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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

Nice Tomaters! – Rant #5 – Pizza Research Continues

Friday, January 21st, 2011

Deep Dish Pizza Research has sparked my search for the ultimate canned tomatoes.

Flavor of canned tomatoes varies from brand to brand and can often have differing amounts of freshness, sweetness, saltiness, acidity and other characteristics. Everyone has a preference and some tomatoes can be superior to others depending on the dish they’re being used in. For Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza, my fellow pizza-holics over at pizzamaking.com are big fans of a canned tomato brand called ’6-in-1′ from a company called Escalon. I was lucky to be able to find a can of ’6-in-1′ tomatoes at my local Dominick’s grocery. Although I loved the flavor of these tomatoes on deep dish pizza, I thought the texture of these ‘ground’ tomatoes was a little bit too ground up for my purposes. Tomatoes that you’d find on a Lou Malnati’s or Pizzeria Uno/Due deep dish pie are a little more chunky, so I decided to search for a ‘diced’ tomato to suit my needs. Escalon does make a diced version of their tomatoes, but they were not available locally, so I decided to test a few locally available brands. Muir Glen Organic tomatoes are quite good, come in a wide variety of styles (ground, whole, diced, with basil, etc.) and were available just about everywhere . If I didn’t have any other options, I would gladly use Muir Glen any day on a deep dish pizza. Long before my deep dish insanity took hold, I had become fond of a brand of tomatoes called Dei Fratelli , which I prefer to use when making my ‘world famous’ Cocoa Chili (recipe on my website) . I had been very impressed with the consistent flavor and texture of their ‘crushed’ tomatoes for use in my chili, and thought their ‘petite diced’ would work well in my pizza experiments. I had a lot of success combining Muir Glen and Dei Fratelli tomatoes to get a really great flavor and texture, using a combination of diced and crushed/ground tomatoes.

Then I found… (more…)

21.01.2011 chicago pizza, chicago style, chicago style deep dish pizza, deep dish, deep dish pizza, ingredients, pizza, rant, real deep dish pizza, sauce, tomato, tomatoes 2 Comments

Pizza Rant 4 – DISH DEEP OR RANT HARD

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

(I was going to call this rant ‘Rant Hard With A Vengeance’, but then I remembered – that was the 3rd movie)

In one of my earlier rants about Pizzeria Uno, I briefly mentioned a difference between the original location and the ‘Uno Chicago Grill’ chain of restaurants all over the USA.

Hearing continually about people’s negative reviews of deep dish pizza after having visited a chain version of the restaurant in cities outside of Chicago, I feel I must make some things clear to the uneducated:

Though all the Uno’s restaurants are owned by the same corporation (now headquartered in Boston, MA),
only the original locations of Pizzeria Uno and Due in Chicago serve the authentic Chicago Deep Dish pizza that originated here back in 1943 as a collaboration by Ike Sewell, Ric Riccardo, and Rudi Malnati.
The jury is still out as to how involved each individual was with the actual idea, but all 3 men were pivotal to it’s success.

Now, when I talk about authenticity, I’m not just making a claim like when people say their pizza is only great in New York because of the water that they strained from the Hudson. There’s a real visible and substantial difference between the pizzas you get from the downtown Chicago pizzerias (Uno and Due) and the chain of restaurants owned by the same company. I was unfortunate to encounter a few of the latter – one out east in New Jersey and the other out in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, IL that I mainly visited for confirmation. Confirmation of what? – of the company’s selling of their namesake’s deep dish heritage and reputation to make a temporary, though likely very lucrative profit.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear…

THE PIZZA YOU GET FROM THE CHAINS IS NOT AUTHENTIC CHICAGO DEEP DISH.
Authentic Chicago Deep dish has cheese on the bottom, sauce on the top.

The kind of pizza served at “Uno Chicago Grill” more resembles something served up by Pizza Hut.
The chain restaurant is so many kinds of wrong – They make a giant moat of outer crust instead of a thin outer lip. They use shredded cheese instead of sliced and for some insane reason, they put the cheese on top with a scant amount of sauce scattered around. You’re reminded of several scenes from the movie ‘My Blue Heaven‘, where the Italian mobster played by Steve Martin and some of his former ‘business partners’ are placed in witness protection in the WASPiest city in the US and forced to eat what the locals call ‘food’. The worst part is Uno’s also sells this abomination in grocery store freezer aisles, further damaging the reputation of Deep Dish. It’s not bad pizza, but it’s just a very bad example of Chicago style deep dish. If you’re going to expand a successful deep dish pizza business to other cities, stick to the original formula and let people develop a taste for deep dish pizza instead of intentionally ‘dumbing it down’ and giving people a false impression of what Chicago deep dish is. By going into other cities and representing this shady knockoff as real deep dish, you distort people’s perception of Chicago pizza and not only do a disservice to your own company, but to the City of Chicago and Americans everywhere.

