Chicago-Style in the ATX

Once again, Gentle Reader, I step aside so that the husband can share with you his latest exploits in the kitchen. He puts that deep-dish pizza pan I hauled home for him from Chicago to use--and inaugurates the stand mixer we've had for ages but never used. Enjoy!

So the boy burned himself last night, and I superglued my fingers together. Yup, we were cooking, as only the two of us can.

It started out innocently enough. Partly because I wanted to try my new pan (and partly because I secretly wanted to see just how badly I could mess up the recipe), we decided to try the deep-dish pizza recipe from The Best New Recipe Sunday night. It's a recipe we were fated to use, apparently. After finding the recipe in the book, I realized that the same recipe was included with the pizza pan Angela brought me from Chicago.

It didn't take me long to realize I was in waaaaaay over my head. This recipe includes a whole lot of things that I'm not familiar with at all--yeast, dough hooks, flour.


Okay, maybe not flour. But still. Waaaaaay over my head.

Prep work began Saturday afternoon, when I threw together a new batch of Emeril's BBQ sauce and made my first mistake. Who knew that I needed to halve the amount of brown sugar when we're using Splenda Brown Sugar Blend in place of the real thing? (Who, that is, other than Angela or anyone else capable of reading the large "Use Half a Cup in place of 1 Cup of Brown Sugar" banner on the front of the package?) I also boiled a potato for the crust, which fortunately happened without incident. We now have proof that I can both boil water and peel a potato. How's that for gourmet cooking?

The fun continued early Sunday afternoon when I started putting together the crust. The bowl of our Kenmore stand mixer only flew off once or twice--if anyone out there has any suggestions for how to use the thing without turning the bowl into a projectile, please let me know!

I'm gonna skip ahead in the process now, 'cause frankly, it's all a blur at this point. Suffice to say, there were a lot of steps involving the yeast in the crust. Mix part, then let sit 'til bubbly (20 minutes), put in fridge, then let warm to room temperature (60 minutes). Warm oven, turn off oven, let dough sit in cooling oven (30 to 35 minutes). Welcome to my Sunday afternoon. The only relief from the tedium came when I was waiting (yet again) for the yeast to do its thing, and glued two of my fingers together while fixing a refrigerator magnet. Yes, I can screw up multiple projects simultaneously!

Finally, though, came a chance to vent the pent-up aggression that built up over the hours(!) spent fooling around with the crust.



Yayayayay! Pizza whacking time!

Even after that, it wasn't time to bake it yet. Now the crust needed to sit in a "warm, draft-free spot" for another 30 minutes. And where exactly am I going to find a warm, draft-free spot in this house?


Well, there ya go. Our crust spent some quality time in the garage, which seemed to suit it just fine, given how nicely the dough rose during that half-hour.

Finally, after all that, it was time to bake the thing. In lieu of a pizza stone, I used an upside-down baking sheet to set the pizza pan on (thanks for the tip, recipe book).


The boy helped put toppings on the pizza (he knows how, after all), though he did singe himself slightly when he accidentally touched the pan. We also threw into the oven at this point a frozen cheese pizza, just in case the deep-dish pie turned out to be a disaster. But when it was all said and done...well, I'll let the photo speak for itself.


It's a pizza! An honest-to-goodness pizza that I didn't totally screw up!

The finished 'za came out of the oven with a really nice heft, and the texture of the crust seemed just perfect as it was being cut. And to top it all off, the taste was totally not horrible! Even though there were still bits of potato in the crust (I would have mixed it further, but did I mention the bowl's tendency to go flying off the mixer?), it was chewy and fluffy and, well, it held the toppings on, which is about all you can ask from a crust, isn't it?

Was it anywhere near as good as the leftover pizza Angela generously brought home from Chicago? Heck no! But then, this was a lot cheaper than flying out to Chicago to satisfy the craving...though it might have been faster just to go there....