Tavern Style Chicago Thin Crust Pizza

Locals know that the REAL Chicago pizza is the tavern style thin crust. I’m revisiting the pizza I grew up eating by taking a trip to Vito and Nick’s to recreate this iconic thin and crispy pizza. Visit http://drinktrade.com/brian to sign up and save $15 on select plans — and get your first bag of coffee free.

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*Pizza Dough Ingredients*
▪360g (3c) bread flour
▪40g (3T) cold butter
▪180g (3/4c) ice cold water, divided
▪5g (1 1/2t) yeast
▪7g (1 1/2t) salt

Pizza Dough Instructions:
1. In a food processor, combine the bread flour and cold butter. Pulse until the butter is broken down into small, gravel-like bits.
2. Dissolve the yeast in 90g (1/4c + 2T) of ice cold water and the salt in another 90g (1/4c + 2T) of ice cold water.
3. Add the yeast water and salt water to the flour-butter mixture in the food processor. Pulse for 20-30 seconds until the dough is evenly hydrated. Be careful not to overmix.
4. Transfer the dough onto a work surface and knead for 2 minutes until it forms a homogeneous ball.
5. Round the dough into a ball, place it in a bowl, cover, and ferment for 2 hours.
6. After 2 hours, divide the dough into two equal pieces. Perform a preshape by folding in the sides and rounding off the dough into a ball. Cover the dough balls and let them rest for 20 minutes to relax the gluten.
7. Press the dough ball flat with a pizza pan or large pot then roll out each dough ball into a 12” (30cm) round
8. Use a pizza docking tool or a fork to pierce the dough to prevent large bubbles from forming during baking.
9. Spray 2 pieces of parchment paper with olive oil pan spray and a generous amount of fine grind cornmeal and place rolled out pizza doughs on top.
10. Place both doughs stacked on a sheet tray and refrigerate, uncovered, for 4-24 hours to cold ferment and develop a skin for a crispier crust. Preferably 24 hours.
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*Pizza Sauce Ingredients*
▪1 28oz/800g can crushed tomatoes
▪100g (1/3 cup) tomato paste
▪12g (2 1/2 tsp) salt
▪20g (5 tsp) granulated sugar
▪1g (1/2 tsp) chili flakes
▪2g (2 tsp) dried basil
▪2g (1 tsp) dried oregano
▪2g (1/2 tsp) onion powder
▪2g (1/2 tsp) garlic powder

Pizza Sauce Instructions:
1. Scoop out half a cup of crushed tomatoes from the can.
2. Add the tomato paste, salt, sugar, chili flakes, basil, oregano, onion powder, and garlic powder to the remaining crushed tomatoes.
3. Blend the sauce with immersion blender until the dried herbs are broken down and everything is well combined.
—
*Italian Sausage Ingredients*
▪450g (1 lb) 80/20 ground pork
▪7g (1 1/2 tsp) salt
▪2g (3/4 tsp) black pepper
▪2g (1 tsp) chili flakes
▪5g (1 tsp) red wine vinegar
▪2g (1 tsp) ground fennel seed
▪5g (1 clove) fresh garlic, minced

Mix together all ingredients until well combined.

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*Assembling and Baking the Pizza*
▪450g (16 oz) full-fat aged mozzarella cheese, shredded
▪1lb (1/2kg) italian sausage (preferably homemade, recipe above)
▪Pizza sauce (recipe above)
▪Dreid oregano
▪Dried basil
▪Salt

1. Preheat the oven to 550°F (285°C) with a pizza steel or an upside-down sheet tray.
2. Spread prepared pizza sauce evenly over the rolled dough.
3. Distribute half of the Italian sausage in rough balls evenly on top of each pizza (1/2lb per pizza)
4. Sprinkle half the shredded mozzarella cheese generously over the sausage of each pizza, spreading edge to edge (½ lb per pizza).
5. Sprinkle each pizza with a pinch of dried oregano, dried basil, and a pinch of salt.
6. Slide assembled pizza onto the preheated pizza steel or sheet tray in the oven.
7. Bake for about 10 minutes until the crust is deeply baked and the cheese is bubbly and golden brown.

CHAPTERS:
0:00: Intro and preparing the pizza dough
5:27 step 1 in my morning routine
6:22 Making the pizza sauce
7:06 Making the italian sausage
7:50 Assembling and baking the pizzas

🎧MUSIC:
EPIDEMIC SOUND https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/ccpjb3

