When you hear the word "pizza", what do you think of? The restaurant you had the best pizza of your life, your favorite take out joint on the way home from work, or possibly even the worst pizza you ever had....
Regardless of where you live, what toppings you like, or whether you like thin, hand tossed, or deep dish pizza we all have our memories and sentiments about pizza.
As a child I remember going to Barbiere's on Bluemound Rd, Mama De Marinis on Wentworth Ave in Milwaukee, and Balistreri's on 68th in Tosa, all great pizzas and all slightly different.
As I moved, traveled, and starting working in the food industry I have tried new pizza, including deep dish in Chicago and the local Rosati's here in Waukesha, it never was as enjoyable as the thin or hand tossed pizza of my younger days. Maybe my parents spoiled me early on with good pizza!
Now that I live in Waukesha I am fortunate to have an abundance of great pizza places to choose from. Try counting all the pizza places in town!!!
(After the city burger challenge, currently underway between J Lotti's, Peoples, Bodways, & Fuzzy's, I recommend a city wide pizza challenge.)
Next step in my quest to like deep dish pizza ....make my own!!!! I looked online at different recipes and through cookbooks and magazines. I ended up going with a recipe from America's Test Kitchen website.
Here is the recipe condensed and simplified, what you need, and my results.
2 -9inch straight walled round pans
Mixer with a dough hook
We will start with the dough, the most intimidating part of the recipe.....
In your mixer, with dough hook attached, place 3 1/4 C flour, 1/2 C yellow corn meal, 2tsp sugar, 1 1/2tsp salt, 2 1/4tsp rapid-rise yeast. Mix until incorporated and add 3tbs of melted butter and 1 1/4C room temp water.
Mix 4-5 minutes until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Take a clean large mixing bowl and place 1/2tbs of olive oil in the bowl and coat the bowl thoroughly. Place the dough in the bowl, cover tightly with plastic film and let rise for 40-50 minutes on the counter.
While the dough is rising we are going to make our sauce.
In a skillet melt 2tbs of butter and grate 1 med onion (using your standard graters large holes).
Cook together with a pinch of salt and about 1tbs dried oregano for about 5 min. Add in 2 cloves of minced garlic, cook for 30 seconds. Add 1 28oz can of crushed tomatoes and 1/4tsp sugar. Stir, bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cook for about 35 min. Then add 2tbs of olive oil and a small handfull of fresh chopped basil.
Dough should be doubled in size by now.
Place on a clean surface, I used my wooden cutting board, and roll into an aprox 15x12 rectangle. (I was unable to roll in a pretty rectangle and that didn't affect the outcome, so just try your hardest.) Take 4tbs of room temp butter and spread all over the flattened dough.( I used my fingers rather than a rubber spatula.)
Next, roll the dough back up into a "log", cut in half, and fold the 2 halves in half 2 times...... basically you are adding layers to the dough similar to making croissants. (This reminded me of my days working at Albermarle Baking Co in high school!) Once you have made the 2 balls of dough, place them back in the oiled bowl, cover tightly, and place in the fridge for 40 minutes to rise again.
Get your toppings ready! I am keeping it simple this time, a cheese pizza and a pepperoni pizza. For each pizza you will need 2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese and whatever toppings you want.
Remove the dough from the fridge, and roll into a aprox 13 in circle. place in the oiled 9 in pan and stretch the dough up the sides..... repeat for pizza number 2.
Place in the 2 cups of cheese and other toppings
and spread 1-1 1/2 sauce over the toppings and bake at 425 for 15 minutes (keep an eye on it, mine only took about 12 minutes).
Let the pizza rest for 10 minutes and slice and serve!
This turned out to be a great pizza! My other taste testers also enjoyed its flavors and crust and compared it to deep dish pizzas they had in Chicago.
But I still prefer a thinner crust pizza and will stick to Magellans, D Mo's and other local establishments for my pizza needs.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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