Week 1: Deep-Dish Darling

For my first cooking adventure of the year, I challenged myself in a few different ways: 1) I made a bread based food, making the dough from scratch for the first time. 2) I was trying to replicate something I've never tried before. 3) I was cooking for someone else, and on a schedule.

With the stress in order, I attacked the recipe:

1 cup of warm water
1 package yeast
1/2 cup cornmeal or corn flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 T corn oil
2 ½ to 3 cups of cheap generic flour
Yellow food coloring – the real secret to why its yellow.

Take the water and put it in your mixer. add yeast and a touch of sugar. Let the yeast foam up to be sure that it is active. Then add the rest of the ingredients including 2 1/2 cups flour. I usually end up adding between 1/4 and 1/2 teaspoons of yellow food coloring. Using a dough hook, kneed the dough until it is well combined. If the dough is sticky add a little more flour. The dough should be moist but not sticky. Let the mixer kneed the dough for 10 minutes. Put it in the oven to rise. If you desire a late in the day pizza taste (beer like), then let it rise all day.

Assembling the pizza -
Preheat oven to 350. After the dough has risen take your deep dish pizza pan (or a round cake pan with straight sides) and coat the inside of it with a very healthy coating of melted butter. Roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch thick and up it in the pan. Then pinch the dough up along the sides of the pan. Now put your cheese, and I mean a lot, into the crust. Then add your pepperoni, and finally your sauce. Bake in the oven until the crust is starting to brown and cheese is starting to bubble up through the sauce. The little edges of the pepperoni should also be starting to crisp.

I made it w/o the pepperoni, as the memory I was trying to emulate was of a Deep Dish Cheese Pizza that Joe complains can never be found in DC. Personally, I'd prefer my thin crust with lots of delicious sun dried tomatoes, gorgonzola and mozzarella, and prosciutto. But that's probably because I'm a Commie.