#chicagopizza #thincrustpizza #tavernpizza

hey what’s up in the 26 years that I lived in Chicago I ate Tavern style thin crust pizza well over a thousand times compare that to the less than 30 times that I’ve eaten deep dish pizza in my life that’s because thin crust pizza is way more sessionable and in all honesty it’s the style of pizza that people from Chicago eat most of the time since I live in St Louis now the only Pizza that I have access to is this stuff so to get a quick refresher on this style I jumped in my car and drove 5 hours up to the deep south side of Chicago to veto and ni the supposed birthplace of the Chicago thin crust pizza can I have a large sausage and a large Italian beef and Mild Jero please this was probably the best version of Chicago thin that I’ve ever eaten and it really clarified for me exactly what this pizza is about and how it should taste so today I’m going to use that experience to show you guys exactly how to recreate this style of pizza at home to get started I’ll need to make some pizza dough for that I’ll grab my food processor and into the jar combined 360 G of bread flour with 40 G of cold butter just like it does in pie crust this butter is going to bring flakiness to the pizza as it melts into little pockets inside the crust during the bake flakiness is a unique attribute for pizza but it’s an integral one for this style the pizza at veto and Nyx was very buttery and very flaky almost like a Saltine cracker now I’ll pop the top of my food processor and pulse this until the butter has been broken down into little grally bits that usually takes about 10 to 12 spins when it’s done the dough should look like damp sand with little Flex of butter spread throughout next I’ll add in 90 G G of ice water with 5 G of yeast dissolved into it then 90 more gram of ice cold water with 7 G of salt dissolved into it since this pizza dough is super dry compared to other styles you have to dissolve the yeast and salt in water otherwise they won’t hydrate when you put them in the food processor also I mixed the yeast and salt separately because salt kills yeast and if we combine them we might have some issues with our fermentation now once the cold water yeast and salt are in the flour butter I’ll pop on my lid one more time and spin this for about 20 to 30 seconds I don’t want to go further than that because that will smear the butter Flex that we just made into the flour nullifying their ability to melt into little pockets of flakiness during the bake and once this flour is evenly hydrated I’ll flip the whole clot of dough out onto a work surface and knead it for 2 minutes I just want to work this until things come together into a homogeneous ball the end state of this dough is a lot more cracker than it is bread so we don’t need to worry too much about gluten formation after about 2 minutes this dough has really come together and now it’s strong enough to hold on to an assertive tug without tearing next I’ll round into a tidy little ball then I’ll scoot it over to a medium bowl and top with a lid and ferment for 2 hours 2 hours later when I come back this dough has only grown by about 50% that’s to be expected since the water and butter were cold and that really slows down fermentation next I’ll use my dough scraper to cut this dough into two equal pieces then I’ll do what’s called a pre-shape to get this thing rounded off and ready to be stretched into a thin crust pizza for that I’ll fold in the two sides then flip over onto those folds and I’ll round that off into a ball with two hands since this dough is very dry rolling it into a perfect round thing is going to be kind of hard so just do your best now I’ll ball up the second piece of dough real quick then before I roll these flat I’ll need to let them relax because the gluten is real tight so I’ll cover with my bowl and come back in 20 20 minutes later this dough is relaxed and ready to be made into pizza so now I’ll flip one of my doughs out of the way then flip the other dough over so it’s seam side up I’ll hit this with some flour to keep it from sticking to me then I’ll drop down a 12-in pizza pan and give it a bunch of downward pressure this gives me a flat 6-in piece of dough that won’t snap back nearly as much as if we started with just the ball now I’ll grab my rolling pin and roll this dough until it’s about 2 in longer then I’ll turn 90° and repeat the same thing pretty quickly we’ve got this rolled out to about 8 in and it’s looking pretty even so I’ll keep working this 90° roll and turn maneuver a few more times until I’ve got this closer to 12 in wide and once I’m at just about that width I’m going to start to put some extra pressure on the outer edges no matter what you do things are going to end up being thicker on the outside than in the middle if you don’t go out of your way to taper them back down and once I’ve got an even flat 12-in round I’m going to grab my pizza docking tool aside from being a great pair of slacks a Docker is also a roller with spikes on it that you use to pierce pizza dough to inhibit any large bubbles from rising up during the bake this one’s like 10 bucks on Amazon and if you’re interested I’ll link to it down in the description to use it I’ll roll it seven to eight times across my pizza dough in two directions if you don’t want to buy a specialty tool to pierce your pizza a fork can work here just be careful because the tins are pretty sharp and you can easily tear a hole in your dough next I’ll flip my dough off to the side then grab some parchment paper spray it with a little bit of olive oil pan spray then drop down a generous sprinkle of fine grind cornmeal cornmeal is actually a huge part of the flavor and texture of this style at veto andx the bottom of this pizza was aggressively dusted with cornmeal and I think that’s because it helps move it in and out of the oven but it also brings a toasty popcorn flavor and a little bit of a crunchy texture next I’ll lay my docked pizza dough out onto The Corned up parchment paper then I’ll move it over to a sheet tray and top with my other rolled out docked and corned up pizza dough from here I’ll move both Pizza doughs over to the fridge to cold ferment and cure uncovered for 4 to 24 hours