[MikeLM]

The Gino's pizzas, to me (a 30-year Chicago resident) are pretty much like a loaf of bread with tomato sauce and stuff on it. Not my thing.

Ten or twelve years ago I took a series of cooking classes with prominent Chicago chefs. This is a cracker-thin, whole-wheat pizza crust taught by Tony Mantuano, then Exec Chef of Spiagga, an upscale Italian restaurant at the North end of the Magnificant Mile on Michigan Avenue. He's since started his own place way up north, like Waukegan, or something. Mezz' might be able to add some details, since I think it's closer to Milwaukee that Chicago. He has had big reviews in the metro papers.

Anyhow... his recipe for cracker-crust pizza dough:

4 Cups flour
2 oz whole wheat flour
1/4 oz. yeast
3/4 oz. olive oil
1/2 to 1 quart water
1/4 oz. salt
1/4 oz. honey


Place 1/2 qt. lukewarm water in bowl with honey, yeast and olive oil. Whisk all together until yeast and honey are dissolved.

Proof

Put flours and salt in mixing bowl using dough hook.

Mix flour to assure equal distribution.

Add yeast mixture, mix, then add more water if needed. Work until smooth, soft, and elastic.

Proof at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours.

Knock down and refrigerate.

Yield- 2 pounds pizza dough.

Roll/pull this out to a VERY thin pizza crust and then proceed with the toppings of your choice.

A favorite with our family.

Mike

[stevel]

Gino's East is more similar to Giordano's and Leonardo's than Uno's and Malnati's (which tend to be very greasy).

None of them use corn meal, but use a food coloring called "egg shade" (this according to Pat Bruno).

Chicago deep dish pizza uses AP flour (not bread flour). Uno's uses cake flour.

Chicago deep dish pizza crust depends on two things: 1. lots of oil (around 3 tablespoons [not teaspoons] per cup of flour); and 2. a very short kneading time (2-3 minutes).

These two things create the biscuit-like texture of the crust.

[MuskyHopeful]

I made a deep dish pizza last night from a recipe I learned from Pizzamaking.com. It is supposedly quite close to the Lou Malnati's crust. Like the last poster pointed out, it has high oil to flour ratio. This recipe was 23%. The crust, however came out light and crunchy, but not greasy. It was darn good if I say so myself. It was also my first try, so I'm extra happy about it. I'm going to IL this weekend and am planning to eat at Lou's, then I'll know how I did with the crust.

I was so proud I took pictures.

Kevin

I like Muskies.

[oldschool1982]

Kevin,

That's, that's, that's just downright and outright mean! C'mon we ain't got smell-o-net or taste-o-net yet. Didn't your mother teach ya 'bout playing nice!!!!!

BTW that sure is a nice looking Pie!!!!!! E-mail me the recipe. Hehehe

[nofifi]

Oh thank you, thank you, I've tried to duplicate that crust for years!!! I used saffron for the yellow flavor all these years in my pizza dough but it gets costly. Thanks again for the recipe!!!!!

[Smilie]

I recently found out that Wikipedia has a page for "Chicago Style Pizza". I don't know who is editing the content on it but it needs some help.

There are some things on there that are right on but other statements make you wonder if the editors are from Chicago or if they have ever tried the various pizzas in Chicagoland.

A few people here could really make some improvements to the page to make it more accurate. I would do it but you guys really know your stuff ... So go and set the record straight!


BTW I made my version of Lou's after reading this thread and getting the craving. Most of the recipes listed here are basically what I do. I use 2 parts water to 1 part canola oil and real butter combo. And I use 3 parts flour to 1 part semolina. The sauce is basically whole peeled tomatoes (packed in puree) that is handcrushed and sprinkled with grated parmesan.

Also someone asked about using or adapting this dough for thin crust pizza but IMHO this is not right. These recipes are best for pan pizza. Thin crust calls for a less flaky and more chewy dough. Except for very thin crust which should be cracker-like.

