Norman’s Deep Dish Pizza

Norman’s Deep Dish Pizza

I have to say that I believe, with out a doubt, the Chicago area has the best pizza available anywhere in the nation. Everything from thin to thick, stuffed to double decker, and it’s all good. In my opinion, Chicago is the pizza capital of the country.

A couple of years back, I saw a car with a bumper sticker that read: “Pizza is like sex. When it’s good, it’s great. When it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.” When I related that to a group over dinner, my sister, the Lovely Aunt Ginny, exclaimed “That was obviously not written by a woman!” I’m not sure what she’s getting at. 

Anyways, here’s a recipe I wrote up about ten years ago, for you to try. You can use it to verify the accuracy of that bumper sticker.

1/2 batch Norman’s Bread Dough

2 five inch lengths of Italian sausage 

3 cloves garlic - chopped

black pepper

onion powder

1 small can tomato paste

1/4 cup chopped kalamata olives

oregano

olive oil

red wine

1 cup parmesan

1/2 lb. shredded mozzarella

Corn meal

Preparation

Make the bread dough and let it rise. Cut the sausage into half inch lengths. Heat a skillet and add enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Add the sausage and the garlic and lightly brown the sausage over medium heat. Remove the sausage to a bowl.

Add the tomato paste to the skillet. Add some black pepper, onion powder and oregano - don’t ask how much, just add some. Stir and cook over medium heat for about one or two minutes. Start adding red wine, a little at a time, while stirring until you have a nice thick sauce. Sprinkle a little more onion powder and oregano over the sauce. Stir one more time and remove from the heat.

Roll out your dough and place it in a large cast iron pan that has been sprinkled with corn meal. Shape the edge of the dough up the side of the cast iron pan to make a bowl-like shape. Pierce the surface of the dough all over with a fork and bake at 350 until the crust just starts to brown.

Remove the pan from the oven and cover the top of the crust with about half of the sauce. Add the sausage, olives, parmesan and mozzarella, in that order. Dot the top of the pizza with more of the remaining sauce. Bake about 15 minutes until the cheese is golden brown. 

Remove the pizza from the oven and use a spatula to remove the pizza from the cast iron pan. Place the pizza on a large flat pizza pan and drizzle the top or it with extra virgin olive oil. Let it stand for five minutes before slicing.

Serving

What goes good with deep dish pizza? Well, I’d start with a caesar salad. For an appetizer, I’d slice some goat cheese, wrap it in thinly sliced prosciutto and seared in olive oil. I also like Chianti when I enjoy deep dish pizza. For dessert, I usually have a couple more slices of pizza.