2:16 / Deep Dish

I do not have much preamble this week. This is a fairly basic deep dish recipe, and I have included it mostly as an exercise in getting to grips with the form and how it behaves in contrast to its flatter cousin. While an overall success, I will not be doing another basic pizza for a while. Look for things to get, for lack of a better word, exotic next week.

Borrowing from various recipes [again; but I will experiment eventually] that required two identical pans, I opted for standard, 9-inch cake pans over cast iron. For any cast iron elitists out there, rest assured this was the most painful decision of the day.

This recipe makes two pizzas, so bear in mind the crust, sauce and cheese are all split evenly when assembling them. One of these was an adequate meal for four people, but your mileage may vary depending on hunger.

Crust:

3 cups flour, extra for dusting and rolling

½ cup cornmeal

1½ cups warm water [105º - 110º F]

2 tsp. or 1 packet yeast

1 tsp salt

¼ cup melted butter

Olive oil for brushing

Sauce:

4 small tomatoes, rough chopped

1 14.5 oz can of stewed tomatoes

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, diced or minced

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp tarragon

1 tsp red pepper flakes

3 tbsp olive oil and extra for brushing

Cheese:

1½ - 2 cups grated mozzarella

¾ cup additional mozzarella, either grated or sliced

¼ cup grated parmesan

Sprinkle yeast over the warm water and allow it a few minutes to begin bubbling. Combine in a large bowl with all dry ingredients. As before, using a dough hook is ideal but not required. As the dough mixes, add the melted butter. If you are using a stand mixer, the dough takes just a few minutes to form itself into a nice, solid ball. Knead a few times on a floured surface, and transfer the dough to an oiled bowl. Allow the dough to rise in a warm place [I usually leave it on top of the oven at 200º F] for two hours.

After my dough had risen, I laminated it for a puffier crust. This is entirely optional, but if you would like to squeeze a few more calories into your pizza, simply punch down and roll out the risen dough, butter it generously, and roll or fold it so the layers of butter overlap. There are more complicated ways of laminating, and maybe recipes are geared towards making puff pastry. I do recommend reading up on the subject, as I forgot to take photos of this step and the description is a bit confusing without them. If you follow this step, allow the dough to puff of a bit more after laminating and before you roll out the final shape.

As the crust rises, prepare the sauce. In a medium saucepan, combine the olive oil and onion over medium-high heat. As the onions turn gold, about five minutes in, add the fresh tomatoes, garlic and spices. Simmer on a medium heat for fifteen minutes, then add the canned tomatoes. Cook for another fifteen minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes are breaking down. Help the sauce along with a masher or an immersion blender if you like. Turn off the heat and leave covered, or reduce heat to very low if you will be assembling the pizzas immediately after the sauce is finished.

When the crust dough has doubled in size, bump up the oven to 450º F. Punch the dough [skip this if you have laminated it] and move it from the oiled bowl to a floured surface. Split dough into two equal pieces and roll each out to a 12 inch circle. It should remain at least ¼ inch thick. Press the dough into lightly oiled cake pans. It should just reach the top of the sides of the pan. This dough is quite fussy about being put back together if you do pull it apart, so to avoid a repetition of the kneading process, adjust as much as you can without tearing the dough. It is not too difficult, as the thick dough will hold together well through a lot of shifting and re-rolling. 

Once the dough is prepared, layer on grated mozzarella until the bottom surface is completely covered, about ¾ cup for each pizza. Pour the prepared sauce over the mozzarella. This will bring the pizza filling just about to the top of the crust. Top with extra mozzarella, either grated or sliced into small pieces. Sprinkle parmesan all over the top. Bake for 22-24 minutes, until the crust is gold and the cheese is bubbly. Top with a couple fresh basil leaves or an extra dash of oregano.