[Mezzaluna]

I'm jumping in kind of late, but Tony Manutano is chef in a good Italian place in Kenosha called Mangia. (My husband and I ate there the day we got our marriage license. ) I believe it was his cousin that started the business in a former gas station.

Here's a review by a critic whose sensibilities I usually agree with: http://www.onwisconsin.com/dining/dining.asp?id=1759.

The food is consistently excellent in my experience. They were the first to have a wood-fired oven between Milwaukee and Chicago, I think, when they opened more than 15 years ago. (I lived in Kenosha for 18 years. Pizza's the thing there. You can have a different style every day for a year, and it's almost all great pizza.)

[PeterUbers]

I'm definitely chiming in very late (I see the last post was in January of this year ..)

Basically, a little about me: I'm a pizza LOVER!! I was born and raised and currently live in Chicago, and nothing (for me) beats (in this order, of best to second best): Gino's East, Lou Malnati's, Uno's/Due's, Giordanno's.

I've have been perfecting my pizza dough recipe for about 10 years now, and have NEVER experimented (let alone KNEW about) cold fermentation. Spinnybobo's recipe is one of several I've tried recently to get to my favorite pizza recipe --> Gino's East.

Spinny's recipe is spot on (in my honest opinion).

I added all of the ingredients spinny suggested, I used the 95:5 (corn:extra virgin olive) oil ratio, and I used the cream of tartar (McCormick). The only thing I didn't use was the food coloring (i surely would have used it if it had ANYthing AT ALL to do with taste, and since it was strictly for looks, i decided to pass on it).

Here's what I did with timing, and I think this was CRITICAL to my success:

If I was going to serve my fresh, deep dish pizza at 7pm on Friday evening, I prepared my dough on Wednesday at 5pm. I mixed all the ingredients (I only had to used about 2.5 cups of bread flour, not the whole 3 cups) starting at 5pm. I used 1 T of rapid rise yeast and 1 tsp of sugar and placed this in 110 degree water and let this sit until a nice frothy foam developed on top of the water/yeast/sugar mixture (about 5 minutes). I then mixed this into the remaining ingredients. I made sure to add flour very very very slowly (I do not have a kitchen aide, so i did this by hand initially with a wisk) until I absolutely had to continue to mix in flour with my hand.

As mentioned above, I only ended up using 2.5-2.75 cups of bread flour (makes enough for ONE nine-inch deep dish pizza) and began to knead it after all the ingredients were mixed. As Spinny mentioned, I kneaded meticulously for a total of 10 minutes, no more, no less. By the time the kneading was done, the dough was tacky/sticky, but no dough stuck to my fingers or the countertop. I then heavily oiled a bowl with extra virgin olive oil, placed the dough in there, and covered it with plastic wrap and then a kitchen towel. I then placed it in an area of the kitchen that is a bit warmer than room temp (it's close to the fridge, so the heat from the back of the fridge helps the fermentation process).

I let the dough rise from 5pm on wednesday (when i made it) to the next day (thursday) at 11 am when I then placed it in the refrigerator. I did not punch down the dough at ANY time. Sometimes, while manipulating the bowl (i.e. when moving it temporarily or when placing it into the fridge, the dough level would drop down a little -- no big deal). I never actively punched it down.

Now, on friday, the day of baking --> I pull the dough out of the fridge at 3pm and let it get up to room temperature. Around 5pm, I pull the dough out of the bowl, flour my countertop, and then evenly roll the dough into a circle that is 1/3 - 1/4 inch thick. The dough will be very fragile, so take care to flour it up while manipulating it so that it won't stick to the counter top or itself and then rip. I then VERY carefully dropped it onto and into my NINE 9" inch deep dish pan (non-stick, bottom drops out, purchased from Target) which is HEAVILY lathered in extra virgin olive oil. I pinch the dough at the top and use any excess to fill in/seal holes that occured in the dough while dropping it into the dish (if you're careful, you won't have any, but if you do, do not worry).

