Pizza. Chicago. Yum.
Chicago Style pizza is a pretty particular thing. While (apparently) Italians will not acknowlege it as a pizza, it is a pizza and a tasty one at that. Most people start with talking about it having the sauce on the top, but it only loosely a sauce; crushed or minimally processed (we used our summer preserved) tomatoes are mixed with dried herbs and minced garlic, then drizzled with olive oil. This goes on top of layers of fresh mozzarella cheese and sausage (or vegetables.) The sausage is always fennel pork sausage, but it doesn’t need to be. We made our’s with bison and the gaminess of the bison balanced well with all the other flavors. You could also use ground beef or even turkey, but you want to make sure the turkey sausage is quite salty and you may have to fiddle with the fennel proportions as it’s a pretty strong flavor. (Don’t omit it though! It’s important.)
The crust is where the real magic comes in. We have problems with most of the crusts typical of the style. Many are too hard, heavy, buttery or greasy. So, we set out to have ours airy and light, but still strong enough to hold up to the the filling with the requisite cornmeal texture and a mixture of both olive oil and butter to give it that fruity-buttery taste.
The dough will make enough crust for two 10″ pizzas or one 14″, approximately. The fillings will be a bit too much for a 14″ but enough for two 10″ pies. Plan accordingly.
Crust
4c bread flour
3T cornmeal, finely ground
2t salt
3t instant yeast
2T olive oil
4T butter, melted
1 1/4c lukewarm water
olive oil
Mix together dry ingredients in a stand mixer with paddle attachment. Drizzle in liquids and mix until dough is more or less incorporated. Change to dough hook and kneed until smooth and elastic; about 5 – 7 minutes. Cover and leave someplace warm to rise for an hour or until doubled in size. While dough is rising make sausage and mix together tomato sauce.
Gently punch down dough and kneed it a couple few times. Stretch out on a nonstick mat or parchment paper until it’s about 1/4″ thick. (Err on the side of being thin, it will rise.)
Heat oven to 425°f.
Coat the bottom of one or two pizza or cake pans (we used a 10″ springform pan) with olive oil and turn upside down, onto dough still on the parchment. With one hand on the pan and the other under the parchment, flip the dough and the pan over. Gently peel parchment off and ease the dough down in and up over the sides. Press dough up along the sides. Take a pair of scissors and cut the excess dough off about 1/2″ from the top of your pan. Cover and let rise for 15 minutes. (Extra dough can be refrigerated for a few days or frozen for a few weeks to be used for another pizza.)
Bake in oven for 12 minutes. Remove from oven, brush with olive oil.
Layer in 1/2 mozzarella, sausage (+ other veg or whatever), mozzarella, parm, tomato sauce drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 30 – 45 min or until all bubbly and whatnot. Let pizza sit for about 10 minutes or it will be very watery. (Leftover pizza (yeah, right) can be reheated by the slice, or pan for 10 minutes in a 375°f oven.)
Filling
2 lb fresh mozzarella
1 recipe sausage
other pizza stuff
1/2 c parm/romano/asiago, shredded
Sausage
1lb ground bison
1/4 c bread crumbs or panko
1/2 onion, finely chopped
2t fennel seeds
1 egg
1T fresh parsley or cilantro
salt & pepper
olive oil
Preheat oven to 350°f. Mix together ingredients. Break off small globs onto parchment lined baking sheets and bake in oven for about 12 – 15 minutes or until cooked through.
Tomato Sauce
12oz tomato puree or whole plum tomatoes, crushed
3 cloves garlic. minced
1t oregano
1t sugar (optional)
salt
Mix tomatoes with the rest of the ingredients.
