Deep Dish Chicago Style Pizza

Deep Dish Chicago Style Pizza 

RECIPE (two 9-inch round pizzas)

INGREDIENTS

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 water (tepid)
3 TB melted butter
4 TB softened butter
olive oil

For the Sauce: (Although in this video, I used store bought 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: Put sugar, salt, tepid water and yeast in your mixing bowl. Let the yeast work for about 6 to 7 minutes. Add about 3 TBsp of olive oil, then the flour and corn meal. If you have a kitchenaid, put it on 2 for 10 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. Let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour. I put my dough in my oven with the lights on. This is a warm draft free place for the dough to rise.

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. 

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, back in the warm (because of the oven light) draft free oven. Let rise again 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.

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.

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