Deep Dish Pizza

For Christmas I received a deep dish pizza kit. It came with the pan, a nifty UNO style spatula, and a little recipe book. I figured since I'm living so close to Chicago, I should learn how to make the famous Chicago style pizzas. This is the first one I've tried, I'm sure you can alter my recipe to whatever preferences you have. (Please excuse the blurry photos... they were taken quickly with my phone. We were in a hurry to eat!!)


Dough Recipe:
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water
1 TBSP sugar
1/4 cup olive oil (recipe said soybean oil but I didn't have any, so I used EVOL)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 TBSP salt
1 TBSP olive oil

Dissolve yeast with water and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the 1/4 cup oil and mix. Add flour and salt and mix at medium speed, until dough is smooth. Turn dough out of the bowl and kneed by hand for a few more minutes. Oil another bowl with the 1 TBSP olive oil and turn dough to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for two hours on the counter or in the refrigerator overnight (just take it out one hour before use). You can freeze the dough for later use and put in refrigerator for 24 hours before you plan to use it.

Sausage Pizza Recipe:
1 dough recipe
16 oz Mozzarella, sliced
16 oz Italian sausage, ground (we bought the links and took it out of the casing)
12 oz chunky pizza sauce (we just used Ragu pizza sauce since again, that's all we could find)
2 TBSP Parmesan (and or/Romano) cheese, grated
1/2 tsp oregano

Place dough ball in the center of the pan, and, using your hands, work the dough along the pan and up the sides. Lay about 2/3 of the cheese on top of the dough, overlapping slices to cover all the dough. Place sausage over the cheese, working it into a thin disk to cover all the cheese. Spread sauce evenly over the sausage. Place remaining mozzarella, parmesan, and oregano over the sauce. Bake on the middle rack at 475F for 25-30 minutes or until crust is golden brown and sausage is cooked. (minimal internal temp of 165 with a kitchen thermometer will help guage the sausage.)