Deep Dish Spinach and Ricotta Pizza

This Friday’s pizza was my introduction into the world of Chicago-style deep dish and as far as first attempts go I’d say it turned out rather well. The decision to try my hand at the deep dish genre is entirely a product of this blog, which since its inception has only furthered my desire to understand pizza better. With time I hope to be able to offer some insights and advice on deep dish preparation but for the sake of full disclosure I should say this not my favorite school of pizza. I grew up on the east coast of the United States (a land dominated by New York and Neapolitan style pizzas) where I never encountered one of these deep dish, sauce-on-top concoctions until long after my personal biases were set. Even now, after pouring over recipes, reading about the history of deep dish, and thoroughly enjoying the preparation of this spinach and ricotta pie I find myself struggling with the question: Does this really count as pizza?

I mean, c’mon, it has to be eaten it with a fork.

Dough rolled and ready for pizza assembly.

While the indisputable origins of Chicago’s deep dish pizza are lost to history its invention is popularly attributed to two people, Ric Riccardo and Ike Sewell, who introduced it as a signature dish in their restaurant The Pizzeria back in 1943. That restaurant eventually morphed into the original Pizzeria Uno, now a major restaurant franchise across the USA. Whatever the true origins it is safe to say that deep dish is a relative newcomer on the pizza scene and radically different from anything that came before.

Deep dish pizzas are cooked in special steel pans with high edges allowing for a deep, though not necessarily thick, pizza crust to be fitted within. I don’t own one of those special deep dish pans so I used a cast iron skillet in its place, which is a workable but not ideal substitution. Once the dough is rolled out and fitted to the pan layers of cheese, vegetables, and/or meat are placed inside. The pizza is then baked for up to 30 minutes while the crust forms, after which it is removed from the oven, extricated from the pan and sliced. The very last step after slicing is to add a thick layer of tomato sauce on top before it gets serve up to be eaten like pie. With all the extra room for cheese and toppings created by the high crust walls each slice of deep dish pizza is typically a filling meal in and of itself.

Pizza assembly, almost ready for the oven.

Ingredients, bottom to top:

• 1 deep dish pizza dough, (650 g)
• Mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced to form a bottom cheese layer (225 g)
• ½ cup ricotta cheese
• 1 ½ cups spinach, sautéed and well drained
• ½ cup shredded cheese mixture – mozzarella, parmesan, sharp cheddar
• 2 cups tomato sauce
• Additional ricotta and sautéed spinach for garnish

Pizza sliced and ready for the sauce.

Complete

General Thoughts:

This pizza was very tasty in its own right. It’s hard to argue with that much cheese, spinach and sauce layered in one place (if Chicago-style does have one advantage over the others it is all that cheese). As previously mentioned my personal bias is towards thin crust so while eating I found myself mostly just thinking about this pizza’s flaws. Specifically about the fact that deep dish pizzas tend to be a little doughy. I think my first investigation on how to improve this pizza will focus on the crust. I’d like to find a way to make it tastier so that the extra bread flavor becomes a strength instead of a weakness and perhaps also a better way to crisp up the bottom crust to add more structure.

Finally, because Chicago-style pizza calls for so much more tomato sauce than traditional pizza it’s imperative that the marinara or pizza sauce used be flavorful. Try to avoid the lower quality, cheap sauces sold at your local grocery store. In fact most store bought marinara tends to be runny where this pizza really needs a thicker consistency sauce so it might be worth your while to skip the pre-made jars altogether and prepare your own.

I’ll be making many more deep dish pizzas in the future.