I hope that if you are reading this and have eaten at one of the Uno’s chain restaurants in another city and have yet to visit Chicago, please do yourself a favor and when you do visit, plan to stop by Pizzeria Uno (at 29 East Ohio) or Pizzeria Due (a block away at 619 North Wabash Avenue) and get the REAL thing before you pass judgement on Chicago Deep Dish Pizza. It’s the least you can do.

The Pizza Rants:

Rant 1

Rant 2 - The Deep Dish Pizza Conundrum

Rant 2.5 - Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza SUCCESS!

Rant 2.6 - The Cornmeal Rant

Rant 3 - A Crusty Rant

Rant 4 - Deep Dish or Rant Hard!

Rant 5 - Nice Tomaters!

05.05.2010 arugula, authentic, chicago, chicago pizza, chicago style, deep dish, deep dish pizza, Due, Nixon, pizza, Pizzeria Uno, rant, real deep dish pizza, steve martin, Uno, Uno's, vanilla bran oat crunchie, vcb No Comments

The Long Awaited – Pizza Rant #3 – A Crusty Rant

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

You’ve waited long enough.. here it is:

Good day, and welcome to Rant #3 – THE CRUST:
Deep Dish Dough and the Pequod’s Confusion:

To start, I should explain the main difference between a Basic (or New York style) pizza dough and a Chicago Style Deep dish dough.

Basic Pizza Dough contains flour, oil, yeast, and water, and most people also add salt.
Lombardi’s in New York (the widely accepted originator of New York style pizza and the first pizzeria in the US) has mentioned on television that they don’t use oil – only flour, yeast, water, and salt.
The ingredients are mixed together and kneaded for several minutes.
Kneading dough builds up gluten, which provides a chewy/bready texture to pizza dough.

Deep Dish Pizza Dough is also made with the same ingredients, but the amounts of oil and water are typically reversed, having more oil in a deep dish dough.
A deep dish crust is closer to a biscuit or pie crust, so unlike a Basic dough, deep dish dough is not kneaded much at all. Ingredients are mixed to combine and kneaded long enough to bring the dough into a ball (about a minute).

Both types of dough are given time to rise, and various recipes also require time in refrigeration to develop additional flavor.

Many people are under the assumption that Chicago deep dish crust is thick.
If made correctly, this is really not true.
The “deep” part of deep dish has more to do with the pan that the pizza is baked in and the generous amount of toppings that are typically added to a deep dish pie.

(below is a video about making deep dish pizza)

If you can’t see the embedded video, you can click this link to view it.

Perhaps some of the confusion lies in the variation of a number of pizza restaurants that interchangeably call their “pan” pizzas “deep dish”. I’ll admit that they may be using the exact same pizza pan to make their pan pizza, but often what they are making is not traditional Chicago Deep Dish.

I’ll take a few moments out of my “traditional deep dish” research to talk about another favorite pizza of mine, which is one of the best tasting examples of a non-traditional deep dish/pan pizza hybrid.

Pequod’s –

Originating in Morton Grove, Pequod’s was originally started by a guy named Burt back in 1971, (which he opened after selling his Rogers Park restaurant, Gulliver’s). Burt sold Pequod’s in the 1980’s (which had then opened a second location in Chicago) and later opened up his own low key pizza place (Burt’s) across the street some time later. This style of pizza, although extremely awesome, does not qualify as traditional Chicago Style Deep Dish. It is, however, very close. I call this style “Modern Deep Dish” to distinguish it from “Traditional Deep Dish”. The Modern Deep Dish pie is assembled in relatively the same way – crust on bottom, then the cheese, then the sauce. Other topping locations vary.
The main distinction between the two styles is the dough.
Pequod’s has a thicker, pillowy raised crust, resembling something closer to a square Detroit or Sicilian style crust, but baked in a round deep dish pan.
This dough has been kneaded longer than a traditional deep dish dough.
Also unique to this style of pizza (and probably it’s trademark) is the caramelized cheese on the outer crust, which is created by adding cheese all the way to the edges of the pizza pan, overlaying the crust which is then charred to perfection. This characteristic will either make you love or hate this pizza, depending on your tastebuds. I’m told, but have yet to experience, that the pizza from Burt’s Place is superior to that of Pequod’s. Burt is much more in control of the quality of his pies, as he is the one baking them.

