Chicago Style Deep Dish Pepperoni Pizza

When I woke up today I had no idea I’d be having deep dish pizza. I’d picked up a couple of BGE ceramic pizza pans (7” dia.) from my BGE dealer at a discount. They were trying to get rid of them to make way for the recently released 14” dia. pans. The 7” pans I bought were as is, with no instructions, packaging etc. I thought I’d be able to find instructions for cooking pizza using this pan easily enough online. I was wrong. I’d failed finding any info about cooking with either the 7” or 14” pan. I figured I might do better once the 14” pans were showing up in the BGE dealers around here. This morning I was on the BGE website and they were featuring a recipe for Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza using the new 14” dia. ceramic pizza pan. It was a joint effort between the folks at BGE and King Arthur Flour. I was psyched because I have never gone wrong with a KAF recipe.

I made several changes. The first was to reduce the quantities 50 percent to accommodate my smaller 7” pan. The second was to replace the sausage with pepperoni (my favorite topping). The third was to use parmesan-regianno cheese instead of the parmesan called for. I am going to show photos for the pizza dough part of the process to show folks how easy it is.

If you are interested in making this recipe yourself here is the recipe:
http://www.biggreenegg.com/features/deep-dish-pizza/

Onto the pictures:



The dough was fairly simple. It used: All-purpose flour, lukewarm water, instant yeast, yellow cornmeal, table salt, vegetable oil, olive oil, melted butter.





The flour, salt, cornmeal &instant yeast was added to the bowl of the mixer. The dry ingredients were mixed together.





The dry ingredients are combined.





Next the wet ingredients were added: Vegetable oil, olive oil, water & butter and the dough was mixed for about 4 minutes on medium low.





The dough ball was placed in a dough doubling pail and allowed to rise for 1 hour.





After an hour the dough had doubled in volume.





The dough was stretched out and placed in the deep dish pizza pan. I covered the dough with plastic wrap and let it rise for 15 minutes in the pan.





The dough was fit into the bowl and then shaped to fit the pan and the edges were crimped. The dough was covered again and left for 15 minutes.





The pie crust is now on the Egg sitting on the Plate Setter which is installed legs down. The cooking temperature was 425 degrees.





The dough has baked for 10 minutes to firm up the crust and gets pulled off the Egg and the pan is brought back into the Kitchen to receive the toppings.





I used a half sheet pan with a wire cooling grid to serve as a topping station/trivet for the hot dough and pan. The toppings were pepperoni, Italian seasoning spice blend, grated parmesan-reggiano cheese, mozzarella cheese, sugar, minced garlic & canned finely diced tomatoes.





The first step was to combine the ingredients for the sauce: Diced tomatoes, Italian seasoning, sugar & garlic. They were thoroughly mixed and set aside.





Time to build the pizza. The first step is to lay in the mozzarella cheese fanned out along the bottom of the pizza.





The mozzarella cheese was fanned out in two layers total.





The pepperoni came next.





The tomato sauce mixture was placed over the pepperoni.





The grated parmesan-regianno cheese was the final topping for the pizza.





The topped pizza was drizzled with 2 tablespoons of olive oil.





The pizza is back on the Egg at 425.





Thepizza was done after 25 minutes. The topping was bubbly and the crust was cooked.





The pizza is cooling for 10 minutes on a trivet . This was some of the longest 10 minutes I have spent.





The 10 minutes are up and it is time to slice into the pie and eat.





I thought this pizza was delicious. I thought the crust was the equal of Pizzeria Uno’s crust and the filling was different but equally good compared to what you get at Uno. One of the people who was working on my house showed up for some punch list items had a slice. He siad it was the best pizza he’d ever had and was raving about the crispy crust.





The bottom of the crust was a nice even golden brown.





The sides were evenly cooked as well.

Jim

Money. That's a great looking pie.

Well there's a new take for pizza on this forum! Beautiful, Jim! I'd jump on that in a heartbeat. So after all the varieties you've made, which style is your fav?

Thanks for looking and commenting guys.

beercuer wrote:

...So after all the varieties you've made, which style is your fav?

