4.6 Tricks I Used To Cook The Most Delicious Pizzas You've Never Tasted Back In The Nineties

Slow nights at work

It was the nineties, and I was going to college and working part-time at a pizza joint. The restaurant only served thin-crust pizzas and they were considered the best in town. I did notice, however, that the restaurant had one pan for a deep-dish/Chicago style, and I always found it peculiar, because nothing like that was on the menu. 

Some nights during the middle of the week would be slow with few customers, and that gave me all the time in the world to experiment. With that pan, I would craft the most delicious pizzas that were completely unavailable to the public; and I want to share some of the tricks and techniques that I used back then to achieve those results. The point of this blog is not to give a recipe with exact measurements but to show techniques that may enhance your own pizza making endeavors.

The crust

Here is the following sequence of steps I would use in order to make an extraordinary crust:

1. Cover the deep-dish pan thoroughly with olive oil...the more the better. 
2. Roll out some dough until it's thin (the restaurant had a machine for this). 
3. Spin the dough into the air to make it even thinner. 
4. Fill the oiled pan completely with the dough (remember, this is a flattened dough intended for a thin-crust pizza, but it needs to cover the entire inside of the pan, right up to the top edges).
5. Spread butter with garlic seasoning (used for garlic bread) all over the crust...this is the "magic" ingredient. 
6. Roll out the second batch of dough and place it over the first layer of dough with the butter on it. 
7. Roll a rotary perforating tool over the second layer in order to put small holes in the crust (you want the garlic butter to evenly seep through both crust layers and cook within them).

The toppings

A technique I consistently used was to load the pizzas up with a more concentrated (less watered down) pizza sauce in order to increase the tanginess of the flavor. The sauce was trapped in the multi-layer crust within the pan, which prevented a mess and increased the blending of flavors. Some pepperoni slices were added next; and then I topped it off with the following cheeses that, with the exception of mozzarella, were unavailable in the restaurant:

• Asiago
• Romano
• Parmesan
• Mozzarella
  

One trick I've found is that combining many types of cheeses will enhance the complexity of flavors in any dish. Last, I would place the entire pan into the brick oven and cook it until it was evenly browned. 

The result

Getting the pizza out of the pan was tricky, but once I did and sliced it in eight pieces, it was a thing of beauty to behold. Imagine a crust that tastes and feels similar to a buttery pie crust, with a flaky texture. Tangy, flavorful red sauce oozed out the side, and the savory mixture of the different Italian cheeses on top was just slightly burned to perfection. The combination of flavors would give it a richness that I've never tasted since...even on my trips to Chicago, I still can't find pizza like the ones I crafted back in the day. I hope you can find some of these ideas helpful in your own cooking and if you liked what you read please check out some of my other blogs.

DISCLAIMER These were dishes I made for personal consumption and in no way reflect techniques used by any restaurants or corporations that I previously worked at.