Malnati Deep Dish with Semolina

[November]

Who won?

B

[BTB]

I'll say it if no one else will.  Bobby Flay couldn't win.  He could never (well I know that's a long time) make a pizza crust as good as Malnati's.  Lou Malnati's pizza won by a landslide and it is usually rated No. 1 or 2 in the midwest year after year after year.  I don't think Flay and his hard working crew could ever develop a formulation that would get them even close to Malnati's (sound bias, don't I?).  In one respect, I think Bobby Flay always expects to lose.  He did with the fried chicken, chocolate chip cookie, country fried steak and many other challenges on his "throwdown" show.  Besides his crust formulation just looking terrible, most have to agree that feeding a pizza with Broccoli Rabe as a main ingredient would never, never appeal to a north suburban Chicago crowd.  Maybe to the gourmet crowd in California or at a fancy New York City restaurant, but not in Marc Malnati's back yard.  I'm ribbing a bit, but still can't get over that choice of ingredient for a pizza.  I know there are probably some of you out there that think it's perfectly logical, but I just found that funny.

[Pizza_Not_War]

BTB -

Earlier in this thread you said "My guests raved about the pizza saying that it really hit the spot and that they thought it was much better than Lou Malnati's."

I don't know anything about you, are you a trained chef or other food professional that allowed you to out cook Malnati's? Bobby Flay has the services of a staff of food professionals, access to ingredients and research, etc. Why don't you think he can do what you did?

I have no axe to grind, no dog in the fight - but I do believe that a motivated chef can reconstruct just about anything given the time and resources to do so. I am a pure amateur but I can make a better pizza than most any commercial establishment I have ever been to.

PNW

[Vlap]

I belong to several different types of cooking forums. Like the others I must say I am absolutely impressed by the incredible knowledge contained on this site. Thank you all for the recipes, photos and techniques I have seen posted throughout. This post is incredible as well. Thank you all! 

[BTB]

Let's just simply agree to disagree, PNW, and leave it at that.  I like your moniker.  Let's make pizza, not war.  And let's try to make the greatest pizzas ever.  Merry Christmas.
--BTB

[lj]

I finally made this pizza last night, It turned out perfect!
Thank you soooo much for the awsome recipe.
   For Christmas I got 2 9 inch pans so I used your original recipe and just doubled it.
   The only thing I did different was instead of olive oil I used butter, and I added extra cheese on top
of the pizza too.
     I made 1.. sausage, onion & red pepper and the other sausage.
Thanks for your great recipe and all the help. I will be making this pizza once a week 
   
Those 6 in 1 tomatoes are the best tomatoes I have ever tasted... I just added basil, oregano and honey...Yummm

[mkc]

Last night was our try at BTB's recipe.

Let me preface and say that other than a Cooking Light recipe from 2004 or 2005, I have never made deep dish before.  We like the CL recipe, but the crust was definitely not what all the Chicago experts have been describing. 

We also have never actually HAD real Chicago-style pizza, having grown up and lived much of our lives in the NY 'burbs.

I made a 12" BTB Malnati with 25% semolina.  I don't have a deep dish pan, so I patted it into my 12" Lodge cast iron skillet (which is what I use for the Cooking Light recipe).  It was definitely unlike any other dough, bread, pizza, cookie, or pie that I've ever made or worked with, but I had faith


I topped it with mozzarella slices and a little shredded Stella asiago because I didn't have any provolone.

Then I made a patty of chicken Italian sausage (made with dark meat, I believe, it's from Sprouts) that I formed on plastic wrap, then flipped onto the cheese and peeled off the wrap.  Then a few slices of pepperoni (which I think I should have nuked a little first.

[mkc]

Continuing on....

I had some cremini mushrooms (baby bellas) in the fridge that needed using, so I sliced them and sauteed them until mostly dry, with a little minced garlic for taste.  Seems I forgot to take a photo of this.

Finally, some drained Sprouts crushed tomatoes in puree that I'd drained, which were mixed with Penzey's Pizza seasoning, a little white pepper, kosher salt, and honey (per BTB).  And here I made an error - I didn't know how much sauce I'd need and had only bought 1 can of the Sprouts tomatoes, so I had to add some S&W organic tomato sauce to give me enough volume.  In retrospect, I should have used some drained diced Muir Glen instead, since the sauce baked up a little too gloopy.  Sorry for the blurry photo.

