Jess

January 17, 2010 at 8:08am

I am looking forward to trying the recipe but I see one thing right off the bat that I take issue with and that is the addition of cornmeal. None of the big-time Chicago deep dish establishments use cornmeal, and I personally find cornmeal in my crust to be gritty and unpleasant. I plan on substituting semolina in your recipe, a recommendation which is found on many of the posted recipes for deep dish on pizzamaking.com, and has worked well for me. Also, I have never heard of parbaking a Chicago style crust. I'm willing to give it a try though, minus the cornmeal. Also, if you are in the Uno's area again and they are too busy, try Due's. Same owners, same pizza but less busy in general, and walking distance from Uno's. And if you are ever a couple hours south in Champaign (home of the University of Illinois, Go Illini!), make sure to stop at Papa Del's, one of the best Chicago style places outside of Chicagoland. If you are on the east coast and see an Uno's Chicago Grill and think you might want to try a Chicago deep dish, keep going. It is not even remotely the same thing. It's not terrible pizza but it is nothing like authentic Chicago deep dish. Jess, what can I say? I'm an Easterner. The first 5 Chicago deep-dish pizza crust recipes that came up on Google search results - including pizzamaking.com, result #5 - included cornmeal. So I figured cornmeal was the "authentic" ingredient. And it works for me in this recipe - with just 3 tablespoons, it adds mild crunch, not noticeable grittiness. Semolina sounds like a great addition, though - I'll definitely try it next time. As for parbaking - force of habit, I always parbake my pizza crusts. I like the crusty/crisp texture parbaking imparts. And I'll try Due's if I get the chance - thanks for the tip! PJH
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.