), then cooled, before your first use. This ‘seasoned’ coating will darken with use, improve the performance, and extend the life of your pan.
If your pan is bare or un-seasoned, you can do it yourself by applying a thin layer of vegetable oil, lard, or shortening (anything with a high-smoke point) to your pan, and pre-baking it like the method I described in the previous paragraph. You can also repeat this (as many times as you like) for a pan you just seasoned, but using the pan to make pizzas will also continue to season your pan. The more times you season your pan, the better your seasoning should be, and the darker your pan should get.

It is also recommended that once you have seasoned a pan, you should never use soap to clean it, only hot water and a non-abrasive scrubbing pad. If you do use soap on occasion to clean your pan, you can use a mild one, but then you will have to re-season your pan.

Straight or Slanted Pans?

Some pizza makers use straight-sided and some use slanted pans. The slanted variety might make it easier to remove a whole pie, although I have seen skilled deep dish bakers pop a deep dish out of a straight-sided pan with a trained flick of a wrist (unknown whether future wrist injuries have ensued). I own both and from my limited experience with the slanted pans, I don’t think it makes that much of a difference which one you use. There are the minor adjustments needed for more or less dough, more or less ingredients, due to the slanted pans having that variable of about a half inch to an inch in size between the bottom of the pan and the top.

The Deep Dish Pan is only PART of the puzzle.

Of course, you’ll want to invest in some serving tools, like a square-edge turner/pizza cutter/spatula, a pan gripper or two, a sauce ladle, and other stuff, some of which which you can find at: www.realdeepdish.com/deep-dish-equipment ,
but the other big part of the puzzle is:

Bakers Pride Pizza Oven Deck-Type (2) 28″ – EB-2-2828 – $4,891.15
from: AbestKitchen.com

YOUR OVEN

Optimizing Your Oven For Deep Dish:

It’s pretty unlikely that you’re going to shell out five to twenty grand on a commercial pizza oven, so we want to do the best we can to simulate the best characteristics of one with just a few tweaks to your home oven.

There’s two things you can do that will make a huge difference.

1) Get a pizza stone (sometimes known as a baking stone) and keep it on the bottom rack of your oven.

2) Keep a sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil (or a baking sheet) on the top rack of your oven.

Along with preheating your oven to make sure the pizza stone is hot when you start baking, these two things should improve your efforts to simulate the effect of a commercial deck oven at home.
Deck ovens are typically not very tall, and that can make a huge difference when you’re trying to simulate one with a standard 30″ range, so you may have to decide which position is best for that top rack aluminum foil radiant-heat “ceiling” that you are creating.
Keep in mind that all ovens are different, and you may need to make adjustments depending on the results you’re getting, what altitude you live at, and how accurate your oven thermometer is.

Can I use the “Speed-Bake” or Convection Setting on my oven?

I don’t recommend it. Convection baking typically bakes faster at a lower temperature by circulating the air inside the oven. Because of its density, a deep dish pizza may not cook evenly in the center. (Although I did read about this expensive spiky metal ‘heat sink’ from American Metalcraft that you can get that you place in the top center of your pizza and heats the center of your pizza so it cooks more evenly).

For your convenience, I’ve located a supplier where you can find some of the deep dish supplies I mentioned above:

Allied Deep Dish Non-Stick Black Buster Pizza Pan – 12 Inch
from: AbestKitchen.com

I’m a big fan of American Metalcraft (also known as AMCO) pans. Depending on the coating, they don’t get much darker from repeated use, but heat up quite well and have made many a tasty deep dish in my home.

American Metalcraft Hard Coat Pizza Pan – 12″
from: AbestKitchen.com

Chicago Metallic is also a great brand for bakeware.

Chicago Metallic Bakalon Deep Dish Pan 91120
from: AbestKitchen.com

Pan Gripper for Deep Dish Pans
from: AbestKitchen.com

Find more deep dish equipment links at:
http://www.realdeepdish.com/deep-dish-equipment

15.10.2012 baking, chicago, chicago pizza, chicago style, chicago style deep dish pizza, cooking, dd101, deep dish, deep dish 101, deep dish pizza, pizza, real deep dish pizza No Comments

Deep Dish 101 – Lesson 3 : Styles of Chicago Pizza and Maybe a Dough Recipe

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

Lesson 3 – Styles of Chicago Pizza and Maybe a Dough Recipe

I was just working out what I was going to post for Lesson 3 when World Famous Pizza Master Tony Gemignani replied to a mini-rant that I had posted prior to some food porn photos in an earlier post (were you able to follow that run-on sentence?).

