Tuesday night's election gave me an excuse to embrace decadence in multiple forms as long as I could tie it into the theme of the day - the election of Barack Obama.
My first stop was a post work happy hour with friends at The Three Monkey's, where lots of election day food and drink items were on the menu. That is, except this, which I named the Obamargarita. True, it was just a blue margarita, but it was tasty nonetheless.
For dinner I tried my hand at making a Chicago style deep dish pizza in a cast iron skillet. You'll have to excuse the lack of detail and instruction as I try my hand at documenting the trials and errors of turning out a onion, mushroom, garlic and spinach pie from scratch on a work day.
An olive oiled cast iron skillet, brushed on both the bottom and sides. I've read that some pizzerias in Chicago do this to help the dough release after cooking. While I didn't think I would try to turn this pie out, I did want to be able to cut and serve it.
This is a version of the Neo-Neapolitan dough that I discussed back in August, with corn meal cut into the dough. Once baked I thought the dough came out more like a hybrid pizza/cornbread crust, which was tasty, but not what I was looking for. Room for improvement here for sure.
Sliced mozzarella cheese builds the base of a Chicago style pizza. All told this was about 6 or 7 slices.
The next layer was a mixture of spinach, onions, garlic and mushrooms that I sauteed on the stove before adding to the pizza. My goal was to cook most of the water out so it didn't end up pooling in the pizza during cooking.
The next two layers were a chunky tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese. Next time I think I'll try adding the cheese layer about half way into cooking, if only for aesthetics when the pie is pulled from the oven.
I made a quick foil rim to cover the crust for the first 30 minutes of the 400 degree / 50 minute cooking time. I also let the pizza cool and set up for about 15 minutes before cutting.
I'll have to give several aspects of this recipe some thought before attempting again, especially the dough, which was sturdy enough to hold up to the mass of this pie, but not really what I was looking for. However, for all the things this pie was not, it was a welcome change from our normal pizza night pies. It was also a great night of celebration with friends stopping by all night to watch the results come in and partake of this Chicago masterpiece.
