How about a "lite" version of a sausage-pepperoni deep-dish pizza?
After salivating over the most recent deep-dish pizza made by Steve, I thought I would make a scaled-down version (9-inch) of DKM's deep-dish recipe. That is, until I read Randy's post bemoaning the negative health implications of using Crisco shortening, as Steve did in his deep-dish pizza. Randy's comments got me to thinking how one might reduce the saturated fat in the typical sausage-pepperoni deep-dish pizza. It isn't the canola oil, olive oil or corn oil that is the problem. They are unsaturated fats. It's the saturated fats in sausage, pepperoni and cheese and the hydrogenated shortenings like Crisco that are considered today's villains. And the trans fatty acids in Crisco shortening. After thinking about how I might reduce the saturated fats and trans fatty acids, I ended up with the following changes to DKM's basic recipe:
-Substituted Smart Balance spread (available in almost all supermarkets) for the corn oil (Smart Balance is a solid, natural oil blend of palm fruit, soybean, canola seed and olive oils--all unsaturated fats--and no trans fatty acids. I added it directly to the flour, as is the standard approach when using solid fats).
-Pre-cooked the sausage meat until pink, and drained on paper towels until dry.
-Cooked the pepperoni slices (Hormel) in a tablespoon of olive oil until slightly crispy and drained on paper towels until the slices were completely dry.
-Added a teaspoon of light olive oil (a monounsaturate) to the pre-cooked sausage to replace the saturated fats and retain the fat "mouth feel".
-Substituted soy mozzarella cheese (Soy-Sation Lite brand) for a part of the total cheeses used (the others were standard deli mozzarella cheese and provolone cheese--and all were used in equal amounts by weight).
I also made the following changes, which were not related to the objective of reducing saturated fats or trans fatty acids:
-Scaled down DKM's recipe to produce a dough ball of a size to make a 9-inch deep-dish pizza (with a dough ball weight of around 15 ounces).
-Temperature adjusted the water to achieve a finished dough temperature of around 80 degrees F.
-Substituted a 50/50 mixture (by weight) of corn meal and corn flour for the corn meal called for in DKM's recipe (this was just an experiment to lighten the "corn" taste of the crust.)
-Substituted IDY for ADY.
-Drained the 6-in-1 tomatoes to thicken it (in an effort to avoid the excess water problem alluded to by Steve in his recent post on the merits of the Bonta/6-in-1 combination).
-Added a few drops of McCormick yellow food coloring during the dough kneading (this was a nostalgic action--to bring back my memories of the yellow Gino's crusts from the days when I lived in the Chicago area. Note: the yellow food coloring looks red coming out of the bottle, but it is yellow when it gets into the dough and is kneaded).
-Used a food processor instead of a stand mixer to do all the mixing and kneading (I used only the "pulse" switch).
The photo below shows the finished product, and the following photo shows a typical slice. The taste was very good, and I couldn't tell that there was less fat and I couldn't detect the soy mozzarella cheese. The soy mozzarella cheese blended right in with the standard mozarrella cheese and the provolone cheese (between which I had placed the soy mozzarella cheese). I regret I didn't take a photo of the pizza on edge to show its elevation (the pan I used was a dark baking pan with a side 2 inches high). By the time I thought to do so a good part of the pizza had already been eaten. However, the slice photo in the next post shows the elevation, and the yellow tint to the crust as well.
Peter