Hmmmm, honestly can I answer "All types"? I really do like pizza of all kinds and over time my tastes have adapted or changed. When I went to college out in Detroit and discovered the joys of deep dish pizza both in the Detroit area and in Chicago, deep dish became my favorite type of pizza. I also really like brick oven pizza of any kind. I've got to say these last few weeks since I've been making pizza on the Egg I'm starting to like that style of best. A thin, but crackingly crisp crust.....mmmmmm.

As of yesterday I find I have the best of both worlds. I can turn out a deep dish pizza on the Egg that is every bit as good as anything Pizzeria Uno makes. Actually better because I think the ingredients I use are fresher. Plus I can turn out a great brick oven style thin crust pizza using my pizza stone on the Egg. Doesn't get better than that. One of the next pizzas I want to make is a barbecue chicken pizza. I've had that from a place that hails from your neck of the woods: California Pizza Kitchen.

What about you, what is your favorite type of pizza in general and what is your "go to" pizza when you do your pizzas on the grill?

Jim

That's one hell of a pie, Jim. I'm not a huge fan of the deep dish variety, but then again, I've never had one cooked on the Egg. Perhaps I'll pick up one of those 14in pans and give this recipe a whirl.

You beat me to this one! This looks amazing. I've been wanting to give a deep dish pizza a go for awhile now. A buddy of mine on another forum made one the other day that had me salivating too. I'm going to put this on the "to-do" list for this coming week. Outstanding again, Jim!

jfm0830 wrote:

Thanks for looking and commenting guys.

beercuer wrote:

...So after all the varieties you've made, which style is your fav?

Hmmmm, honestly can I answer "All types"? I really do like pizza of all kinds and over time my tastes have adapted or changed. When I went to college out in Detroit and discovered the joys of deep dish pizza both in the Detroit area and in Chicago, deep dish became my favorite type of pizza. I also really like brick oven pizza of any kind. I've got to say these last few weeks since I've been making pizza on the Egg I'm starting to like that style of best. A thin, but crackingly crisp crust.....mmmmmm.

As of yesterday I find I have the best of both worlds. I can turn out a deep dish pizza on the Egg that is every bit as good as anything Pizzeria Uno makes. Actually better because I think the ingredients I use are fresher. Plus I can turn out a great brick oven style thin crust pizza using my pizza stone on the Egg. Doesn't get better than that. One of the next pizzas I want to make is a barbecue chicken pizza. I've had that from a place that hails from your neck of the woods: California Pizza Kitchen.

What about you, what is your favorite type of pizza in general and what is your "go to" pizza when you do your pizzas on the grill?

Jim

Jim, I get your point about "all types." Variety is nice. Still, I can say that my fav is the one I make. Took me seemingly forever of trial and error to get to the point of saying that. I am most fond of thick crust done on the cast iron pans. And it's really important to me to work a little crushed oregano into the dough. Apparently, my claim to fame and go to is one topped with little meatballs (Picked up that insight from "The Donald"). I find the BBQ chicken to be a real winner, especially if one adds/includes slivers of fresh garlic with it.

Thanks again for looking and commenting.

smokin'gal wrote:

...I'm not a huge fan of the deep dish variety, but then again, I've never had one cooked on the Egg. Perhaps I'll pick up one of those 14in pans and give this recipe a whirl.

I haven't been able to get the 14" pan around here, I think the appearance of this pizza recipe may mean it is now shipping in quantity. But I think it is going to cost $50 when it is available. The thin crust pizza I make on the Egg is head and shoulders above any I can get. This thick crust pizza is as good as or slightly better than Uno's. I'm sure it can be even better with different toppings etc. For me this is great because I can match or do a little better than a favorite kind of pizza at home. What I am trying to say here is: If you don't care for deep dish pizza and have tried some of what most folks consider good deep dish pizza, this pizza is probably not going to knock your socks off. You might want to try this recipe in a 12" cast iron pan before spending 50$ on the 14" ceramic pizza pan. You may have to grant the crust a bit of slack done that way, but the rest of the pizza should come out the same.

