Dear John,
I miss you! You've been gone so far away on this business trip for nearly two and a half weeks! My Mom came to town though this weekend, so at least I've had some one else to keep me company besides the dog. Lola is great and all, but she really needs to work on her conversational skills! So you're probably wondering what us two girls have been up to. Well while she was here we ate, then we ate some more, then we cooked, then ate, and ate. Needless to say I'm still full and our fridge is stocked with leftovers, its been a good weekend.
For our major cooking extravaganza, we decided to attempt to create a "New York-style" pizza and a "Chicago-style" pizza, and yes, in one night! This was as much an experiment as it was tasty entertainment, because neither of us had attempted a Chi-town pie or the technique we employed for the NY-style. For the NY-style we strove for a thin crust, foldable pizza margarhite cooked on the grill, considering that many famed NY-style pizzerias use a coal-fired, wood-fired or brick oven with rather extreme temperatures. The Chicago-style was a deep dish, stuffed pan-style pie with sausage, peppers and onions.
Who won you ask? New York, hands down. I know, I should be ashamed of myself! I suppose I am no longer allowed to call myself a Chicagoan. With some work, my Chicago-style pizza will be great, but as of right now the NY-style won because of the grill. I never thought that grilling my pie would make that much of a difference, but it did! The dough comes out perfect! Slightly chewy, lightly crisped on the outside with a smokey note from the light charring, yum! I'm very excited, and I cannot wait to make it for you!
chicago-style deep dish pizza
pizza dough (see notes)
1/2 cup ricotta
1/4 parmesan
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup jarred pizza sauce (plus extra for dipping)
2 links italian sausage
3/4 cup shredded mozzerella
1/2 cup sliced green pepper
1/2 cup sliced red onion
Preheat the oven to 400. Divide dough into two pieces and roll thin. Oil and flour a 8" cake pan with 2" sides. Push one of the pieces of dough into the bottom of the cake pan, allowing the edges to drape slightly over the sides. Polk several holes into the dough with a fork. (I didn't do this, but I would recommend using pie weights to prevent the dough from building up too much along the sides.) Bake the dough for 7-8 minutes.
Meanwhile, brown the italian sausage and mix the ricotta, parmesan, egg and salt & pepper (to taste) until well combined. Leaving the par-baked pizza dough in the cake pan, fill the middle of the dough with ricotta and smooth over. Place the other piece of dough over the ricotta and trim the edges. Prick again with fork, and bake for anther 7-8 minutes.
Remove the dough/ricotta combo from the oven, and build as you would a normal pizza. Add sauce, cheese, sausage and the veggies. Bake again until the cheese is melted, bubbling and browned.
Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before slicing.
cosmo's cooking notes: We used Mario Batali's Pizza Dough recipe which yields a soft and workable dough that you can get pretty thin. This seems to work well, but again its a work-in-progress so there may be a better dough out there for this.
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