Haven't had a good food thread in a while. I was reading the paper the other day and came across a recipe for deep dish pizza, which caught my eye because, as a native Chicagoan, I hold deep dish pizza to a very high standard and haven't had anything good around here. I decided to make it this morning even though I didn't have all of the proper equipment, like a mixer with a dough hook so I had to spend the better part of an hour playing with the dough, but it was totally worth it. I didn't do anything fancy with the innards since I was mainly concerned with getting the crust right. In the end it turned out great, would have been better if I had been more concerned with what was in it instead of going with the simple mozzarella/Italian sausage filling and tomato/olive oil/basil/oregano sauce for the top. Everyone who tried it liked it. I can post the full recipe later if anyone wants.

I'm too lazy to make it on my own. Could you make me a pie and bring it here to my house? I'll tip ya. (yuk yuk, I kill me!)

Please post it.

oh satty, that sounds boss. I had a pizza slice at the auto show today and wanted pizza when i got home. wife didn't. that only adds insult to injury! post the recipe.

wildman, that sounds good!

I found the article online, so yay! I dont have to type it all out.

Deep-Dish Stuffed Pizza

serves 8-10

1 envelope yeast

1 3/4 cups lukewarm water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 cup cornmeal

5 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon salt

1 pound shredded mozzarella cheese

2 cups cooked Italian sausage, crumbled

1 cup sliced mushrooms

3 cups canned plum tomatoes, drained and chopped

1 teaspoon dried basil

1 teaspoon dried oregano

2 cloves garlic, crushed

3 tablespoons olive oil

salt to taste

4 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

Place the water in a mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and let stand for 5 minutes to dissolve.

Pour in the vegetable oil, olive oil, cornmeal, salt and 3 cups of the flour. Mix with the beater for 10 minutes. Add the remaining flour and switch from the beater to the dough hook. Mix for about 5 minutes. The dough will be pretty moist.

Pour the dough onto a floured surface and cover with a large bowl. Allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Punch down the dough, and let rise again.

For the topping combine the tomatoes, basil, oregano, garlic, salt and olive oil and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Grease two 9- or 10-inch round cake pans or spring-form pans.

Divide the dough evenly between the two pans. Press the dough out so that it goes all the way up the sides of the pans. Place the mozzarella cheese into the crusts, layering the mushrooms and sausage in with the cheese.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven until the top is golden and gooey, and the crust a light golden brown. Add the tomatoes and bake for an additional 5 minutes just to warm the top. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan.

I did the tomato topping a little differently, I found some canned diced tomatoes with garlic and onion and used that instead of just tomatoes. It was pretty good, but would have been better with fresh tomatoes and garlic instead of the canned stuff. The innards, like I said earlier, I just did sausage and cheese, no mushrooms. I did take a major liberty with the crust, instead of 3 cups of flour, I only used 2 cups and instead of plain cornmeal I used Jiffy corn muffin mix, pretty much just because I forgot to buy cornmeal. The dough rose faster than the recipe said it would and it cooked in about 25 minutes at 475, when I put the tomatoes on I turned the temp down to 300 and let it cook another 10 minutes.

Satty, thanks for the recipe!

How'd you wind up cooking the dough? In other words, did you use a special pan? Because, for whatever reason, when I make pizza, my only problem is the uneven nature of how the dough cooks.

For the deep dish I just used 8 inch round cake pans, there was quite a bit of dough around the edge, I would recommend using 9 inch pans. For regular pizza, use a perforated pan, lay the dough out on it, bake it for a few minutes then pull it out and top it and cook it the rest of the way.

Thanks Satty...I'll repost, once I try them