BACK TO THE DEEP DISH DOUGH:

So way up there above the Pequod’s story, I was talking about how deep dish dough is not actually a thick dough. Hopefully you watched the embedded video of Marc Malnati building a deep dish pizza, as he would have given you the lowdown on that and the basic concept of deep dish pizza. The dough is not tossed, it is pressed out into a deep pan in a thin layer and then pulled up the sides. Then sliced cheese is added, then sausage (if you’re having sausage), then the sauce goes on top. The sauce is on top to keep the cheese and other ingredients from burning because of the longer baking time of a deep dish pie. The one thing he left out that I had touched upon in the last pizza rant is that none of the traditional chicago deep dish chains – not even Gino’s East – NONE of them use cornmeal in their dough. A commonly recurring myth, cornmeal finds its way into a number of so-called “chicago style deep dish” recipes in books and on the web. If you’re attempting to make your own deep dish at home, do yourself a favor – don’t believe them when they tell you deep dish dough contains cornmeal. It’s just not true. (yes, I will shut up about the cornmeal now) The answer you seek is corn oil. How do I know? Well, there’s a bucketload of knowledge to be had by visiting the pizzamaking.com forum, where you will find a wealth of information gained by pizza-philes who have been seeking the answers to the secrets of pizza-making for years. They have found their answers by trial and error, communicating with each other about their experiences, and by talking to the people behind the scenes at your favorite pizza place. I discovered them on my own google-based quest for deep dish pizza and have found them to be extremely helpful.

There’s not much else to say about the dough, so if you’re thinking of making your own deep dish pizza, and you’re willing to do a little digging, find a decent recipe for deep dish and give it a try!

A BRIEF NOTE ABOUT TOPPINGS:
As mentioned above, tomato sauce is placed on top to keep the toppings from burning.
Some toppings can benefit from a bit of charring, but you may need to practice to find out which ones can handle being on top during a 30-40 minute bake. Pepperoni should be partly submerged or pressed into the sauce to give the pepperoni the opportunity to get a bit crispy without getting over-charred. If you like your pepperoni on the softer side, add them on top of the cheese before you add the sauce. Mushrooms and onions contain a lot of water, so they could probably survive on top of the sauce. Peppers should probably be placed in or under the sauce (or added halfway through the baking time). Garlic and spices should be added before you add the sauce, or should be combined with the sauce before adding it to the pie.

I’ll keep posting pics of new pizzas as I make them.
–

PREVIOUS PIZZA RELATED RANTINGS:
Click to read PIZZA RANT#1:

Click to read PIZZA RANT#2:

Click to read PIZZA RANT#2.5 :

Click to read PIZZA RANT#2.6 :

FOLLOW-UP PIZZA RELATED RANTINGS:
Click to read PIZZA RANT#4

09.06.2009 Burt, Burt's Place, chicago, chicago pizza, chicago style deep dish pizza, crust, deep dish, deep dish pizza, Morton Grove, Pequod, Pequod's, pizza, pizza dough, rant, real deep dish pizza No Comments

PIZZA RANT 2.6 – The Cornmeal Rant

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

PIZZA RANT 2.6 – (rant #3 is coming soon, I swear!)

PAT “Pasquale” BRUNO! I’m CALLING YOU OUT!

I am by no means the first person to correct this misconception about Deep Dish Pizza dough, and I’m sure I won’t be the last:

re: CORNMEAL (or Corn Meal):

Traditional Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza…

DOES NOT HAVE CORNMEAL IN IT! Never did!

