Chicago Pie

It has taken me 4 hours and 3 connections to get this page to load. Who will rescue me from this telephone company?

Back in January of 2007, I published a little article about making easier and tastier pizza dough. Then last week there was a discussion in a food group about pizza in its many forms, and the deep dish Chicago pie was mentioned. I’d just been explaining what it was the other night in my conversation about American cookery. That doesn’t resemble Italian pizza at all. I think I ate it twice in the United States, for curiosity I guess, but I always found it too heavy and wet. Still, it has its fans so I thought I’d make one for here.

It’s certainly easy enough to do, but I still think it is too heavy and too wet on the top. If you have some family members who like it and like to eat at Uno, maybe you’ll like this recipe. Alter whatever you want about it, but remember the more you load the top, the wetter it will be.

The dough

500 grams (17ounces) of ordinary all-purpose flour, or 00
one packet of granular yeast or one cake of fresh yeast

2 teaspoons of salt

4 tablespoons of good olive oil

about 1.5 cups or 12 ounces of warm, not hot, water– the amount will vary according to the ambient humidity. The temperature will be warm to the wrist id using granular yeast, and about body temperature if using cake or fresh yeast.
Put the flour and yeast and salt into the food processor. Pulse it to mix it. Set the processor to a continuous process.

Through the feed tube, start adding the warm water, staring with about a cup and let the dough form, then continue to add water until the ball of dough relaxes and becomes a thick batter instead of a ball. Add the olive oil and let it incorporate for a couple of minutes.

Open a sturdy and large Ziplock bag and scrape the sticky batter into it. Press it to remove any air, then seal it really carefully. If you don’t you will be sorry, because it will open and fill your refrigerator with sloppy and fat pizza dough. Put it into the fridge and leave it for 12 hours or more.

When you want to make your pizza, take the bag out of the fridge and slap it around a bit to deflate it. Prewarm a couple of heavy frying pans of about 8 or 9 inches in diameter (20-23 cm) and generously oil them with good olive oil. (I used my ancient cast iron skillet and it was ideal) Put one half of the dough into each pan and spread the dough out to cover with oily hands. Leave them alone for 30 minutes or so. They should warm to room temperature and start to re-rise a bit.

Suggested topping

For each:

a handful of drained canned tomato solids
a generous sprinkling of dried oregano
an ounce or so of slices of mozzarella
an ounce or so of Provolone piquante sliced or other tasty cheese
a good pinch of crushed red chili pepper
*anything else that inspires you, but loading this will make it take longer to cook and will increase the excess of moisture that is sometimes a problem with deep dish Chicago pie.

Preheat the oven to maximum temperature for at least 15 minutes. Preheating it the entire time you are letting the dough warm up is not too much. Distribute the toppings on the dough in the pans, then put them into the hot oven for 20 minutes or so, by which time they’lll look pretty much exactly like the photo above.

This will probably serve 4 people with a vegetable or a salad. Use a spatula to move it to a plate and cut it with a serrated knife for choice.