But before I get to that, I should get to this:
I had mentioned in an earlier lesson that I would tell you the deal about Chicago styles of pizza.

Here’s the deal:

There are TWO main styles of Chicago pizza – well, actually there are THREE.
(Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition).

The two main styles are:

1) Chicago Thin Crust -

Similar to many midwest cracker thin style pizzas, Chicago thin crust pizza has a smooth, zesty, almost paste-like tomato sauce, generous amounts of shredded mozzarella, and are typically cut into squares (aka box-cut or party cut). Pepperoni is an available topping in Chicago, but often comes second to Italian Sausage.
Contrary to what many people on TV tell you, when Chicago locals order pizza, this is the style we usually order. Many in Chicago consider Deep Dish to be a tourist thing. (They clearly haven’t eaten mine!) Popular thin crust shops include Vito & Nick’s, Rosati’s, Barnaby’s, D’Agostino’s, Aurelio’s and hundreds of other great spots all over the city and suburbs.

2) Chicago Deep Dish -

Original Deep Dish - (single crust – cheese on bottom / sauce on top); invented by Ike Sewell* (soo-uhl) in the 40′s at Pizzeria Uno, then later copied by Gino’s, Lou Malnati’s, Pizano’s, etc.
*Ric Riccardo and Rudy Malnati also had a part in Deep Dish invention.

I consider this style to be ‘true’ authentic deep dish.
Pizza dough for original deep dish is different from other pizza doughs, in that it typically does not require the long kneading times and high springy gluten that other pizza doughs try to achieve. I say “typically” because I sometimes see variations throughout the city.

2A)… err, I mean
3) Chicago Stuffed – (As I was saying.. the THREE main styles are…)

When people visit Chicago and want to try deep dish pizza, many don’t realize that there are actually two different styles of deep dish: Original Deep Dish (Pizzeria Uno) and Stuffed Deep Dish (Nancy’s), which most people in Chicago just call…

Stuffed Pizza - (two crusts with a “ton” of cheese, sausage, etc. between the crusts, and tomato sauce on top); invented in the 1970′s at Nancy’s Pizza. A variant of deep dish pizza, based on Rocco Palese’s Italian family recipe for “scarciedda“, Stuffed pizza is clearly different from Original Deep Dish. This style of pizza has a top and bottom crust with the cheese and other ingredients in-between, with the sauce going not inside, but on top of the top crust. From my experience with Stuffed pizza, the dough used for this style of pizza is closer to a regular pizza dough than that of Original Deep Dish. Connie’s, Edwardo’s & Giordano’s are also famous for this style of pizza.

So now that you know the basic difference between the styles of Chicago Pizza, I can continue with the thing I was talking about up there…

Anyway… so back in August, the food channels were showing a lot of pizza related shows and I was doing a bit of R&D and watching what others were saying on TV about Chicago pizza and other styles of pizza, so I could dispel any bad information or questionable techniques. Goodness knows there’s a lot of bad info floating around (friggin’ corn meal!). Don’t get me started on the “Uno’s Chicago Grill” dough tutorial you might find on YouTube. I’ve eaten Chicago style pizzas since I was a kid. I know what I’m trying to achieve & I’ve been researching this stuff for a while, so when I see someone who is not from Chicago telling us something is Chicago style, I give them the benefit of the doubt… until I see something wrong. It’s been a little while since I saw the episode, but from my recollection (pardon my memory if I don’t have all the details right – I don’t have the show on my DVR any more), a few things stood out to me that bugged me a little bit:

1) They chose to NOT go to Chicago for their Chicago Style pizza segment. (WTF?!?!)
2) Tony G. was clearly NOT using deep dish dough (yes, there’s a difference) as I recall seeing a sheeted pizza dough being dropped into the pan. This is OK if he’s making STUFFED pizza, which I wasn’t sure if he was, because I don’t recall him putting a second sheet of dough on before he sauced it.

2) He doubled up on the sausage and cheese, and used shredded and not sliced mozzarella.
Again, this is probably normal for a STUFFED pizza like Nancy’s, Giordano’s or Connie’s, but not for a single-crust original deep dish. So at this point, I’m pretty sure he’s making a stuffed pizza, but then… maybe I missed it… no top crust! So I did a mini-rant about it at the front-end of a food-porn blog post.

