r/castiron • u/AdStrange4667 • 10h ago
Food Tonight's dinner, tomorrow's breakfast. My attempt at Chicago style pizza
Ya'll inspired me with all the pizza posts lately. This was probably a little more dough than needed, but it was soft and didn't overpower the pizza. The edges were crispy. I would use more sauce next time too.
Full recipe below because I don't believe in gate keeping!
Dough (make the night before)
- 280 g Bread flour
- 50g warm water
- 150g coolwater
- ⅔ tsp active dry yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- ¾ tsp sugar
- 1 tbsp olive oil
Mix ⅔ tsp active dry yeast and about ¾ tsp sugar into the 50 g warm water. Leave for 5–10 minutes to dissolve. It should look a little frothy when it’s ready.
Add the 150g cool water, flour, salt and oil. Stir until evenly combined. Cover and rest 20 minutes.
Knead for about 5 minutes with wet hands or a mixer’s dough hook on low, until stretchy and cohesive. It will remain tacky; avoid kneading in extra flour. I used a dough hook on my kitchenaid and let it go until there was some stretchiness around the hook.
Cover in a container with a layer of plastic wrap directly on top of the dough so it doesn’t form a crust. Make sure it has room to expand. Leave at comfortable room temperature for 45–60 minutes, until beginning to puff, then refrigerate overnight, covered with teh plastic wrap.
Fennel-garlic sausage (mix the night before, but don’t cook it yet)
- 225 g of 80/20 unseasoned ground pork
- 10g cold water
- ½ tsp salt
- ¾ tsp fennel seeds, lightly crushed
- 1 tsp fresh garlic, finely grated, or ½ tsp of garlic powder
- ¼ tsp ground black pepper
- ½ tsp dried oregano
- ¼ tsp sweet paprika (or regular if that’s all you have)
- Pinch of crushed red-pepper flakes (optional, but I used it)
Mix the ground pork with all the sausage ingredients. Cover and refrigerate immediately.
Day you plan to eat
Pan and toppings needed
- 1-1.5 tbsp oil for the skillet (i used avocado but you can use whatever)
- 225g mozzarella (i just tore fresh mozzarella from a ball but you can shred a block. I usually avoid pre shredded cheese because it has added things that might affect the texture or mix weirdly with something)
- Pecorino Romano or parmesan: 10 g, finely grated (i forgot this at the store so mine didn’t have it)
Proof the dough (2.5 - 3 hours before you want to eat)
spread the oil over the cold skillet bottom and sides. Put in the dough and roll it around a little to cover with oil. Spread it out across the bottom. Don’t worry about pushing it up the sides.. Cover with plastic wrap. After 20 minutes, spread it out again if it’s shrunk towards the center.
Let the covered dough rise at room temperature until noticeably puffed about 2.5–3 hours.
Prepare the pizza
When the dough is ready preheat the oven to 450 degrees (a little less if you’re using convection)
In a skillet, fully cook the sausage and try to get it into larger chunks
Make the tomato sauce (make while pre heating the oven. After making this tonight, I probably would double this because i like a lot of sauce)
- 200g canned crushed or ground tomatoes. I used unsalted but if you use salted just make sure you account and adjust for how much salt you add
- ¾ tsp garlic, finely grated or ¼ tsp powder
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- ⅛ tsp salt or less if the tomatoes are already salty
Mix all the ingredients in a sauce pan and cook on low heat for 8-12 minutes until it’s thick.
The dough should be spread out across the bottom of the pan. Don’t worry about spreading the dough up the sides.
Add the cheese on top of the dough and make sure you spread evenly all the way to the edge so the edges get some crispy cheese.
Spread the sauce on top of the cheese layer.
Add the fully cooked sausage evenly across the top.
Bake 25-35 minutes. You should be able to pull the crust back from the pan some to see if it looks golden brown. If it’s soft or you’re not sure if it needs a few more minutes, I’d give it more time. Mine took the full 35 minutes and I probably could have given it another 5 and been fine.
If your crust needs more time but the top looks like it might start burning, turn the oven down to 400 degrees and cover the top loosely with a piece of aluminum foil.
Let it rest 5-10 minutes before slicing - the hardest part tbh
Enjoy!