The final topping was freshly grated parm.

I started the oven at 475 on bake with the pizza stone just below the middle.  After 15 minutes I dropped the temperature to 450, rotated the pan, and turned on the convection fan.  The edges got a little overdone and the top started browning a bit too much so I pulled it after another 12 minutes.  In retrospect, next time I'd still preheat to 475 but drop to 450 as soon as the pizza went in. 

We let it sit for about 15 minutes before cutting.  The sauce was too loose to safely try and get the pie out of the pan (I am notorious for getting tomato sauce on my shirt when cooking, and had already sacrificed one top while draining the tomatoes), plus the outside dough was very delicate.  Again, sorry the photo is blurry.  I was taking them without the flash to get better color rendition.

It was exceedingly tasty and we will definitely try it again with the tweaks to ronis, tomatoes, and baking temperature.

Michelle

[MatthewWM]

That looks great BTB I am going to give this recipe a try and see how it turns out.

[MarleyEds]

Hello all - I've been lurking for a week, and was instantly enamored with this recipe.  I live in the Chicago burbs, and go to Malnati's all the time.  Cooking has become one of my favorite hobbies over the past year or so, and pizza is my favorite food, so I'm surprised I haven't found this forum before.  I've baked a few pizzas from scratch before, but never did too much research into it.  With Malnati's, Gino's, Giordano's, Aurelio's, Home Run Inn, Barone's and others close by, I guess I never found it worth the time.  Well, my culinary travels have finally brought me "home" - and so it has begun.   

After reading this thread, I copied the original instructions, made my grocery list, and went shopping.  14" Chicago Metallic pan, 6-in-1, Semolina, Mozz, Provolone, Scamorza, etc. in hand - I excitedly went to work on the dough Tue night.  I went with a 20% semolina mixture.  Oddly enough, amongst the 15 or so different types of Bob's Red Mill grains, my deli did not have Semolina - so I wound up grabbing what they had, which was basically a generic brand.

As I mentioned, I printed off the original recipe posted here, so I had to go back and copy the ingredient chart for a 14" pie.  Well, when I went to proof my yeast - I read the water measurement from the 9" chart.  When I started adding flour to the yeast mixture, I quickly realized my error and added the remaining amount of water.  I'm not sure if it made any difference.  I also do not have a digital scale (yet), so all the fractionalized measurements were eyeballed on my regular scale.  In the end, the dough ball seemed very oily to me, but this was the first time I've made pizza dough with this much of an oil ratio, so it could just be I wasn't used to it.

Cheese wise I used 9.5 oz of sliced Sorrento mozz, 3.5 oz of sliced Dietz & Watson provo, 3 oz of shredded Chellino scamorza, and fresh ground Parm Reggiano (the undisputed king of cheeses).  I wasn't sure how much dry spice to add to my drained tomatoes, and would up using a little more than combined TBS of McCormick Italian Herb grinder, sea salt, white pepper, and alleppo pepper.  I skipped the ginger because I'm not a big ginger fan.  I also added some jarred minced garlic and that dash of honey, which wound up being close to 2 tsp.

Toppings wise, I went half cheese and half sausage/onion/garlic.  I sauted the white onion and freshly minced garlic.  Even though I had the local knowledge and read it many times in posts here, I went with hot italian sausage over sweet or mild because it was all I had defrosted - a local grocery brand at that - and I paid the price, as the taste was not good.

[MarleyEds]

...continuing on

I had preheated my oven at 475 for an hour, turned down to 450, and cooked for 15 minutes - then rotated 180 and cooked an additional 10 minutes.  It wound up being overcooked a little, but the crust was still nice.  The pie slid right out of the pan (thanks Crisco!).

This was by far the best pizza I've ever made.  My wife liked the sauce better than Malnati's.  I actually think I used too much sauce and will not use the entire 28 oz can next time.  The pie didn't taste like Malnati's - it was still awesome though.  I guess I will have to try a couple more times   

This was so much fun - it was all I could think about while at work yesterday.  Waiting the hour and a half for my dough to come to room temperature was painful.  Thanks to everyone who posted all the information.  I cannot wait to make my next one, as well as experiment and try some of the other recipes posted in the forum.

