Chicago Style Skillet Pizza

There were 2 new things I tried with this recipe.  First, I made the pizza crust from scratch.  Really quite easy and worked really well for a Chicago style pizza.  The second new item was using the skillet to cook the pizza.  The skillet was logical because it would cook the thicker crust more fully and I don’t own or know what other pan to even try to use.

The other feature of a Chicago style pizza is that the 1st layer on top of the crust is cheese and then it is followed with tomato sauce and any toppings after that on the very top of the pie.  One of the pizzas was cheese only for the kids.  My pizza included caramelized onions, roasted red peppers and morel mushrooms.  One thing I will have to work on is that I used so much cheese that the pizza was a little loose when cut.

Recipe
Chicago Style Skillet Pizza:
Crust (adapted from Bobby Flay):

• 3 1/2 to 4 cups bread flour, plus more for rolling 
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 envelope instant dry yeast
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 1/2 cups hot water
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus 1 tbsp for the bowl

Directions
Combine the bread flour, sugar, yeast and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and combine using a dough hook. While the mixer is running, add the water and 2 tablespoons of the oil and beat until the dough forms into a ball. If the dough is sticky, add additional flour, a little at a time, until the dough comes together in a solid ball. If the dough is too dry, add additional water, a little at a time. Pull the dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead into a smooth, firm ball.

Grease a large bowl with 1 tbsp olive oil, add the dough, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in a warm area to let it double in size, about 1 hour. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into 2 pieces 1 larger than the other (I have 2 different size skillets, one large and one small). Cover each with a clean kitchen towel or plastic wrap and let them rest for 10 minutes.

Making the Pizza:
Ingredients:

• 2 – 8 oz packages of bar mozzarella
• 1 – 6 oz package of Parmesan
• 2 – 8 oz jars of pizza sauce
• 1/2 of a yellow onion
• 4 oz morel mushrooms
• 1/2 of a roasted red pepper