Are There Any Pics Of Best Chicago style pie in Chicago?

[MrA]

I am making some delicious deep dish pies, using corn masa flour instead of corn meal. I am trying to get it thin and crispy like our local Sacramento, CA pizzeria that calls itself a Chicago style. It's almost like it has been deep fried, thin and crispy, with a slight amount of bread in the middle. I wish someone could email me an authentic pie, but a pic would do nicely. My pies come out like thin biscuits, browned, but bready. Hell, maybe it is deep fried! I have not figured out how to resize my pics to post them here yet, sorry.

[buceriasdon]

I use and recommend this free easy to use download:     http://www.imageoptimizer.net/Pages/Home.aspx       Knowledgeable members who bake Chicago style on this forum maintain there is no cornmeal used in the dough but since you are making them for yourself, you have only yourself to make happy. What is your method presently for making the crust and baking it?
Don

[BTB]

MrA, I dislike the word "best" because its so subjective and  . . . gets controversial.  Please check out the Malnati's pictures that I posted the other day at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6480.msg169425.html#msg169425 .  That's just one example among many on the internet and youtube.  The Malnati's pictures, however, don't show that at the restaurants they generally have much more tomato sauce blanketing the pizza than their marketing pictures show.  Like this one from an earlier posting of mine at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8921.msg77313.html#msg77313 .  And further down in that link are some more deep dish pizzeria examples. 

If you study the multitude of information on this website, you won't make a "bready" deep dish pizza ever again.  But there are not many shortcuts to getting there, beside the old-fashioned "trial and error."

Do you have a website link for the California Chicago Deep Dish Pizzeria for us to look at?

Don is right.  As has been reported and proven on this site many times, none of the classic Chicago style deep dish pizzerias use corn meal in their crust's formulation.  But still many like it and that's certainly all right. But that's been a myth that's been perpetuated for years and will still be around in a dozen or two years from now.

                                                                                  --BTB

[MrA]

Guess it's the same here, people consider it a toss up between Zelda's http://www.zeldasgourmetpizza.com/
and Chicago Fire http://www.chicagofire.com/ and there is Linda's an affiliation of Zelda's. I am partial to Chicago Fire myself, they are all very tasty.
 Can you suggest some links to read, thank you. My method of making dough is the Dez recipe on this site. I mix all the dry ingredients, add water, short knead, and refrigerate over night.

[BTB]

MrA, I looked at those websites as its always interesting to learn what the left coast is doing with Chicago Style deep dish pizza like that enjoyed in Chicago.  They both showed very dark, well-seasoned pans, which is a good thing.  It takes many years to get pans seasoned like that.  Zelda's had a very nice pinched and crimped pizza rim which makes for a nice tasty crust.  Chicago Fire looked very good, too, with the crust's edge being a little thicker, tho, but could be just as good.  The first picture below is from Zelda's and the second from Chicago Fire.

BTW, what kind of links do you mean and what are you wanting to read about?  And in your crust mixture, you had no mention of oil, which is a major ingredient in deep dish pizza.  Did you just forget to mention it?  Not sure what the Dez recipe is.

                                                                                    --BTB

[MrA]

This recipe on this site is what I have used a few times- http://www.pizzamaking.com/dkm_chicago.php
 Links to threads discussing how to get a crispy thin crust. I forgot Linda's, http://www.letseat.at/lindas. I haven't been successful yet at a crispy crust. A few experiments have produced some delicious results. I like to bake my own bread with sourdough. I have been making sourdough crusts, with Devin's recipe, omitting the corn meal, and adding dry mashed potato flakes, and a half cube of butter. Still not crispy, but very tasty!

[Rich]

Some words of wisdom from the source:

Chicago deep dish secret ingredient = LAKE MICHIGAN.  You don't have anything close in California.

And yes you must use oil in the dough.  Mostly corn oil, and some olive.

You want Malnati's buttercrust?  Use clarified butter, and brush it on top of the dough after it's in the pan.  The butter permeates everything, giving the entire pizza a buttery taste.

Uno Chicago Grill should be destroyed - it has NOTHING to do with the original recipe and is awful. 

Stuffed Pizza is not deep dish.  That picture of Chicago Fire looks like stuffed pizza, Zelda's looks like deep dish.

[vcb]

Some words of wisdom from the source:

Chicago deep dish secret ingredient = LAKE MICHIGAN.  You don't have anything close in California.

And yes you must use oil in the dough.  Mostly corn oil, and some olive.

You want Malnati's buttercrust?  Use clarified butter, and brush it on top of the dough after it's in the pan.  The butter permeates everything, giving the entire pizza a buttery taste.

Uno Chicago Grill should be destroyed - it has NOTHING to do with the original recipe and is awful. 

Stuffed Pizza is not deep dish.  That picture of Chicago Fire looks like stuffed pizza, Zelda's looks like deep dish.

Hi, Rich! 

Just wondering...

When you say "from the source", which "source" were you referring to?

Are you confirming the use of clarified butter for butter crust and not margarine or something else?

Also, I prefer to dispel myths rather than try to perpetuate them,
so although I will concede that various minerals and other elements in water may contribute slightly to dough variations,
the "water" arguments typically "don't hold much" with me.
I don't think water makes enough of a a difference that you can't come close to the same results from one location to the other.  :-)
I know some will disagree with this. Next time I visit another zip code and make a pizza, I'll be happy to confirm. 

Stuffed Pizza is technically deep dish, but it is a variation from the original, which was created about 30 years later.
http://www.realdeepdish.com/2011/12-29-deep-dish-101-lesson-3-chicago-pizza-styles-and-maybe-a-dough-recipe/

I share your sentiment about the Uno's Grill Chains. 

[Rich]

The source being me, in Chicago and the notes I've taken over the years from talking to people in the business.
A lot of people in New York and Chicago think the local water is a major component to the dough.  That being said, I probably should have been a little less serious about it in my post.  I am not 100% convinced either, but I do like to hear the arguments for/against this theory and people in Los Angeles (for example) have said their water sucks and is not helpful in making better pizzas.  But it could also mean they just don't know how to make dough!

A Malnati's staff member confirmed my guess at what I thought buttercrust was at Malnati's.

I also got some insight from a former manager at Pizzeria Due, just to throw out another source to deep dish making.

Stuffed Pizza is my least favorite pizza.  That useless, gummy layer of bland dough on top just under the sauce is nothing special and I just don't really care for the stuffed recipes I've had overall (though I had an amazing one at a Nancy's once, but I can't remember which one and I never had anything close since). 

Here's a funny story.  I had heard that a place called Art Of Pizza was named Best Deep Dish in the city by the Tribune or Time Out Chicago or something like that, so I had to try it.  I went there with my brother around 10pm on a Friday night to check it out.  When we got there, we were told they were closing soon and only could sell us slices.  When I looked at the slices, they had Stuffed, and a really doughy pizza with a glob of rubber cheese on it (ok, THIS is the most hated kind of pizza to me).  I asked if they had their award winning deep dish available.  They said the stuffed was it.  I was mad.  I pointed out that it was stuffed, not authentic deep dish, but they called it deep dish.  So I ordered a slice anyway, figuring it must be good.  My brother and I ate our slices outside and we were actually mad while we ate what we thought might have been the best stuffed slices we ever had!  "This is not deep dish!  Those idiots got it wrong.  Boy this is great stuffed pizza, but I wanted deep dish!"

[MrA]

It could the water, or more specific, the minerals still present in the water after treatment process. Surely no one is using untreated Lake Michigan surface water straight from the lake. Climate  affects doughs also, ie, San Francisco sourdough will be different than sourdough made ion Chicago.