I then sprinkled a nice even layer of Romano cheese (aged, dried) on the entire base of the dough so that the entire bottom is evenly covered with a layer of the Romano. I then filled the dish with mozzarella (Lucerne) cheese until about 1/2 of the dish was filled with Mozzarella (it's a lot of cheese but TOTALLY worth it and necessary). I then added my other toppings. I made sure to sprinkle all my toppings with some mozzarella and Romano cheese as I added them so it pulled everything together when it baked. I finally added my custom pizza sauce (see recipe below) to the top.

Baking: Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Place in the MIDDLE rack, and bake for exactly 40 minutes, no more, no less. Let cool for 5 minutes and serve and enjoy.

Sauce recipe:

28 oz. crushed tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
1 tsp sugar -- to eliminate acidity.
1 tsp salt/garlic salt
black pepper to taste
oregano, basil, italian seasoning to taste
2 T extra virgin olive oil
1 T corn oil
Romano cheese to taste
Sausage chunks for taste
Crushed (2 or three) garlic cloves to taste
Add AP or bread flour a little at a time to thicken sauce (also reduces acidity)
Simmer for 30-40 minutes to reduce acidity and blend seasonings
Refrigerate overnight
Bring to room temp and then simmer over stove before applying to top of deep dish pizza.

This pizza sauce is good enough for TWO nine 9" inch deep dish pizzas. So only use 1/2 of it for one pizza. Too much sauce will kill the pizza, so resist the urge to add more.

I thank Spinnybobo for the AWESOME dough recipe -- it's got that famous beer taste that Gino's has, as well the exact texture/crispiness -- almost that biscuit like texture in addition to the right amount of oil taste. It's beautiful.

THANK YOU SPINNYBOBO!!!

[stevel]

You don't want to use bread flour, as true Chicago deep dish depends on a biscuit-like crust. Use AP.

Through many hours of experimentation, I found that the correct ratio of oil to flour is 3 TBS (not tsp) oil: 1 cup flour. Then a very short knead (1-2 minutes).

Uno's uses pastry flour and crushed whole tomatoes. Malnati's uses crushed tomatoes as well. Giordano's uses 6-in1 tomatoes and Stella cheese. Gino's East uses EVOO in their crust and crushed whole tomatoes (and, I believe, cream of tartar).

The golden color of Chicago deep dish pizza comes from a food coloring called "egg shade". The cornmeal myth seems to stem from a recipe published years ago by Jeff Smith, which isn't even close to how authentic Chicago deep dish is made, but which has been promulgated widely on the Internet.

[bluezebra]

OMG that is really awesome that you shared the crust recipe! I've been trying for a little over 6 months now, to get the perfect deep dish crust! I can't wait to try this!

Now that you have given us the crust recipe...could we talk sauce?
What is the Pastoreli pizza sauce recipe? Does anyone have an inkling?

TIA!!! You all rock!

[stevel]

Try 6-in-1 tomatoes--this is what Giordano's uses. Add a little salt, sugar and spices to your taste.

[sprynkles]

Okay I must do this! Pizza is my religion and this is my mission!
What sort of deep dish black pan is best? I don't want to bake with
aluminium. Any recommendations?
Home Shopping Network is selling Gino's East pizzas. Two 9 inch pies
for 25.00 with a 13.00 shipping charge. Too spendy for me, so I
will be a dough slinger and a tomato squisher for the very first time.
I can not wait!!!!
Thanks all.

[MuskyHopeful]

Originally Posted by sprynkles

Okay I must do this! Pizza is my religion and this is my mission!
What sort of deep dish black pan is best? I don't want to bake with
aluminium. Any recommendations?

I use the anodized (dark PSTK coating) aluminum I purchased from this site. There is a picture of a pizza I made above in this thread. They work very well.

Deep dish pizza pans

Kevin

Packers 3 Wins 0 Losses

[ChefRAZ]

Thats the place where all the grafitti all over the walls huh? carved into the wood.right? I've been there. GOOD pizza late at night on rush street.

[sprynkles]

Thanks for the link Kevin.
Still haven't tried the recipe yet, but if it
comes out looking half as good as yours
I'll be happy!