I am not a big fan of deep dish Pizzas I am more of a thin crust girl. But I wanted to give one a try and see how my boys liked them. I checked out this recipe from an episode of American Test Kitchen, where the chef makes the dough more richer using butter . I have to say the crust was quite crumbly and very rich in taste but I enjoyed it.
For the filling ,... well I went a little lazy and used a jar of good quality pasta sauce , and Al khaleej meatballs ( I like their meat balls, love adding both their beef and chicken meatballs). But you can still used home made tomato sauce and use home made meatballs.
Recipe : Deep Dish Pizza
500g Basic Pizza dough.
50g softened butter
1/3 cup pasta tomato sauce ( I used San Remo's , you can buy or make your own from here)
about 14-15 chicken or beef meat balls , thawed ( I used AL Khaleej brand), you can even make your own using this recipe
olive oil to grease the pan and also to cook the meat balls
two big hand fulls of mozzarella cheese grated
2 tbsp parmesan cheese , grated
ground black pepper
Your pizza dough should be proofed and ready to roll. Roll it up into a rough rectangle . I used my fingers, and spread the butter all over the dough leaving a 1/2 in border . Roll up from one used like a spring roll cake.
Fold the ends under and make a rough ball. Place back in the bowl and cover with a towel or cling film and leave to rest for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to about 220 degree celcius.
While the oven warms up and the dough rests, heat a frying pan with a little oil and cook the meat balls to brown the sides. Drain on kitchen paper to remove any excess oil.
Take a 10 inch round baking tray, lightly oil ,remember there is lots of butter on the dough so you need very little oil to grease.
Place the dough and using your fingers spread it into the baking tray, like a pie.
Add cheese at the bottom. Spoon in the sauce over the cheese. Dot with meatballs . Then finally sprinkle the parmesan cheese. If you dont have parmesan can try with chedder. Sprinkle a little black pepper on top and pop into the bottom shelf the oven for about 30-45 minutes till the pastry is cooked the sauce is bubbling.
Remove let it rest for about 15 minutes and then cut into slices, serve with a knife and fork as you can eat this like a regular pizza .