Good question, since if any one ingredient can be said to be unique to Chicago pizza, it’s corn (or rather corn meal). How did it get to be that way? Well my own guess is that it started out as a peel lubricant. Like traditional Italian semolina, corn meal has a particle size big enough […]
READ ONIt’s a bit of an oddity in a pizza crust, isn’t it? The main function it serves is to inhibit gluten formation. Gluten, as you may well remember is a type of protein that’s specific to grains derived from grasses (wheat, barley, rye…those sorts of things). Gluten proteins are long spindly molecules that bond to […]
READ ONRecipe “busting” is a favorite pass time of just about every accomplished cook and/or baker I know. It’s not hard to understand why, since oh what a devious thrill one gets from unlocking the mysteries of a top restaurant or chef’s “secret” recipe all by one’s self. You can’t hide from me Wolfgang, oh no […]
READ ONThe first thing to do when setting out to make a Chicago-style deep dish pizza is to disabuse yourself of the notion that what you are about to make is in any way Italian. It’s American fast food, and if you want it to be good, you must treat it as such. That means premium-quality […]
READ ONIt took quite a while to get my ultimate Chicago pizza crust just right. Yet spurred on by the wife’s desire for a taste of home, I kept after it week after week. The early results were disappointing. Just like most “deep dish” pizzas, the prototypes were too thick and too bready. My models wee […]
READ ONYou learn a lot about pizza growing up in Chicago, and not just about the thick stuff. Most people think that’s all the Windy City has to offer pizza-philes, though in fact you can find just about any kind of pizza under the sun there, from the cracker-thin and crispy to the deep, deep dish. […]
READ ONI’ve been promising for a while now to revisit pizza, primarily because several readers have expressed an interest in Neapolitan-style pizza, which is a style I’ve been working on quite a bit since I got the brick oven up and running three months ago. However I’m planning to start the week talking about a topic […]
READ ON…a reader recently alerted me to the existence of this product sold by King Arthur Flour: glazing sugar (http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/detail.jsp?id=1275). It’s powdered sugar, but without the cornstarch. Leave it to King Arthur to come up with such a simple, useful thing. Would that I had a bag last weekend for my rolled fondant. It would have […]
READ ON…rushing to get my rolled fondant cake finished and decorated before dinner guests arrived last week. In fact one of the main virtues of rolled fondant is that it acts like tupperware, preventing a cake from drying out for up to a week. Indeed this is another reason for its popularity among professional cake makers, […]
READ ONLike for instance improper food handling? Look for the warning signs.
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