Epicurious - 4 Levels of Deep Dish Pizza: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious
The video showcases three chefs, each with a unique approach to making deep dish pizza. Joe, a Level 1 chef, uses pre-made dough and focuses on layering cheese and toppings like pepperoni and olives. Beth, a Level 2 chef, makes her dough with instant yeast and emphasizes a thick tomato sauce with sausage. Ann, a professional chef, creates a white and green deep dish pizza inspired by vegetarian lasagna, using a béchamel sauce and a variety of cheeses and greens. Each chef highlights different techniques and ingredients, such as proofing yeast, using a food mill for sauce, and incorporating unique cheeses like caciocavallo. The video provides insights into the importance of dough preparation, sauce consistency, and cheese selection in achieving the desired texture and flavor of deep dish pizza.
Key Points:
- Use pre-made dough for convenience and ease of handling.
- Proof yeast to ensure it's alive and will help the dough rise properly.
- Layer cheese on the bottom to prevent soggy crusts from sauce moisture.
- Incorporate unique cheeses like caciocavallo for added flavor.
- Cook sauce low and slow to achieve desired thickness and prevent soggy crust.
Details:
1. 👩🍳 Meet the Chefs
- Joe is a Level 1 chef, indicating a foundational level of expertise, while Beth is a Level 2 chef, suggesting more advanced skills.
- Ann Ziata is a professional chef at the Institute of Culinary Education with 14 years of experience, showcasing her extensive culinary background and expertise.
- Joe prefers a shallow dish pizza, diverging from typical deep dish preferences, which highlights his personal cooking style and taste.
- Beth, although experienced with Chicago-style deep dish pizzas, does not consider them traditional pizza, reflecting her personal taste and culinary perspective.
- Ann's inspiration for her white and green deep dish pizza comes from a vegetarian lasagna, where she uses béchamel and greens, demonstrating her creativity and fusion of different culinary concepts.
2. 🍞 The Dough Dilemma
- Proof yeast by adding warm water and sugar; look for foaming to ensure it's active, which is crucial for proper dough rising.
- Combine all-purpose flour, semolina flour, and cornmeal for enhanced texture and flavor; semolina adds a nutty taste and boosts protein content.
- Incorporate cold butter for a pie-like crust texture, differentiating it from traditional pizza dough.
- Rest the dough adequately: one method suggests six hours, while another requires 90 minutes, impacting the dough's texture and rise. Longer resting typically results in a more developed flavor and texture, whereas shorter resting is suitable for quicker preparation.
3. 🍅 Sauce Secrets
3.1. Tomato Sauce Basics
3.2. Deep Dish Pizza Sauce
3.3. White Sauce and Béchamel
4. 🧀 Cheese Choices
- Cheese is the most critical component of a pizza, overshadowing other ingredients such as sauce and dough in importance.
- Integrating multiple cheese types, like provolone and mozzarella, enhances both flavor and texture, creating a more complex taste profile.
- Whole milk mozzarella is preferred for its rich taste, while Parmesan is a key ingredient for its distinctive flavor in Chicago-style pizza.
- Caciocavallo, a cow's milk cheese, can substitute mozzarella, noted for its nutty, rich, and toasty qualities that elevate the pizza's flavor.
- Fresh mozzarella provides a gooey texture but has high moisture content, requiring balance with low-moisture cheese to maintain desired consistency.
- Grana Padano is used to add depth, offering a nuttier and crumblier alternative to Parmesan, enhancing the pizza's overall flavor.
5. 🍄 Toppings Galore
5.1. Personalized Pizza Toppings
5.2. Sausage Preparation
5.3. Garlic Oil Preparation
5.4. Mushroom Preparation
5.5. Greens Preparation
5.6. Flavor Enhancements and Cooking Techniques
6. 🍕 Pizza Assembly
- Flour the board before rolling out dough to prevent sticking; roll dough larger than the pan to allow for shrinkage.
- Oil the pan with about three tablespoons of olive oil to prevent sticking and add a crispy texture to the crust.
- Place cheese on the bottom to create a moisture barrier and prevent sogginess; use sliced provolone for texture.
- Incorporate onions and spinach for flavor; create a thin sheet of sausage for even cooking and to avoid large clumps.
- Thicken the sauce to prevent sogginess and ensure structural integrity; add personal touches like black olives and pepperoni.
- Top with Parmesan and Gran Mugello for a salty, cheesy crust.
- Bake in a 425-degree oven for 30-40 minutes to ensure proper cooking.
7. 🥳 Final Reveal
- The deep dish pizza features multiple layers with a lot of toppings, including crust, mutz, sausage, sauce, and Parmesan, indicating a focus on rich, complex flavors and textures.
- The aroma of the dish is highlighted, with notable smells of fennel, citrus in the olive oil, and garlic, emphasizing the use of aromatic ingredients to enhance the sensory experience.
- The balance of ingredients is carefully considered, with just the right amount of sauce and an abundance of cheese, suggesting a strategic approach to flavor and texture balance.
- The dish is described as comforting and suitable for cold days, providing warmth and fullness, which implies its potential as a hearty, satisfying meal option.
- The umami from the mushrooms and freshness from the greens are highlighted, indicating a successful combination of earthy and vibrant flavors.
- The positive reception and anticipation of the pizza's quality are noted, reflecting confidence in the recipe and preparation process.
8. 🔍 Chef Techniques & Tips
- Joe used commercial pre-made dough made from high gluten flour with special enzymes and emulsifiers to prevent ripping, enhancing stretchability.
- Beth used fast-acting instant yeast added directly to dry ingredients without proofing, utilizing saccharomyces cerevisiae, a common strain for baking.
- Ann proofed her active dry yeast to ensure it was alive and active, producing carbon dioxide, indicating healthy yeast.
- Beth employed a food mill to grind and strain whole tomatoes efficiently.
- Ann made béchamel sauce by cooking a white roux and adding hot milk, increasing viscosity through gelatinization.
- Joe used traditional toppings like pepperoni, spinach, black olives, and onions, with ferrous gluconate added to stabilize olive color.
- Ann blanched and boiled kale and Swiss chard to reduce bitterness by leaching bitter compounds into cooking water.
- Joe created a layered stuffed crust requiring longer cooking due to moisture content.
- Beth placed cheese directly on the bottom crust to act as a moisture barrier, preventing sogginess.
- Ann incorporated caciocavallo cheese, adding richness and saltiness, and topped her pizza with mushrooms, greens, and béchamel, which browns and crisps due to the Maillard reaction.