Lou-To-Go: A Review

[DKM]

Lou-To-Go is the shipping part of Lou Malnati's Pizzeria.

According to its website it offers:

"Lou Malnati's authentic Chicago-style deep dish pizza, handmade fresh from scratch, baked and quick frozen to preserve their hot out of the oven freshness."

Plus claim "We are the largest pizza shipper in the US; shipping pizza for more than a decade."

They offer packs of:

1 9" Pizza for $34.95
2 9" Pizzas for $44.95 or
4 9" Pizzas for $64.95

Price includes next day FedEx shipping in a cooler with dry ice.

Pizza offered are Cheese, Sausage, Pepperoni, Deluxe, (sausage, mushroom, onion, and green peppers), Spinach, and Veggie (mushroom, onion, and green pepper)

I ordered the 2 pack with a sausage and a pepperoni.

The pizzas arrived well frozen in the dry ice and I put them in the freezer to hold for a couple of days.  They recommend at least 2 hours of thawing, but I went ahead put it down the night before.

The first one I cooked was the sausage.  It was a disaster.  First the sausage was one big patty so as it cooked, it shrank, and so did sauce.  Now I could have lived with that, but it stuck to the pan.  The thing literally had to be ripped out of the pan and I basically ended with a big mess.

I put what crust I could get out on a cutting board and put the sausage patty (Which still had the cheese and sauce stuck to it) on top.  Cut in to 1/4s and ate one piece and ate the rest over the next couple of days for breakfast.

For the Pepperoni pizza I took out one of my 9" pans, coated it with a little olive oil and put the pizza in it.   The first thing I noticed when I took the pizza out it’s own pan was a lot of crumbs had fallen to the bottom and I bet that is what causes the sticking problem on the first one.  I cooked it and it turned out fine.

I found the flavor of both pizzas to be really good, with one exception.  They don't use salt in their dough for the crust and I missed it.  I preferred the pepperoni to the sausage, but that could have been because of the sticking problem.

The big question is, was it worth the price.  For me the answer was probably no.  I don't mind being out the money for a one time testing but I’m not sure I could justify it again.

As an aside, you can get more then just pizza.  Check out http://www.tastesofchicago.com/ for Italian beef, Chicago hot dogs, Carson's Ribs and more.

DKM

[Pete-zza]

DKM,

That was a very interesting point about the lack of salt in the dough. Some while back I made a standard pizza dough with virtually no salt and although I had some salty toppings I could still tell that the dough was missing the salt.  You'd think that once a bite of everything is in your mouth that you wouldn't be able to tell--but I could.  I wonder why Malnati's leaves out the salt in the dough.  It might seem logical to conclude that it is because the pizza has salty toppings, but I really wonder whether that is the reason.

Peter

 

[DKM]

Lack of salt (and sugar) is common in many Italian style pizza recipes.  The sugar I don't notice so much, but I sure miss the salt.

DKM

[Randy]

DKM, the question is did it taste like your homemade Chicago?

Randy

[DKM]

There were a lot of similarities, but the crust had more 'flavor' with the salt and cornmeal. But the sauce, cheese, topping were very comparable.

DKM

[pizzaez]

Salt retards the dough, which also doesn't allow it to rise. Less salt, more height, lighter dough and crust