Deep Dish Pizza a la knapplc

[knapplc]

HUSKER 37 suggested I share the recipe in Roxy's forum, so here goes. It's been a long time getting to this point, but this is damned good deep dish pizza.

 

This makes two 14" deep-dish pizzas.

 

The crust:

 

4.5 tsp bread machine yeast (or two packets instant dry yeast)

Two cups warm water

1/4 teaspoon sugar

4 tablespoons softened butter

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 cup cornmeal

5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons kosher salt

 

Stir the warm water and sugar until the sugar dissolves. Add the yeast, stir in, and let it sit until it forms a good head.

 

Mix the yeast/water with both oils and the softened butter, then add the corn meal and stir together. Add two cups of the flour and mix until it's a shaggy mess, then add the remaining flour and salt. Knead until it forms a sticky mass. It's a really sticky, soft dough, so don't add more flour. Once you have a pretty well-incorporated dough, put it in a bowl greased with olive oil and let it sit, covered with a cloth, in a warm place. Once the dough has doubled in size, punch it down and let it sit again until it doubles in size again. As I prep everything else I take a minute a couple of times to start spreading the dough out into fat discs.

 

While that's rising, prep your sauce, then your pizza innards and preheat your oven. If you have a round baking stone, put it on the rack in the middle of the oven and preheat at 425 for at least an hour. I do this before prepping the innards and sauce.

 

 

The sauce:

 

This is both easy and hard. I use the cheapest pre-made "traditional" canned spaghetti sauce I can find as a base, about 36oz for two pizzas. To that I add 1/2 cup of roasted red pepper sauce. It's a bitch to get the ingredients and make this sauce, but it's worth it. You have to make this sauce ahead of time, like a day or even months earlier. I make huge batches of it when red peppers are cheap in the summer and freeze it.

 

If you don't want to go to this trouble, just use a decent-quality pizza sauce, or whatever red sauce you like.

 

Red Pepper Sauce

 

Two dried Ancho chiles, seeds and pith removed

Three medium or two large red bell peppers, seeds and pith removed

1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce (nam pla) which you can buy at most any Asian market

 

Roast the seeded red bell peppers on a grill until soft and the skin is slightly blistered and blackened. Remove from grill and hold in a sealed container for ten minutes until cool. This helps the skin come off easy - remove the skin.

 

Put the anchos and roasted red peppers into a blender or food processor with the fish sauce and grind into a mushy paste. Add water in tiny amounts (tsps at a time) if necessary, but it's usually not needed. You want a good slurry, not wet and not pasty.

 

Put your cheap-ass red sauce in a sauce pan, stir in about 1/2 cup of the Red Pepper Sauce and simmer on low, stirring occasionally so it doesn't burn on the bottom.

 

The innards:

 

One pound raw Italian sausage links, at preferred hotness (I use mild)

One large yellow onion, peeled and quartered, then sliced into short strips

One large red bell pepper with the meat cut off in cheeks, then sliced into medium/short strips

8oz white mushrooms, cleaned, stemmed & sliced

An assload of pepperoni

One pound mozzarella per pizza, shredded

About three cups shredded fresh Parmesan cheese

 

It's important to saute everything. Start with the sausage. Heat a large, uncoated (not non-stick) pan at about 3/4 heat on the stove top. Remove the casing of the sausages and discard. Brown the sausage on one side, then flip over and let brown until they get some firmness to them. Using a wire potato masher, smash the sausage into coarse chunks. Brown and remove.

 

Remove about half the grease from the pan. Saute the red pepper in the sausage grease until soft, then turn the heat down to about 2/3 and saute the onions slowly, for maybe ten minutes, until soft. Turn the heat to high and brown the mushrooms FAST. Once the mushrooms are done I usually deglaze the pan with an unmeasured amount of white wine, then stir that into the sauce.

 

 

 

Now you're all prepped and ready to make pizza. By this time your oven should be well heated. Coat the bottom of your deep-dish pan with a fair amount of olive oil and dust it with some corn meal. Put one dough in the bottom, and push it gently outwards until it's covered the bottom. Make a 1 - 1 1/2" lip of dough on the side.

 

The order of the innards is important. Put the sausage on the dough, then about half your mozzarella, then about a cup of sauce. Add the rest of your innards, then half the grated fresh parmesan, then a full layer of pepperoni. On top of the pepperoni, put the rest of the mozzarella for this pizza (you're making two, remember).

 

Put that into the oven for about ten minutes. Once the mozzarella has gotten a smidge browned, pull it back out and cover the top with about two more cups of sauce, then back in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Watch the outer crust - once it turns golden, pull it out.

 

 

Let it cool, slice it, then cry when you taste this magnificence.

[knapplc]

Pics, as requested...

 

Here's my mise en place:

 

 

The dough rising:

 

 

The finished product:

 

[QMany]

Good god! That looks amazing. I just made a Totinos.

[knapplc]

I kinda lied about the ingredients, I just realized. Pizza #1 had sausage, peppers, onions, mushrooms & pepperoni.

 

Pizza #2 had sausage, bacon & pepperoni. Carnivore's delight.

[rawhide]

Is it wrong to drool on my keyboard?

 

Sounds like a great recipe.

 

methinks that sauce could be used in many pasta dishes or........

[beanman]

That looks great. But I'd never do it in a million years. That's a lot of work man.

[NUpolo8]

Just tossing this out......

 

Pizza= foldable thin crust masterpiece.

 

Deep dish= meat casserole shot put.

[NUpolo8]

Nice job though. Men cook.

[ShawnWatson]

Wow, that finished product looks exactly how it should.

[Lyons in the Sea of Red.]

Sweet jesus

[Hingle McCringleberry]

+1 to you sir, and very well done. I'm a home made pizza fanatic and have been thinking about the Chicago style. Where did you get the pans?

 

On side note, if you haven't gotten a baking steel yet get down and grab one. that thing will change your life...

[BigRedBuster]

I have been thinking about doing this. I don't have a deep dish pizza pan but, I do have a 9x13 stone pan. I'm thinking I could do it in that.

 

Might need to try it.