Why does Pat “Pasquale” Bruno, Chicago Sun-Times food critic and author (he has 2 books about pizza),
believe that cornmeal belongs in a recipe for deep dish pizza dough? Well, I haven’t asked him (and he’s welcome to post a reply), but my guess would be that he (or Jeff Smith – we’re not certain who came up with this idea first) may have incorrectly guessed that cornmeal was the source of one or two aspects of deep dish dough:

1) FLAVOR: Corn oil (along with other oils) is (or was) widely used in the dough recipe for some of the more popular Deep Dish pizza restaurants. (Lou Malnati’s/Pizzeria Uno). I’ve learned that some now use soybean or other oils.

2) COLOR: Gino’s East has an incredibly yellow colored crust; I’ve learned that this is actually created by a food-grade baking industry food coloring called Yolkoline (or possibly a combination of McCormick yellow dyes #5 & #6) aka Egg Shade.

The reason why I’m calling out Pat Bruno is because it seems like he insists on perpetuating this myth on the Food Network by appearing as an “impartial” judge, when it’s quite clear that he’s trying to hawk his books on Pizza.

I’ll concede this much – It is possible that after all these years Mr. Bruno does know the truth about the cornmeal and stubbornly continues to let this cornmeal myth grow to throw everyone off.

I’ll excuse Bobby Flay for using cornmeal. He’s from New York; he doesn’t know any better. He does make it more confusing to everyone by including cornmeal in his dough recipe on foodnetwork.com, and leaving out any instructions on when to add or use it (update – it seems that they’ve since updated the recipe – after many comment postings – to add the cornmeal into the bowl when adding the flour). We all know why Marc Malnati won’t correct Bobby Flay. He’s trying to win a pizza throwdown (and talking a lot of smack while doing it) and he’s got a mail-order deep dish pizza business and a chain of restaurants that need to keep making money. Why would he tell everyone on TV how to exactly duplicate his pizza dough?

If Pat Bruno knows that cornmeal should not be in there, and goodness knows he’s been covering the subject long enough, why does he not dispel the myth on the show?
IT TAKES YOU FIVE SECONDS TO CLEAR UP THIS MYTH FOR GOOD!
SAY IT LOUD! SAY IT PROUD!
DEEP DISH PIZZA DOES NOT HAVE CORN MEAL IN IT!

Bobby Flay hopefully knows the truth now. He should demand a rematch, and skip the broccoli robb this time… Silly New Yorker.

OK, so now we return to the subject – Cornmeal:

It’s not a true ingredient of traditional Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza. Don’t believe me? Ask the guys over at the Pizzamaking.com – Chicago Style Pizza Forum.
Also, there’s a definite possibility that thin crust pizza restaurants dusted their pizza peels with semolina (similar in texture to cornmeal) confusing modern bakers and forever linking pizza with cornmeal.

Can you use it?
It’s YOUR pizza; do what you want, but many people think cornmeal makes pizza dough taste gritty. Some like the extra corn flavor that cornmeal adds. Many use it in the bottom of their pizza pans to add an extra crunch on the bottom or to aid in deep pan removal.
I use it sometimes on a pizza peel to help get a thin crust pizza to slide off of the paddle and onto the pizza stone.

Apparently, using fennel seed in Italian sausage is also controversial for deep dish (though I often do when I make my own), but that’s another rant.
–

The Pizza Rants:

Rant 1

Rant 2 - The Deep Dish Pizza Conundrum

Rant 2.5 - Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza SUCCESS!

Rant 2.6 - The Cornmeal Rant

Rant 3 - A Crusty Rant

Rant 4 - Deep Dish or Rant Hard!

Rant 5 - Nice Tomaters!

06.05.2009 chicago, chicago pizza, chicago style, chicago style deep dish pizza, corn meal, Cornmeal, deep dish, deep dish pizza, dough, myth, Pasquale Bruno, Pat Bruno, pizza, pizza dough, rant, real deep dish pizza 3 Comments

PIZZA RANT 2.5 – Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza – SUCCESS!

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

PIZZA RANT 2.5 ( click here to read pizza rant #2 ) -

SUCCESS!

(sucky pocketpc cameraphone)

First attempt… Nearly perfect! Will give details and more pics soon… Gotta eat pizza now. Bye!

(unsucky canon g5 digital camera)

2nd slice

PIZZA RANT #3 will be coming shortly with more details, info on my research, and a recipe.
Many thanks to the pizza-philes at pizzamaking.com chicago style pizza forum, especially Loo Waters,
who gave me some insight and a good place to start.

