If you should be lucky enough to eat pizza in Italy you will that it is always sparsely topped. It doesn't have a ton of stuff piled onto it (and definitely not pineapple or Thai chicken). The crust is the star. Often it doesn't even include tomato. Italians would refuse to eat anything like a "deep dish" pizza. They would ask, "what's this casserole you put in front of me?"
That may be true, pierino, but not everyone wants to eat Italian-style pizza so the cast iron skillet technique is a good one for those who appreciate a thicker crusted or more heavily topped pizza. Go talk to Chicago :-) !
Believe me, I love the city of Chicago. There are times when I yearn for it. But deep dish pizza is not an attraction. It's like something thought up by Walter Gropius and Mies Van der Rohe. I call it the Bauhaus pizza.
Another option for a thicker crusted pizza is in a cast iron skillet.
Preheat oven to 525º F (or as high as it will go if it's below that). Stretch the dough to fit into your skillet, then place it into the skillet and top it. Bake about 15-20 minutes, broiling at the end if you want to brown the toppings and char the crust. You can get away with a more heavily topped pizza than when you use a pizza stone or pizza steel.
I like to parbake my crust with a light coating of olive oil [sprinkling of parmesan depending on mood] for about 5 minutes. I then pull it out and top it with sauce, cheese, toppings for final baking. This way you don't end up with the doughy uncooked crust in the middle.
I've used this "gold" perforated pan and it's terrific. Here's a link to it at Williams-Sonoma but I believe you can also buy it from other sources.
http://bit.ly/1dKGxHb
Dough..I like Jim Lahey pizza dough recipe..Very hot oven,500-550, preheated 1hr prior to baking..baking steel(I use one by Stoughton
Steel)..keep topping at a minimum and don't add until ready to pop in oven..set rack 8 inches from top and change setting to broil about a minute prior to adding pizza
The trick to making real pizza is a screaming hot oven. Professional wood burning ovens can reach 800F, yours can't. Yes, some form of stoneware is best. I use two methods depending on if I'm cooking indoors or out. Indoors I use an Emile-Henry "Flame" pizza stone and crank the oven to 500F.
Outdoors I use a wood burning grill which, using lump charcoal or pieces of oak, I can coax up to over 600F. For the stone I use a piastra which is a single slab of stone about 1" thick.
Be sure that you measure the pizza dough to fit your peel and the stone.
Ideally, a pizza stone is best. But if you don't have one, use the back side of a rimmed baking pan. Put it in the oven 15 minutes before you bake your pie. Then slide the pizza directly on top of the pan.
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Preheat oven to 525º F (or as high as it will go if it's below that). Stretch the dough to fit into your skillet, then place it into the skillet and top it. Bake about 15-20 minutes, broiling at the end if you want to brown the toppings and char the crust. You can get away with a more heavily topped pizza than when you use a pizza stone or pizza steel.
http://bit.ly/1dKGxHb
Here's a Food Lab for it:
http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2013/01/the-pizza-lab-the-worlds-easiest-pizza-no-knead-no-stretch-pan-pizza.html
Steel)..keep topping at a minimum and don't add until ready to pop in oven..set rack 8 inches from top and change setting to broil about a minute prior to adding pizza
Outdoors I use a wood burning grill which, using lump charcoal or pieces of oak, I can coax up to over 600F. For the stone I use a piastra which is a single slab of stone about 1" thick.
Be sure that you measure the pizza dough to fit your peel and the stone.
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