Dyal_SC wrote:

...I've been wanting to give a deep dish pizza a go for awhile now...

I'm curious, do you have the 14" pan or the older 7" one like I have? No one around here has the 14" pan and I've been to 8 different dealers. I'm guessing this recipe means it may be out now. I picked up the old discontinued 7" pizza pans a month ago and figured it would be easy enough to find a recipe or some Use & Care instructions online using either the old or new pans. I completely struck out. Then on Friday this recipe appeared on the home page.

beercuer:
I remember now that at one point a few years ago we had an ongoing discourse about our favorite pizza crusts. That meatball pizza sounds really cool. I also like the garlic on the BBQ Chicken Pizza idea. It has been added to the ingredient list for this pizza which is on my To Do List.

Jim

I don't have a deep dish pizza pan at all, actually. I was just going to improvise with something around the house. Maybe the CI skillet.

Awesome looking Pizza Jim!!
I wasn’t a fan of deep dish until I tried Chicago style pizza; it was absolutely awesome and instant favorite. Surprisingly, the dough was not thick and spongy, which is something I don’t care for. The crust was crispy and thin and tomato on top did not make it soggy. I like the idea of baking the dough for few min first and will borrow it from you if you don’t mind

The pizza looks amazing!! I'd love to try a slice of that.

I've never seen the 7 or 14" at any store I've been to, but I know that a few people of greeneggers (or is it eggehad forum) have one already. No idea where they got them, though. Doesn't seem to be much info on how to use them, glad you found something. I guess I'll keep my eyes open for one.

Thanks for the comments.

BBcue-Z:
Borrow away! I got it from the recipe from the Big Green Egg folks, who got the dough recipe from King Arthur flour.

You're right a lot of people think a deep dish pizza is real thick crust. It isn't, it's literally a pizza pie where you take the dough and place it in a deep round or square pan and fill it with toppings. I don't care for overly doughy pizza crusts, I feel like they're cheating me out of the toppings. When I was going to college in Detroit, my favorite pizza place had a challenge where if one person could eat one of their large pizzas by themselves it was free. Many of my friends tried and they all died at about six out of the eight pieces. Me, I had to skip eating all day just to have a chance of finishing the small.

Griffin:
Yeah the dealers kept telling me the 14 inch would show up in the various catalogs, but they'd never seen one in one of their shipments of Eggcessories. I was just glad to finally learn how to use the thing. I figured it with it being ceramic, there must be some process for you preheat the thing. It turns out you do in a manner of speaking when you prebake the crust. But I wasn't sure about the cooking temperature either. I know the pizza place I liked in Detroit cooked theirs at 700 degrees. This recipe had to do it at 425. I'm so glad I didn't try one at 700°, I'd probably still be scraping pizza crust off the ceramic pizza pan. Do me a favor too, if you find any recipes for using these BGE ceramic pans please let me know. The only thing I do know about the use and care, is you're not supposed to use any soap. You're supposed to clean the thing with water.

Jim

Great-looking pizza, Jim! I really should take a crack at making my own dough sometime so that I can try a "deep skillet" pizza.

It's interesting that the recipe doesn't call for any sauce per se. Did the tomatoes break down much during the cooking process?

Thanks Brad. When they wrote this recipe, I think they were using Pizzeria Uno as their model. I suppose this makes sense since it's the best-known Chicago style pizza around the country. The sauce on Pizzeria Uno pizzas tends to be chunky just like that. I do think I may work in a little sauce the next time to see how that tastes. Not as much as a normal pizza, I don't want to overwhelm the diced tomato, just supplement it a little. The tomatoes got a little softer, But I wouldn't say they broke down to the point of adding a lot of juice to the mix.

I'll get to try that out next Sunday. Now that the interior work our house is completed, my wife wants to have more people over. She has me scheduled to cook three meals over next weekend. For Saturday lunch I'll be making steaks, for Saturday supper I'll be doing 6 thin crust pizzas and for Sunday lunch I'll be making this recipe again.

Jim