I was feeling a bit nostalgic, so I decided to make an attempt at making a Chicago classic: deep dish pizza. Technically, deep dish pizza is like pie: it has a crust, a filling, and it tastes delicious. I was excited to try it out for the first time, but I wanted a simple recipe so I wouldn’t feel too overwhelmed. That is why I went with this recipe.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the different steps, but I will give you an overview of what went wrong.

1. The dough did not rise. Yes, I added yeast, sugar, and everything else. Yes, I placed it in a warm environment. The dough did not rise even a little bit. Seeing that I didn’t have enough time to make another batch, I decided to go with it and hope for the best. I rolled it out, slathered butter on it, and rolled it back up before placing it in the fridge.

2. I forgot to boil the sauce. While the dough was in the fridge, I sautéed the onion, oregano, red pepper flakes, and garlic. Then I added the crushes tomatoes. I warmed it up before I moved back to the dough.

These two mistakes has a drastic effect on the appearance of my deep dish pizza. The sauce was mushy and seeped through. The crust was very hard. However, I realized that it will still contain loads of cheese, pepperoni, mushrooms, and green peppers. It would still taste good!

In a Neftaly-fashion, I decided to add a top crust and cut out four stars and add blue stripes (the Chicago flag).  As a proud Chicagoan, I wanted to represent my city (at least in first impressions because the deep dish pizza was not going to look very deep dish-y).

In the end, it did remind me of home (although not completely). I will definitely be repeating this recipe until I get it right. It’s too expensive to ship pizza from Lou Malnati’s or Giordano’s to Williamstown.

Tagged: Chicago, deep dish pizza, flag