One of the student workers in my office requested this months ago.
"Be sure to cook it before he graduates," one of my friends told me one day.
Then the holidays hit and I was traveling. And the New Year came. And school opened again, so I was terribly busy with research, work and service. And then I began revising my dissertation proposal to prep for my defense. And...
Yeah, yeah. Excuses, excuses.
It was one night, somewhere around 7 p.m., that I decided to get with it. And, no lie, I was finally able to wrap the lot in foil at 1 a.m. the following morning.
I have made a pizza crust before. You can actually do it in a half hour or so. Oooh, that reminds me of the Doughless Pepperoni Pizza. Remember that one?!
But the request was for a Chicago-style, deep dish pepperoni pizza.
*whimpers*
This meant the crust was going to take forever. Forever folks. And it turns out that my yeast was past its due date. Lucky for me that my dear friend volunteered to rush to the grocery store to get a new batch. How sweet! And I'm so glad I invested in that handy thermometer. The first insert yielded water at something like 140 degrees when it should have been around 110.
I relied on three recipes to help figure out how to handle the dough:
After the yeast activated, I added the flour with basil, oregano, garlic salt and a bit of kosher salt.
The first batch took a full hour to rise; the second half the time.
Once both had risen, I put them together and let them settle for about a half hour. Then I punched the lot down and let it rest for another half hour or so.
Meanwhile, I prepared the sauce -- a mixture of roasted tomatoes and marinara with Parmesan. I began with a saute of onion then added the sauce, cooking it with a ton of onion powder, fresh garlic and butter. OK -- not literally a ton, but quite a bit.
When I returned to the dough I had to giggle aloud. It was funny looking to me, all plump and doughy. It looked like a mass of rolling clouds. Quite lovely, actually -- but so excited that I forgot to take a photo.
Bummer.
I baked the dough until it began to brown, then added the mozzarella and pizza cheeses along with a couple layers of pepperoni and cooked it in the oven for about 20 minutes or so.
It seemed the office took joy in this. I was surprised that the flavor came out so well and that the dough was just crunchy and soft enough. In the future, I would like to add bell peppers, fresh tomato slices and maybe some pineapples for additional heft.
There was only one single lonely piece left as I walked out the door.
Nice posting. I'm glad you are in my blog universe.
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