[FLAVORMAN]

Marleyed,

I posted awhile back if you follow many of the recipes on this blog you will have created a great pizza. Looks like you have succeeded. One question about Lou's..Not that many years ago we visited Lou's in Buffalo Grove on a weekly basis. We made a trip to Lou's a few months ago during a Chicago visit. Do you think the pizza is the same as years past? My wife and I might have had a bad night but we have also had pizza's shipped from Lou's and were very disappointed. Would like your opinion..Thanks   Flavorman
p.s.  :Your pizza looks great!!!!!!!!

[MarleyEds]

Well, as I'm sure you're assuming as well, I would definitely say the pizza is better in-restaurant than the frozen take home ones.  I usually pick up a few of the frozen ones every time we go to the restaurant.  They are usually consistant taste wise, but I have gotten one that was not up to par every now and again.  They appear to make a decent effort to date them (or stamp them somehow) and keep them "fresh" - but I'm sure a few sit a while longer than they should.

The quality of the in-store pizza also varies from restaurant to restaurant.  When I first started going to the downtown Naperville restaurant, it was definitely not up to par of Schaumberg/Roselle and some of the other I've been to, but they have gotten better - I'm guessing they brought in more experienced cooks at some point.  When I say "quality" - I'm referring to taste, sometimes they are more bland than normal.

Marleyed,

I posted awhile back if you follow many of the recipes on this blog you will have created a great pizza. Looks like you have succeeded. One question about Lou's..Not that many years ago we visited Lou's in Buffalo Grove on a weekly basis. We made a trip to Lou's a few months ago during a Chicago visit. Do you think the pizza is the same as years past? My wife and I might have had a bad night but we have also had pizza's shipped from Lou's and were very disappointed. Would like your opinion..Thanks   Flavorman
p.s.  :Your pizza looks great!!!!!!!!

[BTB]

Wow, MarleyEds, that is a good looking pizza for your first venture into deep dish making.  Great job. You got my mouth watering for making another.  I used to live in the Chicago burbs, too, and often visited all the great pizza places you mentioned.  That list brings back a lot of good memories.  If interested in Bob's Red Mill brand of semolina, you can order it at http://www.bobsredmill.com/, but I suspect the brand you got worked just as well.   

All the deep dish pizzas at the great deep dish pizzerias in Chicago usually have a lot of oil in their recipes.  But from your first photo of the dough in the pan, I suspect it may have been a little more than needed.  It should have had a tad more of a "flat" look to the dough rather than the "sheen" that I think appeared, but it doesn't matter that much.  Towards the end of forming the dough ball, I'm starting more and more to add a teaspoon (or two . . . or three . . .) more of flour to get the right feel and consistency to the dough ball, which includes a "non-oily" look to it (which is kind of hard to describe).  But still, there generally is a lot of oil in deep dish pizza recipes, but experiment with different quantities (as well as different types) and see what you and your family likes.

Good selection of cheeses.  I haven't had scamorza in years, but remember it was very good.  Additives to the sauce is a very, very individual thing and one needs to develop it by oneself.  I add a little of this . . and a little of that, . . stick my finger in and taste it and either say "great" or "it needs a little of something else."  And a jar of minced garlic is often close by in the refrigerator.  And you are right on about Parmesan Reggiano.  What a great flavor enhancer.

Very nice job on the photos.  I do think using the 28 oz can of sauce was a little too much.  One suggestion that my pizza tasters just love (in order to get closer to the Malnati/Due's experience) is to add a few ounces of small diced tomatoes on top of the 6 in 1.  I recently found my favorite in a brand called Glen Muir (think it was with basil and garlic or basil and olive oil) and my pizza tasters still rave about that addition.  Might be worth just trying sometime.  I tried other brands (DeMonte, etc.) and they didn't come close, I'm sorry to say.  The color of the crust looked good to me.  It was a nice golden brown and all the times I had been to the Malnati's in Lincolnwood, that was the color of the crust, unlike the pictures in their ads and even that airing recently on one TV show.

