Da Bulls, Da Bears, Da Pizza?

Deep dish, Chicago style to be exact or as I like to call it, Pizza Experiment #32467. I was zoning out at the gym last week, listening to Enid, and catching up on my magazines when I came across an article in the November 2005 Cooking Light on the culinary melting pot of Chicago. Hidden amongst the text was a recipe for a deep dish pizza that promised to be as close to the real thing as you can get at home. Could this be? A close replicate of the gooey masterpiece and lightened up to boot? This had to be a job for the Muszynski test kitchen. And while I did stay fairly true to the recipe, I did make a few changes.

First up, instead of the magazine's dough, I used our old stand-by Alton Brown recipe that you first met on the grill. Now this dough is perfect for the crisp, thin Roman style pizza. I was not sure how well it would perform in the deep dish application but the flavor of the dough can't be beat. Time will tell.

Next I upped the fennel seed to 1/2 t because I love the flavor of fennel, increased the total amount of olive oil to 1 T for ease of sauteing, added a small pinch of salt to the onion saute because Cooking Light is famous for not salting anything and at times the dishes taste a tad bit flat, and increased the mozzarella by 1/4 c because I didn't measure and just grabbed out of the bag.

And the end result did not disappoint. Pleasantly gooey but still able to be cut and transferred neatly to the plate. Full, robust tomato flavor accented by slightly carmelized onion, sausage, and fennel. And the dough? Wonderfully bready with the tang you only get from an overnight rest. A rousing success! Read on for the recipe....