Stuffed Pizza (Pie)

Here we have this week's pizza attempt: another deep dish pizza, this time with a top crust. It's better than the last deep dish I made, and has more filling per crust, but still not quite right. I think I'm going to have to go to a pastry crust instead of a bread dough, and work backwards from there to get it right.

We were going to go to Chicago the first week of September and dine on classic Chicago deep dish pizza, the real deal. But now that's been cancelled and pushed back to probably October. It has been decided by other family members that mom and dad Reinert's 50th anniversary celebration is to be moved to that weekend. Which is more removed from the actual date than the original plan. So my deconstruction of an actual Chicago pizza is going to be delayed.

I have spent entirely too much time this week on line perusing pizza-making and eating forums, and doing deep dish pizza dough recipe searches, and watching videos on how to construct one of these things. Too many times I find a recipe that is nearly identical to what I use for the regular flat, bready pizza, and it claims to be for deep dish. However, I found this one which looked a little different. Eggs and milk??? In pizza dough? I shrugged and thought OOOOOoookayyy. I wondered if I was going to end up with something like a dinner roll with pizza toppings. It made enough dough for me to make two pizzas, one in my springform pan, and the other in a cast iron skillet.

The crust turned out more like something approaching corn bread. Yes, it was short and tender, but it was too fluffy for what I'm trying to imitate. It was tasty, though. I put a medley of veggies in there, with a floor of provolone, and some fresh mozarella balls under the top crust. Then more grated provolone and parmesan on top. I took the low road and used a jarred tomato sauce thickened with some paste for the top. It seems there is no sauce inside a stuffed pizza.




Shortening and cornmeal are key, but in what proportions with flour and yeast and water? I have gotten frustratingly few clues from all my looking. I guess it's back to the kitchen for more research...