One other thought:  unless you have a lot of family or pizza eaters around, frequent use of a 14" pan leaves a lot of extra pizza (which may not be a bad thing).  My 9" pans get the most use as I can make a little or a lot, depending upon the amount of company.

Good luck with your further pizzamaking ventures.  There are so many good recipes on this site to try out and enjoy.                                   --BTB

[BTB]

One question about Lou's..Not that many years ago we visited Lou's in Buffalo Grove on a weekly basis. We made a trip to Lou's a few months ago during a Chicago visit. Do you think the pizza is the same as years past? My wife and I might have had a bad night but we have also had pizza's shipped from Lou's and were very disappointed.

Flavorman, before I retired and moved to Florida, I used to dine at Malnati's at least twice a month for many, many years.  Mostly at the original Lincolnwood restaurant, next at the Elk Grove Village restaurant, then next at the Buffalo Grove one that you were at, and a few times at the Wells St. (near downtown north location).  The Wells St. location wasn't very good, but the others were and I'm sorry to hear about your disappointment with the Buffalo Grove location.  That was the one that was just featured on the "throwdown" TV show on the Food Network.  It usually had been great, but I can't say there hadn't been days, like everything, that it wasn't so good (kind of dry or lifeless . . .).  But in my experience, 9 out of 10 times, it had been great.  (They, of course, have many, many more restaurant locations now and I often wonder if growing so big doesn't affect quality control somehow.)

When I first moved to Florida, I would order a "six pack" of their frozen pizzas (and they usually then arrived by the next morning) to satisfy my "cravings."  In the beginning it was great, but then the quality got to be mixed (sometimes still great . . . sometimes not so good).  So I haven't ordered any over the internet in a couple of years, but look forward to returning to their Lincolnwood restaurant for a visit in the summer.  But I remember they had changed their heating instructions on the frozen pizzas and advised all to take the pizza out of the tins that they come in and wipe out the inevitable moisture or dampness in the bottom of the pan before attempting to heat up the pizza.  Otherwise it turns out either soggy, sticks to the tin pan, or otherwise had a not so good result.  I had learned to take it out of the pizza tin entirely and heat up the frozen or half thawed out pizza (preferred) on a pizza screen.  Those turned out much better.

[MarleyEds]

Thanks BTB - particularly for being the inspiration behind the venture.  Thanks for the link - I'm sure I can find Bob's Red Mill somewhere around me, it just wasn't at the store I went to - I just found it hysterical that they had 15+ other types, just not Semolina.  

I'll cut down on the oil next time - I did wind up adding some extra flour, but after I hit 3 tsps I decided to stop because I didn't want to go too far.  I had considered adding tomato chunks per your instructions, but oddly enough, the wife and I don't care for chunks and my wife always picks those off at Malnati's.  I can't explain it - whole tomato = bad, tomato sauce = good.  We puree are salsas too so they aren't chunky.

One other thought:  unless you have a lot of family or pizza eaters around, frequent use of a 14" pan leaves a lot of extra pizza (which may not be a bad thing).

LOL - Yeah...it's just me and the wife for now, but we do enjoy our pizza - I think we polished off about 2/3 of it last night.  I actually wanted to buy a 12" as well and use that for my initial run, but all Bed, Bath, and Beyond had were 14" and 9" Chicago Metallic, and 9" wasn't going to cut it for my appetite.  I will get a 12" from another store or on-line, but like the Semolina - I was so excited to get going on the recipe the other night, it was going to be as few stops as possible that night.

