- But I couldn't live with myself
if I let this beautiful family leave Chicago
without sampling one of my personal favorite dishes,
Pequod's Deep Dish.
- [Woman] No. Oh, you did not hear me say that.
- Manger, baby.
- [Babish] Hey, what's up guys?
Welcome back to "Binging with Babish."
For this week, we're taking a look
at the Pequod's Deep Dish Pizza
from maybe my favorite episode of "The Bear."
Now Pequod's makes their tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes.
So I got about 10 medium tomatoes on the vine
that I'm cutting a shallow cross into the bottom of
before dunking into a big pot of boiling water
for about 30 seconds.
Once you see the skin start to split,
it's time to fish them out
and dunk them into a bowl of ice water.
This is gonna make the skins very, very easy to peel,
which we're gonna want to do because tomato skins
after being cooked for a while
turn into these nasty little curly things.
Then we're giving everybody a rough chop.
Chicago-style tomato sauce is usually pretty chunky.
And headed over to the stove top,
we're gonna cook the tomato in a big old pot
with a splash of olive oil.
I'm gonna lightly season the tomatoes with salt,
just a little bit to help draw out their moisture.
And then Pequod's utilizes fresh basil,
I'm gonna throw stem in there,
along with dried oregano and dried garlic,
I'm gonna add one teaspoon of each.
Then this guy's simmering
for an indeterminate period of time.
It went for about 90 minutes to reduce it by roughly half.
Once things are nice and thick and tomato sauce-like,
we're pretty much done.
But my tomatoes might not have been the reddest
in the world.
So I cheat by adding a tube of tomato paste
to make it look more like tomato sauce
and less like carrot sauce.
This is also gonna help deepen the flavor.
Set that aside because now it's time to talk pans.
Pequod's uses what looked like aluminum pans,
heavily seasoned with layer after layer
of burnt-on cheese and oil,
giving it non-stick properties
and better browning capability.
So we're gonna imitate that
by seasoning our pan the same way we would cast iron.
Coat it all over with a thin layer of vegetable oil
and place it upside down in a 450-degree Fahrenheit oven
for one hour.
This is going to make tacky layer of polymerized oil
on the outside of the pan.
While it's still warm, hit it with another layer of oil
and back into the oven for an hour, repeating as necessary.
I went for four coats
which gave my pan a well-defined patina.
Definitely not as jet black as the ones used
at the restaurant, but hopefully it will do the trick.
Next up the dough.
We're starting with 350 grams of all-purpose flour.
Combining it in the bowl of a stand mixer
with one and a half teaspoons each sugar and kosher salt.
Seven and a half grams of active dry yeast.
And then Pequod's uses barley malt flour.
I've got 35 grams here, adding that to the party.
Whisking until homogenous, and then adding the wet stuff.
225 mil of room temperature water
and 60 mil of vegetable oil.
Affix dough hook and gently mix for two minutes
until no dry patches remain
and the dough is clearing the side of the bowl.
Then we're gonna, oh my God, I almost forgot.
Pequod's puts ground pepper directly into their dough.
I'm adding about three quarters of a teaspoon.
Normally, you'd add this at the dry ingredient stage,
but no harm done.
Now it's time to knead for seven to eight minutes
until a smooth, supple, soft, tacky,
and slightly sticky dough forms.
I was gonna shape it on a flowered surface,
but as you can see,
it works a little bit better with no flour whatsoever.
Stretching it into a tight ball
and plopping it into a well lubricated bowl
where it's gonna rise under cover of plastic wrap
for 45 minutes to one hour until roughly doubled in size
and ready to be turned into Chicago-style pizza.
We're hitting our pan
with one more coat of oil for good luck,
then dropping in the dough
and pressing it into a flat even surface.
Taking care to pop any errant bubbles
and releasing any trapped air pockets.
It's a pretty workable dough
so it shouldn't give you too much of a fight.
But if it does, just cover it
and let it rest for another 20 minutes.
Now we come to the sticky situation of cheese
and I do mean sticky.
Because Pequod's shingles slices of low moisture,
full fat mozzarella right up against the sides of the pan
to achieve their signature caramelized cheese crust.
Once we formed a formidable bowl of cheese,
we're gonna lay in about one cup of sauce,
spreading it evenly, and then sprinkling generously
over top with pre-grated Romano cheese.
This guy's headed into a 450-degree Fahrenheit oven
on a pizza steel for 30 to 35 minutes
until it looks like this.
Unfortunately, this is where my problems began.
Not only was the cheese positively glued
to the sides of the pan,
but the whole pizza collapsed down
to nearly its original pre-oven height
which resulted in a dense, gummy crust,
which at the time I thought was due to under baking.
So one problem at a time. Let's start with the crust.