I’m not sure how he (or you) found this site (were you “googling” yourself, Tony?), and I couldn’t be more excited that he did, because Tony replied to my mini-rant :

Hey buddy unfortunately you don’t know the reason why we made the double sausage and cheese Chicago Pie.
This was a special surprise from the producers for the host because that is the pizza he ordered growing up. He was totally excited and when he ate it, it brought him back from when he was a kid..Most of our conversations were taken out during editing along with the Spinach pie, and the Mushroom and Pepperoni. The cracker thin was taken out as well in edits.. we used Ceresota and KYROL in that part.. We shot for 5 hrs that day and they used about 2 1/2 minutes…Considering that I have worked with Connie’s, & Giordano’s, and my book research with Edwardo’s and Lou Malnati’s I have some hands on knowledge in Chicago Pizza.

You should know I like and admire Tony G.
I’m sure he did plenty of research to get where he is, he’s paid his dues, and I have no doubt that the man has amazing pizza making skills. Tony is “the goods”!

OK, so Tony was trying to reproduce something for “United Tastes of America” host Jeffrey Saad. I think it’s pretty cool that Tony tried to reproduce a pizza from his past, and cooler that he tells us what kind of flour he uses for his pizzas.

I replied that I thought it was a shame that they edited him down.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that it was the video editing that hosed us all on this situation of a misunderstanding of a situation (of a misunderstanding).
Maybe there’s some lost video that might fill in the gaps of that pizza construction to let us know if a top crust ever made it onto that pizza (or Tony, could you please tell us?).
It would have been nice if they’d put the Chicago box-cut thin crust into the show, and maybe explained to people what I just explained to you all up there about the two…err… three styles of Chicago pizza.
That would have been a nice bit of info for the rest of the pizza eating world to see.

I didn’t mean to aim that mini-rant at Tony; he just happened to be making the pizza at the time.
My real target was TV producers’ continual disrespect for Chicago pizza, whether it was intentional or not.
I think I’m just getting tired of seeing Chicago pizza being represented in one of three general ways on TV:

1) Some guy from a now Boston-owned Pizzeria Uno (or a narrator) gives you the Pizzeria Uno origin story, and then they follow up with one of the Malnati brothers giving you a different version of those events, or they send a guy from the east coast over to the cab-driver-founded Gino’s East pizzeria because of the yellow crust, (do NOT get me started on a cornmeal rant!), and they always find some jerk from New York to disown deep-dish’s pizza-origins and call it a casserole.

2) They send the fish-out-of-water host to Chicago to find out how to make Chicago pizza, get bad or deceptive information about the “buttery, flaky” dough or the mythical “corn meal”, completely ignore the purpose of putting cheese on the bottom when they try to make it back at the test kitchen, and then end up with a version of Chicago deep dish that resembles a cross between a croissant and a lasagna.

3) They have a NY vs Chicago pizza contest (and completely leave out Chicago thin crust) or put two almost identical deep dish pizzas up against each other (Uno vs Malnati’s) instead of what should have been the real matchup (Uno/Malnati’s vs GINO’S), and inevitably use rigged judging to pick a winner. Well, this IS Chicago. That last part probably couldn’t be helped.

I like to remind New Yorkers that Deep dish is just another variation of pizza, just like NY style pizza is a variation of the Neapolitan pie, so I don’t have a huge problem if you like to make your pizza differently (unless you use provel or anchovies). If you put it together and bake it and it tastes like pizza, it’s all good to me,
but don’t call it Chicago Deep Dish if it’s a Stuffed Pizza, or at least make the distinction.
There’s a THIRTY YEAR GAP between the invention of Deep Dish and the invention of Stuffed pizza.
It’s not really fair to lump stuffed pizza in with original deep dish and you’re doing people a disservice by not differentiating between the styles.

So to all the pizza food show producers out there: Let’s set the record straight on Chicago pizza,
and from now on, let’s all agree: There are THREE styles of Chicago pizza – not two.

I end this lesson with these last words of wisdom:
“It’s very hard to screw up pizza, but very easy to make it wrong.” – Me

You’ve read this far and now you’re probably waiting for a dough recipe.

OK, no more teasing: Here it is.
The last deep dish dough recipe you will ever need for a single-crust Original Deep Dish pizza.
100% cornmeal-free! Trust me, you won’t need any.

UPDATE: 1-7-2012:
Apparently the web-link was broken for the recipe. It’s fixed now. Sorry; that probably seemed to be a cruel practical joke to some of you who tried to download the recipe. I assure you, it was not intentional (though it seems hilarious in hindsight).