[MarleyEds]

I took a crack at the recipe again for a 14" (2" high) pan, 20% semolina, starting off with the formula:

Flour (100%):    428.3 g  |  15.11 oz | 0.94 lbs
Water (47%):    201.3 g  |  7.1 oz | 0.44 lbs
ADY (.7%):    3 g | 0.11 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.79 tsp | 0.26 tbsp
Olive Oil (6%):    25.7 g | 0.91 oz | 0.06 lbs | 5.71 tsp | 1.9 tbsp
Corn Oil (18.5%):    79.24 g | 2.79 oz | 0.17 lbs | 5.87 tbsp | 0.37 cups
Butter/Margarine (1%):    4.28 g | 0.15 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.91 tsp | 0.3 tbsp
Sugar (1.5%):    6.42 g | 0.23 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.61 tsp | 0.54 tbsp
Cream of Tartar (.75%):    3.21 g | 0.11 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.07 tsp | 0.36 tbsp
Total (175.45%):   751.45 g | 26.51 oz | 1.66 lbs | TF = 0.126875

My first run had what I thought was an over oily dough ball, so I was going to try and cut back on the oil.  I wound up mixing 1 oz of Olive oil and 2 oz of Corn oil in a cup, and mixed it in until I thought it was at its limit.  I wound up only adding 2 oz of the combined mixture, and the dough ball was still a little oily (I forget to add in a few tsp of extra flour before I bagged it and put it in the fridge).  However, I did up the melted/unsalted butter to 1 TBSP.

Some other items I was aiming to fix were cutting back a bit on the sauce, and using better sausage.  I used about all but 1/2 cup or so of the drained 6-in-1, but next time I may even use less.  I did use mild sausage, and fried it up a little before putting it on the pie because I prefer my sausage to be more on the well done side.  One other thing I forgot was to sift the flour.

I used 4.5 oz of sliced Mozz, 5.5 oz of sliced provolone, and about 6 oz of shredded Scamorza - because that is what I had in the fridge. 

As with the first, the pizza turned out great - but not as good as my first one.  The crust was a little bit crispier and wasn't as tasty.  The sausage was much better (duh).  The cheese seemed to have a better texture (I'm guessing because the Scamorza), but certain pockets seemed to lack some of the taste - I'm not sure if those pockets were more Mozz or Provo.

I'm planning on making a few pizzas for the in-laws on Saturday for lunch - so I think I'm going to go back to the original oil breakdown, even if it means an oily doughball.  I'm guessing the full amount of oil will make the crust a little more tender like the first.  I also will try one of them with 25% semolina.  I think I'm also going to use mostly Mozz on this one and see how it tastes.

My dilemma, however, is that my only option to make the dough is the night before around 7:00 pm, and I'm planning on having these for lunch the following day - which means I would be taking the dough out of the fridge around 10:00 am the following day.  Is this going to be long enough for the cold rise?  Should I leave it out longer (more than the 25 min) the night before?

[JConk007]

Ah Ha ,
Yes , I too said wow this is oily especially next to the Cracker 36% hydration I was making at the same time S my brain had a little bit of a tough time with it. But I trusted BTB and Loo and all the info here.
I found its the high % of oils that makes for the flakiness and taste of this great recipe. Along with a lot of whole milk mozz. cheese. I think on the throwdown Malnati states they use at least  pound of cheese on a 12"  I used a lot, and  scattering of the provolone like many of he pics here and loved it! Keep us popsted please.
John

[BTB]

I'm planning on making a few pizzas for the in-laws on Saturday for lunch (and) my only option to make the dough is the night before around 7:00 pm . . . having these for lunch the following day - which means I would be taking the dough out of the fridge around 10:00 am the following day.  Is this going to be long enough for the cold rise?  Should I leave it out longer (more than the 25 min) the night before?

If I understand this correctly, you will make the dough in the prior evening, leave it out to rise for approx. 25 minutes, punch it down and then put it in the refrigerator till the folowing morning when you will take it out of the refrigerator -- hopefully 1 or 2 hours -- prior to use.  If that's what you intend, that's perfectly fine. There are many schools of thought on this.  Some throw the dough ball straight into the refrigerator after making it.  Some let it rise once or twice and leave it out much longer before going into the refrigerator, and some would leave it out all night and not put it into the refrigerator.  When I have time, I like to let it rise a couple of times over a couple of hours, but it still turns out fine doing it otherwise also.  Some might say a 24 hour cold ferment is best, and maybe it technically is, but I don't know how much noticeably different the end product will be.

[MarleyEds]

Yes, that's basically it - I don't have time to give it 24 hours in the fridge, more like 14.  What about extended fridge time?  I could make the dough tonight and take it out Saturday morning - which would be around 38 hours in the fridge.