preferably 24 and when I say cure I mean dry out and develop a skin this little detail enables like 50% more crispiness in this crust but we’ll check back in on these tomorrow morning speaking of tomorrow morning one of the first things I do every morning is drink a big cup of Trade coffee trade is a coffee subscription service that sends curated coffees directly to your door Trade coffee is roasted to order ground specifically for how you brew your coffee and then delivered as often as you like some of the tastiest coffees that I’ve tried this year have come from trade which isn’t surprising because they Source their coffee directly from over 55 local Roasters across the US like this bag of Daydream decaf from Atomic Coffee Roasters based out of Peabody Massachusetts Trad Maps your specific preferences then pairs you with coffees that they know you’re going to love they use a combination of coffee industry expertise and machine learning to figure it all out so you know like chat chpt whatever so far trade hasn’t steered me wrong and I’ve been drinking it nearly every day for over 2 years now signing up is super easy too so if you want to try some great new coffees visit drink trade.com Brian to sign up and save 15 bucks on select Plants Plus you’ll get your first bag of coffee for free next let’s make the pizza sauce for that I’ll scoop out about a/2 cups worth of crushed tomatoes from 1 128 Oz can and then add in G of tomato paste 12 G of salt 20 g of sugar 1 G of chili flake 2 G dried basil 2 G dried oregano 2 G of onion powder and 2 G of garlic powder woo next I’ll drop in my immersion blender and spin this up until the dried herbs are broken down and everything is well combined this thicker tomato paste forward sauce models exactly what I had at veto and Nyx since this pizza has no edges you don’t want stuff to run off the side and a thicker sauce helps keep things glued down that is very very dried herb flavored which is exactly how it is in Chicago and it’s just a little bit sweet it’s not marinara sweet but it’s enough to balance the acidity in the tomatoes next let’s make some Italian sausage for that I’ll start with 1 lb or 450 G of 8020 ground pork I highly recommend all these never any brand it tastes very good next in goes 7 G of salt 2 G black pepper 2 G chili flake 5 g red win vinegar then 2 G of ground fennel seed I go for ground over cracked because cracked fennel get stuck in your teeth and I hate that lastly I’ll add in 5 G of fresh garlic then I’ll jump in and squish these spices into the meat and if you’re wondering if making your own sausage is worth the effort I would say yes most of the grocery store sausage in my area is pretty bland and too fatty making it bad for pizza and once I’ve got my sausage mixed together I’ll throw it into the fridge then grab a one PB block of full fat aged mozzarella it’s Rich it’s creamy and it’s got just a little bit of funk on it because it’s slightly aged if you’re wondering about pre-shredded mozzarella for this pizza I would say skip it that stuff has starch on it that prevents taking and I think that makes it melt weird so I try to avoid it now to prep this cheese I’ll just rip it against the largest hold sides in my box grater and in total for two pizzas I have about 16 oz here or 450 G now let’s put all this together into a pizza the next day when I pull my pizza do out of the fridge you can see they have developed to skin and they’ve dried out quite a bit that’s going to make for a very crispy crust especially around the edges here this stuff is mucho dehydrated now to build this pizza I’m going to drop three large spoonfuls of sauce right into the middle maybe a/2 Cup’s worth and then spread that all all the way out to the edge of the crust by the way the parchment paper is great for this because it catches anything that might slide over the edge if we were building this pizza on a peel anything that would go over the edge would probably make the pizza crust stick to the peel making sliding it off the peel into the oven a big problem next I’ll take half of the sausage that we made earlier and lay it out in quarter size chunks around the perimeter of this pizza and all through the middle in Chicago whether you’re talking deep or thin crust pizza sausage is the primary topping pepperoni is beloved of course but you start with sausage in work your way up from there look at the menu at veto and Nyx sausage is right at the top of the menu under cheese that shows you how important it is and once this pizza has a half pound of sausage on it I’m going to drop a few big handfuls of my grated full fat mozzarella in total I’ll use half of the cheese that I grated before which also ends up being 8 oz and again just like for the sauce I want to push this cheese all the way to the outer edge now to season up the top of this pizza I’m going to drop a strong pinch of dried oregano like a teaspoon worth then the same amount of dried basil then finally I’ll hit it with a strong pinch of salt this is a detail that most people Miss but the cheese by itself just isn’t that well seasoned and I think this pizza needs just a touch more Sparkle now I’ll slide this parchment onto my pizza peel then move over to my 550f oven and drop this onto my pizza steel by the way if you don’t have a pizza steel and upside down sheet tray can work in a pinch and cut to the time lapse baby oh cheese melting always looks fun and after 10 minutes this pizza is very deeply baked so I’ll pull it out some people might think this pizza is a little too dark and I’m here to say those people are wrong oh my God this pizza needs to be absolutely roasted the flavor of the dark brown Ms with the sausage juice and the cornmeal studded crust is very specific and if you go blonde you’ll miss it this pizza is Perfection on Earth in my opinion it’s heavy on the cheese heavy on the sausage heavy on the crunch plus this is one of the very few styles of pizza that that allows you to get close to replicating the pizzeria experience at home if you want another Regional pizza video then please check out this one for Detroit style pan pizza I went on a field trip to research that one as well and I’m really excited about the recipe now let’s eat this thing [Music]