Anatomy of a Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

Last weekend, we decided to indulge in a home-made deep dish pizza. From start to finish, this process took close to 4 hours, but was SO worth it.

(A little long bit of back-story first... I've loved Chicago-style pizza ever since the 7th grade. I was on the video yearbook crew, and was chosen to go along and film a prize trip for students who had sold the largest number of something for a fund-raiser. This was cool because I never sold a single ____ (frozen pizza, wrapping paper, insert inane fundraiser here). My own parents never bought anything from me! To this day, the only kind of job I don't think I could ever do is sales. Asking someone to buy something? So not my nature. Anyway, the highest-selling 5 students had won an "awesome" prize- a limousine ride to lunch at the Pizzeria Uno. So I got to ride in a limo for the first time and eat Chicago-style pizza for the first time, and I didn't have to sell a thing. Score! When I took my first bite of the ooey, gooey pizza, I was amazed. The crust was so buttery- it was like a biscuit! Now, the crust has always been my favorite part of the pizza- not only am I not the kind of person that leaves their crusts on their plate, but I will eat the left-over crusts other people leave behind. So I love crust, and Chicago-style pizza is practically an homage to the crust. What's not to love?)

I found this recipe for the dough. I was so excited- it was inspired by Jeff Smith, the Frugal Gourmet! Does anyone remember the Frugal Gourmet? Way before the Food Network existed, I was watching him and Martin Yan on PBS.

After 2 rises, this dough was enourmous. I cut off half for our pizza and saved 2 balls of dough to freeze for future use.

Here I am stretching the dough. The resemblance to human flesh was frightening.

We baked it in one of our trusty cast-iron pans, stretching the dough up the sides.

Here are the toppings. Pizza sauce, with extra fennel seed and other spices, courtesy of Daiku. Roasted, peeled red pepper. Black olives. Red onions. Chopped garlic. Tofu ricotta. (Just a blend of firm drained tofu, miso, lemon juice, garlic powder, and dried basil) Roasted mushrooms. (We roasted them so they would give off liquid first instead of soggying up the pizza. We squeezed them to get every last drop out. It turns out, we needn't have worried much. This crust was STURDY!)

Oh, do you notice the magical hovering pizza sauce at right? I was holding it up, but the photo doesn't include my hands. The result is pretty hilarious.

Into a hot oven. We layered toppings in this order, trying to stay traditional: cheese, toppings, cheese. (I'll conveniently ignore the fact that traditional would probably also entail a pound of mozzarella and 4 pounds of meat...)

Out from the hot oven. (You'll notice that 1/4 of the pizza has dairy cheese - Gruyère - for Daiku on top)

Did I mention this crust had HEFT??

There you have it, a vegan chicago-style deep dish pizza. After a brief cooling-off period, it was ready to be sliced and go into our bellies. This dinner was satisfying! And the one pizza was enough for lunch and dinner for the two of us the next day. SO worth it.

Anatomy of a Chicago Deep Dish Pizza