(5MP Canon G5 – click on photo for wallpaper size)

PREVIOUS PIZZA RELATED RANTINGS:
Click to read PIZZA RANT#1
Click to read PIZZA RANT#2
FOLLOWUPS:
Click to read PIZZA RANT#2.6

23.04.2009 chicago, chicago pizza, chicago style, chicago style deep dish pizza, deep dish, deep dish pizza, italian sausage, Lou Malnati's, pizza, Pizzeria Uno, rant, real deep dish pizza, sausage, Uno, Uno's No Comments

Pizza Rant #2: The Deep Dish Pizza Conundrum

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

For a few weeks now, I’ve been pondering the possibility of reproducing an acceptible version of a Chicago Deep Dish Pizza at home. I’ve been searching for pizza dough recipes (There’s a minor controversy about corn meal; I’ll write about that later), and I’ve also been looking for the proper pans to bake them in. Then the Obama thing happened (read Pizza Rant #1) and I figured I should start blogging about my minor culinary quest.

DEEP DISH PIZZA… THE PAN
After a bit of exhaustive research, I’ve done it. I’ve ordered some deep dish pizza pans. From my google-assisted investigation, I’ve learned that tin-plated steel is the way to go (aka aluminized steel) instead of plain aluminum, as the steel is supposed to make the pan stronger and the aluminum helps to distribute heat better for more even baking of a larger pizza.

There are a few brands out there that sell deep dish pizza pans, which are really no more than large heavy-gauge metal cake pans. If you’re in a hurry and don’t want to do the research, you can easily find one on Amazon.com by searching for ‘deep dish pizza pan’, and you could go with the ‘Chicago Metallic UNO Deep Dish Pizza Set‘ combo pack which includes a 12″ round 2″ deep aluminized steel deep dish pan, a serving/cutting spatula, and a book with recipes for about $16.

A small word of caution: Although this is a great deal whether you got the recipe book or not, I don’t know if I would trust the recipes, as the Uno Chicago Grill restaurants around the country don’t quite make an authentic deep dish like their namesake at the original Pizzeria Uno in downtown Chicago. The franchises all over the country serve a pizza-hut-inspired version of a deep dish pizza, which is tasty enough, but really doesn’t qualify if you’re looking for authentic Chicago deep dish. For that, you need to go to Pizzeria Uno or Pizzeria Due which are owned by the same people and are located about a block away from each other, or have a par-baked pizza shipped to you frozen from Lou Malnati’s which you can bake in your oven… or make it yourself (which I am attempting to do). The last option is obviously the most difficult and it’s going to take a bit of trial and error and a lot of research to learn the truths about making authentic deep dish pizza. The first step of course, is getting the right pan. Let’s continue…

The REAL Pizzeria Uno in Chicago (not the franchised knockoff).

I wanted to see if I could find a 14″ pan, which is the same size as a large pizza from Lou Malnati’s or Pizzeria Uno. A more extensive search on Amazon found me a company called AMCO that makes aluminized steel pans. The deep dish pan is actually a ‘round cake pan‘ which might make it difficult to find if you’re searching for a ‘pizza pan’. You can also find the reliable Chicago Metallic brand, who make all kinds of pans, including a deep dish pizza pan with a non-stick coating. I’m a baking masochist, so I skipped the non-stick easy solution and ended up ordering two AMCO – 12″ pans and one 14″ pan, which are like the ones that the restaurants use*. I also ordered a couple ‘pan grippers’, which are these little clamp handles that they use to grab the pizza pans out of the oven. If you’re wondering why the pictures of the pans show bright silver colored pans, when you often see a darker or even black colored pan at the restaurants, it is because the restaurant pans are well ‘seasoned’ from continual use. These pans will get darker the more I use them.

So while I wait for the pans I ordered to arrive, I will work on the next step: THE CRUST. (to be continued)

*update 4-25: a quick note – the AMCO pans i ordered from Amazon are aluminized steel (not tin) with a silicone coating (so I guess they actually are non-stick after all). Actual tin-plated bakeware darkens the more it is used; aluminum typically does not, but the coating on these pans is supposed to darken the more you use it. I’ve learned that tin melts at 450 degrees, which is why it was replaced by aluminum in bakeware.

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15.04.2009 chicago, chicago pizza, chicago style, chicago style deep dish pizza, deep dish, deep dish pizza, Lou Malnati's, pizza, Pizzeria Uno, rant, real deep dish pizza No Comments