Recipe fopr Authentic Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

[Steve]

You're lucky to have a Giordano's close by!!!!!!!

As for your question--they run the dough through a sheeter twice, then put it in the pan, add shredded cheese, topping, and cover it with sauce before baking. The sauce is 6-in-1 tomatoes--there's a bit of heat in it, which means they're adding red pepper flakes. The closest I've come is to add crushed garlic, S and P (the sauce is salty), red pepper flakes, sugar, and dried "pizza seasoning" (basil, oregano, fennel, garlic, etc.). Then Parmesan on top.

I'm assuming that their oven is set at 450 (Connie's is), and it takes around half an hour to cook at the restaurant.

Glad you liked it--it's excellent stuff!

Lately I've been using Sorrento mozzarella, which I find superior to Stella--it seems a bit closer to the cheese Gordano's uses. I might try a blend of the two!

Buzz, do you have a digital camera? Can you post pictures of your dough making and the final pizza?

[buzz]

No, I don't have one. But if you go to giordanos.com and look at the picture of the deep dish pizza there, that's what it looks like!

[buzz]

I'm not positive about this, but I think a refrigerator rise for this type of dough toughens it up a bit--it seems to me the Chicago deep dish pizza places leave giant hunks of dough out at room temperature, so I think a long rise (5-8 hours) at room temperature is the best. Next time I make it, I'm going to do this!

[IlliniPizza]

Thanks for the Info Buzz,

I am not sure if all the Giordano's restaurants are the same around Chicago.  I have heard some bad things about a few of them in the loop, but I have never gotten a bad pizza from the one near my house. 

For the cheese, I find it to be very dry and sort of stringy, which works well with their pizza.  I am guessing that they use a low-moisture whole milk cheese, it is very good, sort of holds the toppings in suspension.

I know the one around my house uses a Cutler rotating conveyor oven.  I don't know if that does anything for the pizza itself, or is just a convenience factor.

As for pans, I usually never make a stuffed pizza larger then 10inches.  The pizzas are so thick that 1-2 pieces usually fills me up.  I really like the 10inch round cake pans from Williams-Sonoma.  They are made by Chicago Metallic, and are thick aluminized-steel.  Virtually indestructable.  Works beautifully for Stuffed Pizza.

[Ray Imp]

It was good to see other folks besides my family miss Giordano's pizza. I am going to try the recipes posted ... does anyone know cheeses and amounts used for a 10 inch Giordano's pizza?

Thanks & Best Regards,

Ray

[itsinthesauce]

I hope I did this right

[Pete-zza]

Double your pleasure, double your fun

Peter

[itsinthesauce]

I can eat them better than I can post them.....thank God. LOL

[buzz]

I use a Chicago Metallic 10" as well. "Real" Chicago deep dish pans are black, not metallic, but when I was looking for one, I couldn't find one. Maybe you can now.

I've been experimenting with the types of cheese available at grocery stores--obviously consumers can't get restaurant mozzarella. Sorrento, I think, comes closest to Girodano's--Stella is excellent, too, but I've come to prefer Sorrento.

For a 10" deep dish, use just a little over half a pound of cheese.

Itsinthesauce--Chicago pizza places put the cheese on the bottom, not on the top (which is covered with sauce)! So you wouldn't have the browning of the cheese as in your photo.

[itsinthesauce]

That was a stuffed pizza my son made. He takes it a bit further by duplicating the cheese on top as well as the bottom.  About one peice can fill you up.

[IlliniPizza]

I use the nonstick Chicago Metallic Pans, they are real dark and brown pretty well.  I have been seasoning them for a while now, and only use them for pizza.

I have a 12, 14, & 16 inch black hard coat pans I bought from a little caesars that went out of business, $4 a piece.  They are about 2 1/2 inches deep, jet black and well seasoned.

Ebay is a great place to find restaurant pizza pans pretty cheap, and if your lucky you can get them still with the seasoning intact.

Giordano's Pizza is stuffed, so they use 2 interlocking crusts, the sauce goes on the top crust.  This also allows, the toppings below to steam cook.  Mushrooms & Pepperoni are my favorites.  My girlfriend loves shrimp & brocolli.  Spinach works well also.  I think a stuffed pizza is the only type of pizza, were brocoli is a viable option.

I was up in Milwaukee recently & had Eduardo's pizza.  The crusts are very similar, I can tell little difference between each of their stuffed pizzas.
 

[buzz]

What Giordano's calls a "stuffed" pizza is just a regular deep dish pizza (no top crust). Perhaps they have a real stuffed Chicago pizza (with a top crust, like a pie) on the menu, but I've never had it.

[burn8]

In the Travel Channel - Giordanos video that was posted to this site, the cook was spinning the dough prior to dropping it into the pan. I was under the impression that you cannot spin a low-gluten dough like this.

Is it possible that Giordanos is using a higher gluten flour for their crust?

thanks,
-burn8

[buzz]

At the Giordano's that I go to they sheet the dough, but they sheeter then tosses it across the room to the pizza makers. I believe that Tom Lehman specifies a lower-gluten flour (like AP) for deep dish pizzas because you don't want them to be crispy, like a cracker crust.

[lilbuddypizza]

What Giordano's calls a "stuffed" pizza is just a regular deep dish pizza (no top crust). Perhaps they have a real stuffed Chicago pizza (with a top crust, like a pie) on the menu, but I've never had it.

Giordano's has never had deep dish/super thick crust. They only serve thin and stuffed(crust on top of sealed "pie", with sauce on top of that). I have been eating it since their first place on 63rd & California in Chicago.

[buzz]

All I can vouch for is what I've seen myself--at the Giordano's I go to you the kitchen is open to public view, and you can watch them make the pizzas from start to finish. No top crust that I've seen! The guy who owns this franchise is a bit of a maverick (and I heard he's had a fight with Giordano's corporate), so maybe he makes it his own way!

[stymie]

At the Giordano's that I go to they sheet the dough, but they sheeter then tosses it across the room to the pizza makers.

Unless that isn't a dough sheeter to the right of the guy who has the dough first, then I would say that they are doing it the same way in the video.
I'd really like to be able to handle dough like that. It might be time to make up some practice batches 
(http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/6391/sheeter7is.jpg)

[Trinity]

 

That 'is' a dough sheeter.

[lilbuddypizza]

All I can vouch for is what I've seen myself--at the Giordano's I go to you the kitchen is open to public view, and you can watch them make the pizzas from start to finish. No top crust that I've seen! The guy who owns this franchise is a bit of a maverick (and I heard he's had a fight with Giordano's corporate), so maybe he makes it his own way!

If that is the case, I should move by you. The one thing I hate about stuffed IS the top layer. It is NEVER properly cooked. If you look at some of the pics in the other threads, you can even see this. Most people mistake this for cheese because it has the exact same consistency, but I find raw dough repulsive. When I make stuffed at home, I always cook it without the sauce for a good 30 minutes, put the sauce on, and then put it back in for another 15-20 minutes. When the weather gets cooler here in Chicago, I will bake one and post pics.Also, in the same vein, I have a place by me that makes the stuffed in the old "original" way----the Easter Pie way. The top crust is barely covered with sauce--all of the ingredients are inside of the pie. I'll get pics of that too.

[buzz]

I've never had a raw dough problem with them! This is all very odd to me!

As for the sheeter--I haven't seen the video, but what they do at this Giordano's is run the dough through the sheeter twice, and then the dough circle is flung like a frisbee across the room (maybe 15 feet) to the pizza-making area, where it lands on a stainless steel shelf above the heads of the cooks.