Crafting a great deep-dish pizza takes some time and strategy. Because this style takes so long to bake, it’s assembled differently from other kinds of pizza. About half of the cheese-in my versions, sliced part-skim mozzarella-goes on the bottom and slightly up the sides, where the ingredients that go on top of it protect it from burning during its long stay in the oven. It also acts as a “liner” between the crust and the filling to keep the crust crisp. Next come the filling ingredients and, finally, more cheese. Here, I like the saltier and more intense flavor of provolone to balance the mozzarella.
Toward the end of baking, I add shredded mozzarella for just a few minutes to melt it. The cheeses are “staged” in this way so that they don’t overcook and exude too much fat and moisture.
Traditionally, the sauce is added to the unbaked pizza and cooks in the oven. That can make things soggy and messy. I prefer to warm the sauce briefly but not actually cook it and then add it on top, after the pie comes out of the oven. People are always surprised by that because they’re used to the heavier, more concentrated flavor of a baked tomato sauce.
Splitting up the baking process with all of these staged steps means that my deep-dish pies bake more quickly than what’s typical, and that gives them more strength, structure, and definition. It’s all about engineering the build and the bake to cook everything just right, so the crust stays crunchy, the filling comes together as a perfect blend of flavors and textures, and the sauce adds a bright, fresh accent to balance all the richness.
* For my recipes, you’ll need a round deep-dish pan 12 to 13 inches in diameter and 2 inches deep. I recommend a well-seasoned black steel pan (see Sources, page 304). Aluminum pans are too light and don’t hold heat as well as steel, so your pizza doesn’t brown as nicely or cook as evenly. A pan is inches in diameter gives you six nice-size slices. And I like “lucky thirteen” because I’m super-stitious. Some pans have a raised ridge running around the side. This is so they can be stacked for easier storage in a pizzeria. The ridge isn’t necessary for a home pan. * The pan is greased quite liberally, which, in addition to keeping the crust from sticking, also helps it bake to a rich golden brown, like a pie crust. * If you’re making a deep-dish or stuffed pizza with both cooked and raw meat for example, pepperoni and raw sausage), layer in the cooked meat first and keep the uncooked meat toward the top of your ingredients. This way, as the uncooked meat bakes, the fat that renders out of it will flavor the ingredients below it and won’t soak directly into the crust. * Part skim mozzarella is what I prefer for Chicago pies because its lower fat content means it exudes less fat and thus gives you a stronger pizza. * I like a buttery Chicago dough as opposed to a more cornmealy one, which tends to taste too much like corn bread. I prefer a more pie crust or pastry approach, and I like a higher-fat unsalted butter (usually labeled “European style”). It’s not the country of origin that matters here, it’s the butterfat content. European-style butter tends to come in at 82 to 84 percent butterfat, compared to the 80 percent of typical American butter. More fat and less water in your butter gives you lighter, flakier pastry. * If you don’t want to use lard, you can go with the same amount of vegetable shortening. * In my restaurants, we remove our fully cooked deep-dish pizzas from the pan to slice them, and then transfer them to a clean, room-temperature pan (and here, I do use aluminum, because I like the shiny, clean look) to serve. This makes for a neater presentation and keeps the guests from having to touch a hot pan. If you have two pans at home, you can use the same method. You can also return your sliced pie to the pan you baked it in, which will help it hold its shape as it sits on the table. Or you can serve your pizza directly from the cutting board, without returning it to the pan. Whatever you do, add your final sauce, seasonings, and garnishes after the pizza is out of the pan and sliced. This will make serving much easier and neater. * Use medium-grind cornmeal for dusting, not a mixture of cornmeal and flour, as I recommend when you’re using semolina. Flour tends to keep cornmeal from sticking to the pizza. And straight cornmeal helps strengthen the crust and gives it a nice crunch. * For deep-dish and stuffed pizzas, you roll out the dough rather than opening and stretching it as you do for most of the pizzas in this book. This is important because it gives you a perfectly consistent thickness. For rolling tips, see page 103. * It’s helpful to let the rolled-out dough sit in the pan for 30 minutes (with dough hanging over the edge) before filling your pizza (done for both deep-dish and stuffed). This allows the dough to relax and proof a bit and gives you better structure and flavor.