Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza Recipe with Mozzarella and Sausage

Step-by-step recipe

1. Keep in mind that Chicago pizza is a fairly thick bake, very different in look and method from the familiar thin crust with a thin layer of topping. It bakes longer so the filling cooks through – hence the reversed layers. The cheese goes on the very bottom so it doesn't burn while baking, then the sausage, and the tomato on top, since it copes much better with long exposure to heat. Everything is available at the supermarket; there's nothing exotic in the filling at all.
   
2. Make the dough ahead of time – it can take a few hours, or at least one hour at a minimum. Sift two cups of soft wheat flour into a bowl and add a pinch of fine salt and 1 tsp sugar. We use dry yeast for the dough, and it works exceptionally well. For this amount of flour, 5–6 g of yeast is enough. Mix all the dry ingredients with a fork. Warm a little less than a cup of water slightly – 10–15 seconds in the microwave will do. Add the oil to the water, stir and pour it into the bowl with the flour. Knead a soft dough, cover it with a towel and leave it in a warm place for 1 hour. Basically, that's enough. If you have the time, punch the dough down and leave it for another hour. If you can, use a springform pan – it will make it much easier to get the finished pizza out after baking. Grease the pan with oil and put the dough in it. Stretch the dough to form tall sides – more than 4 cm – so that the dough is about 1 cm thick. Make a pretty edge if you like.
   
3. While the dough is resting, make the sauce. Pour olive oil into a frying pan and add roughly chopped garlic and a piece of fresh chili. Fry the garlic and chili for 2–3 minutes, then add the crushed tomatoes. A can usually holds about 250 g (you'll need two), but there are also “large” cans of up to half a liter – one of those is enough. Add 1 tsp sugar and 0.5 tsp each of dried oregano and basil, and salt well. Simmer the sauce uncovered over medium heat until it's thick and there's no free liquid left.
   
4. We use two kinds of mozzarella in the filling – regular fresh mozzarella, sold in brine, and “hard” low-moisture mozzarella. There's no need to chop either cheese finely – they'll melt in the end, so the way you cut them doesn't matter at all. Slice the cheese thinly into any shape. Lay the hard and fresh cheese on the dough in the pan, spreading it over the bottom.
   
5. The meat part of the filling varies a lot. We make our Chicago pizza with a “soft” Italian dry-cured sausage. Peel off the casing and cut it into cubes, or tear it into pieces with your fingers. Ground beef, raw or fried with onion, pepperoni, sausages and so on are often added to the filling as well. Spread the sausage over the mozzarella.
   
6. The last layer of filling is the tomato sauce you made earlier. Spoon the tomato over the cheese and sausage, trying to fill all the gaps and spaces, so you get an even layer from edge to edge. The top is often sprinkled with grated Parmesan or Pecorino. Since there's already plenty of cheese in the filling, we traditionally lay slices of sun-dried tomatoes on top – an exceptionally tasty and successful addition.
   
7. Preheat the oven to 180–190°C in advance so it's fully heated. Put the pan with the pizza in the oven. Our thin pizza usually bakes for 20–22 minutes, which gives a crisp bottom crust. A thick Chicago-style pizza needs at least twice as long. Go by how brown the crust is. Pizzerias bake it in small tall-sided skillets, special pans and so on. At home you can use any suitable pan – a springform with a removable bottom works best, since there's less chance of breaking the crust.
   
8. Transfer the finished Chicago pizza to a serving board. Cut the tall sides very carefully and gently – they're quite brittle. Use a sharp knife to cut the pizza into slices and a spatula to put them on plates. The filling is quite “alive” – a soft, runny sauce and melted mozzarella that stretches into strings. Serve the pizza hot, with a knife and fork.
   
9. Pizza is considered to be a combination of bread, sauce and cheese. Despite its somewhat unusual look, Chicago-style is still a pizza – it meets those criteria. Less typical ingredients often go into the filling – mushrooms, spices for heat and kick, Parmesan or another cheese, herbs, onion and peppers, spinach. All such ingredients go under the sauce so they don't char while baking. Or, which is also fine, they're scattered over the sauce shortly before the end of baking. Food coloring is often added to the dough to give it a yellowish tint.