UPDATE:2-1-2012: HIGH ALTITUDE BAKING -
A friend in Colorado mentioned she wanted to try making deep dish dough, and then it occurred to me that there may be a need for adjustment when baking in high-altitudes. If you’re one of those people breathing thinner air, try cutting the yeast by one-third and then check the dough halfway thru the normal rising time. You may be able to use the dough in half the time, or punch it down and let it get a second rise in before using the dough. Also, you may need to put a loose sheet of aluminum foil over the pizza pan after the first 10-15 minutes to keep it from burning. If you’re one of those lucky people living high up in the stratosphere, please let me know how the recipe worked out for you, and what kind of adjustments you made to compensate for high-altitude baking.

Come back soon for:

Deep Dish 101 – Lesson 4: The Yet To Be Determined Fourth Lesson about Deep Dish.***

Like the title? Yeah, I thought you would. I’ll likely expand a bit on the methods of making the dough and building your deep dish pizza, which may help you out if you’re trying out the recipe at home.

*** OK, the next lesson is actually called: Lesson 4 – Nuts and Bolts, but we’ll get to the rest of that stuff soon.

29.12.2011 chicago, chicago pizza, chicago style, chicago style deep dish pizza, dd101, deep dish, deep dish 101, deep dish pizza, pizza, rant, real deep dish pizza, styles of chicago pizza 4 Comments

Deep Dish 101 – Lesson 2: The Basics.

Monday, December 19th, 2011

Hello.

Welcome to Deep Dish 101 – Lesson Two: The Basics.

Webster’s dictionary defines pizza as:

a dish made typically of flattened bread dough spread with a savory mixture, usually including tomatoes and cheese and often other toppings and baked.

Deep dish pizza is also made like this, except for a few differences.

1) While most pizzas are baked directly on the stone floor or deck of a pizza oven, a deep dish pizza is baked in a pan. The original Chicago deep dish pizzas were made in round pans, very similar (possibly identical) to cake pans. (never start a sentence with…) Because Deep Dish was intended to be a more substantial version of pizza, it is made in a pan and constructed to have a high outer wall to contain the generous amount of ingredients put inside.

2) With a few exceptions (Jersey, I’m talking to you!), most modern pizzas are made with the dough on the bottom, then the sauce on top of that, and then cheese goes on the very top, along with any additional toppings.

Deep dish pizza is assembled in a very similar way to a New Jersey “Tomato Pie”.
Cheese goes down first, then toppings, and tomato sauce goes on top. For deep dish pizza, this is essential, because if you don’t put the sauce on top, the cheese and toppings will burn due to the longer baking time.

(more…)

19.12.2011 baking, cheese, cooking, crust, dd101, deep dish, deep dish 101, deep dish pizza, dough, food, Gary Coleman, italian sausage, mozzarella, oil, pizza, pizza dough, real deep dish pizza, school 2 Comments

Deep Dish 101 – Lesson 1

Sunday, September 25th, 2011

Hello, Class! Welcome to Deep Dish 101.

Lesson 1

In LESSON ONE of this course, I need to give you a quick history lesson.

A Very Brief History of Pizza:

(featuring too many pieces of information, but possibly not enough, and a ton of run-on sentences, unrelated web-links, and parentheses)

The very first flat breads are thought to have originated thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt, where they spread to, or developed independently in, Pompeii, Rome, Greece (where they take credit for inventing everything), and Persia. Most early pizzas were topped with herbs and oils, cheeses and whatever the baker could find, though none of these flat breads had mozzarella or tomatoes like the pizza we know today. Water buffaloes for making buffalo mozzarella didn’t arrive to Rome or Naples until after the fall of the Roman Empire. Tomatoes, brought to Naples from Peru (via Spain) in the early 1520′s (give or take half a decade), were considered poisonous by many Europeans (depending on who was serving you dinner), and would maintain that questionable status in the culinary world until a New Jersey Colonel ended the debate by eating a whole basket of them in 1820. This didn’t stop the infamous ‘wolf peach’ from being widely used in peasant cooking through the 1500′s and beyond. Over the next few hundred years, peasants were baking pizzas, selling them in bakeries, on street carts and in portable head-mounted tin warming contraptions, and somewhere along the way, adding mozzarella and tomatoes. The popularity of that variation of this delicious disc of divinity started to spread to noblemen and royalty.

(more…)

25.09.2011 chicago pizza, chicago style, chicago style deep dish pizza, dd101, deep dish, deep dish 101, deep dish pizza, history, pizza, Pizzeria Uno, real deep dish pizza, school No Comments