I wanted to see if a non-stick pan
would improve the situation.
So I made a tiny little test pizza,
but I had the same problem.
Even in non-stick, the cheese was so stuck
I had to destroy the pan just to get the pizza out.
So I decided to spend the weekend repeatedly
seasoning the aluminum pan.
Over two days, I applied 16 coats of polymerized oil
in the hopes that it would capture some
of that Pequod's magic.
The result was a pervasive smell of smoking oil
and a beautiful, shimmering, jet black non-stick surface.
Let's see if this can do the job a little better.
Same recipe. This time baked at 425 for 45 minutes.
And look at that. That pizza wants to jump out of that pan.
But you can imagine my heartbreak
when the pizza once again sunk like quicksand.
I even threw it back in the oven for 10 minutes in the hopes
that it would catch the dough before collapsing too badly.
But even after almost an hour in the oven,
it stood no chance.
After doing a little research,
I found out that diastatic malt powder
can cause breads to collapse.
So I subbed it out for more flour and in place of the sugar.
I'm adding the same amount by weight of barley malt syrup,
hoping that this would bring some of the flavor and color
without that sinking feeling.
I gave the same treatment and methodology
as the other pizzas.
Brought the temperature back up to 450
and baked for 35 minutes.
And upon removal, I was elated to see
that it was standing up tall and staying there.
Now, as badly as I wanna cut myself a steaming,
melty slice of this stuff,
it is the day before this episode premieres
and I have to preserve it
for the Michelin-starred donut presentation.
So after letting it cool for about 15 minutes in the pan
and then 15 minutes out of the pan,
I'm using a biscuit cutter to excise pizza cylinders
which unfortunately revealed that the malt syrup
did its job a little too well,
giving me a light airy crumb that's supposed
to be kind of dense and almost chewy.
So I had one last shot to take.
Going back to the barley malt flour at a much lower ratio,
5.5 grams of malt flour to 378 grams of flour.
This caused a little bit of cave-in,
which is absolutely fine.
Pequod's itself has a similarly concave shape.
After finally digging it outta the pan
and cutting myself a few rounds,
I was delighted to see
that the ideal texture had been achieved.
A crumb that's open and airy, but also soft and moist,
almost like the inside of a bagel.
For reference, here's the two crumbs.
We've got the malt syrup on the left
and the barley malt flour on the right.
Pretty amazing what only 5.5 grams of the stuff can do.
So now that we finally got our Pequod's perfected,
it's time to cut out our rounds.
Which, maddeningly , leave out the best part,
the crunchy caramelized cheese crust.
But we gotta be show accurate,
so we're placing these on a sheet tray
and flash them under the broiler for just a little bit
until the cheese is remelted and they're nice and crispy.
But first, earlier in the day,
we have to prepare the basil gel.
I have 60 grams of fresh basil that I'm gonna blanche
for about 15 seconds before fishing out
and immediately plunging into an ice bath.
That's gonna help preserve the basil's color. Pat dry.
And then over on the stove top,
I'm taking 300 milliliters of that basil blanching liquid,
adding 40 grams of sugar,
and four sheets of gelatin that have bloomed
in some cold water for about 10 minutes.
Squeezing dry, add them to the still hot water,
at least 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Tiny whisk until fully dissolved.
Then pour into the jar of a high-powered blender
along with the blanched basil.
Blend on high speed for about one minute
until the basil is completely obliterated.
Make sure not to over blend.
Otherwise, you might lighten the color too much.
Pass it through a fine mesh sieve
to catch all the particulate.,
Cover and fridge this mixture
for at least four hours or until set.
Then the resultant sort of basil jello is headed back
into the blender where we're gonna blend it
on high speed for 10 to 15 seconds until liquidus.
Then we're gonna make a big old mess
as we try to get it into a squeeze bottle
and keep this stuff cool until ready to use.
Flash forward to our pizza donuts,
headed out from under the broiler,
nicely crisped and melty and ready to plate.
Arrange the pizza donuts in a sort of sitting circle
around the pizza donut holes.
Then festoon generously with micro basil,
applied, of course, with chef's tweezers.
Then were haphazardly dotting the plate with the basil gel.
I didn't have a plate as big as the one
they used in the show.
Forgive me if this doesn't look 100% accurate.
Drizzle with high quality olive oil.
And there you have it, pizza in the style
of Pequod's in the style of ever Chicago.
But how's it taste?
And I gotta say frou-frou plating aside,
this is some standout Chicago-style pizza.
The crust is tender, but still has a nice chew.
And all the extra fresh basil is only doing good things.
It alludes me why the chef
wouldn't have incorporated the caramelized cheese crust.
Maybe as a treat for back of house.
But this is damn good pizza anyway you slice it. Sorry.
(gentle upbeat music)