Friday Night is Pizza Night…

…but I forgot to put up a post. I’ve been lazy to the point that I haven’t made pizza at home much the last month or so. Mostly because the deep dish crust has been boring me. Yet I have to say the potato thing has me re-engaged. It seems to be the perfect starch to add to a deep dish crust where too much flour makes it tough and too much corn meal makes it grainy. This week was the best so far with a mix of about 50% flour, 30% cooked russet potato and 20% corn meal. I’ll amend the recipe to the right as soon as I finish this here post should you be interested. My guess is I’m probably straying fairly far afield from the Gino’s East recipe (but then again, maybe I’m not). However I’m not sure what else to do at the moment. I’m certain that their crust, like the legendary Lou Malnotti’s has no leavening in it. Yeast makes it overly puffy (and filling), and baking powder makes it taste like Jimmy Dean’s breakfast casserole (which my pizza did anyway last Friday since the butcher gave me home style links instead of the spicy Italian that I asked for). Therefore, all I really have to do is fiddle around with the proportion of starches and fat. Gram-counters will be pleased to know that the crust now has a mere 2 ounces of vegetable oil, down from a height of four and a half. One of these days I need to get a real Chicago pizza shipped down here (maybe get one of those gift packs that also comes with the everything-in-one Chicago hot dog kits…oh yeah baby) so I can check my progress and re-calibrate my recipe.