Why I Oughta...

If you ask ten people who lived on the northside of Chicago what their favorite pizza from that time in their life was, I'd bet that 8 of them will tell you one place:  Pequod's .  It is a place that serves a distinct version of Chicago Deep Dish that features what they call a "caramelized crust".  What it really is a well-done whole milk mozzarella edge.  Not quite a frico , but more an 'edge'.    Is it my favorite?  No.  But, I'm a thin-crust-always-kinda-guy.  We've been to Pequod's.  Both the city location, but also the original up in Morton Grove.  Here's my post from a visit there in 2015 .  And here is our first visit to the suburban location (the original started here by Burt Katz) in 2011 .  Also note...we did eventually make it to Burt's Place before Burt Katz passed away .   But, back to Pequod's and why I bring it up.  One of our neighbor's requested a Pequod's-style pizza recently.  I haven...

At the beginning of COVID and the start of social distancing/stay-at-home, I saw some unique pizza pans from Lloyd's pans on Instagram and was 'influenced' (swipe up) to buy them .  These new pans are long and skinny and hold a lot of promise for me as a home pizza maker. I've been fine-tuning my formulations on these pans over the past 60 days and have had some success.  Still plenty of work to do - as the last time I used these I had a TERRIBLE flop - but I'm seeing some good results like these below: I've recently started to use some of our sourdough starter in the formulation.  I've consistently used a 1.5 cup of flour as the basis for the chassis.  I've historically used ADY, but over the past few weeks, I've been using three 'scoops' of our starter and just a little bit of ADY - which...we're running low on.  When I use the starter in bread doughs, I go the whole starter --> poolish --> dough.  But, in these p...

A few weeks back, I saw in Adam Kuban's Instagram Stories (he's the "OG pizza blogger" that I've posted about from time-to-time ) that he had purchased some new pans from Lloyd's Pans that included a long/thin pan that had a pretty unique shape.  I think...he then included a 'repost' (is that what we call them on Instagram?) of a story from TheKitchenWhisperer.Pizza where she was talking about how she was using similar pans.  Here's one of her posts .  And if you look at her feed, there are a bunch .  This one appears to be when she first acquired the pans .    Here's one of a full topped pie below: View this post on Instagram 🎵 “I’m feelin’ Hot! Hot! Hot!” This pizza was SPICY 🔥 in all the best ways! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I couldn’t let another day go by without using my 18” Long Pan from @lloydpans . A girl’s gotta eat after all! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Layers of 🔥🌶spicy banana pepper sauce, cheese blend, ...

Thanks to Nat and the girls and what might be the best Father's Day gifts ever, I'm now the proud owner of these new stands and pans.  The pans you see above are from here on Central Restaurant and are simply called "Plastic serving tray", but if you've been to a southside pizza joint where they serve tavern cut thin crust, you know these as the 'anti-sogginess' devices.  You don't cook the pies in here.  Nope.  After you pull them out of your cutter pans, you cut them on a board, then slide them into one of these to make sure you keep your crispy bottom.  My favorite place Aurelio's uses these and that's where I started to chase them down. The stands that the trays/pans are standing on are from Amazon here and cost about ten bucks.  The catch is that you have to buy these little plastic sleeves that kind of clip on to the stands.  They are here on Amazon and are just six bucks for a set of three.    Now, you're probably wonder...

Earlier this week, I posted the photos of my new cutter pans for Chicago thin crust pizza making and here as you likely guessed, it didn't take long for me to try to put it them through their paces.  I grabbed a Aurelio's clone dough formulation from the PizzaMaking.com forums and dressed it with my usual set of ingredients: Chellino Scamorza cheese , pepperoni, hot Italian sausage and some red peppers.  Finished with some parm and basil after it baked. Consider this step one in a long journey towards my next pizza quest:  tavern cut, Chicago thin crust. We're living at Equation Boy/Man's house and thus, using their ovens.  I haven't quite gotten enough practice to know how they'd perform.  I put the pan on a lower rack and placed my baking steel on a rack just on top of the pie.  Thinking...that there would be some thermal mass baking the top.  That, indeed, worked great.  The top of the pie came out perfectly well done.  But the bott...

Well, well, well.  Look at what showed up over the weekend at our house.  That's three brand new, pre-seasoned, permanent-coated 14" cutter pans for Chicago-style thin crust pizzas.  If you are looking for your own set, you can find them here .  I will caution you that they actually manufacture your pans and don't have them in stock.  Really.   Like it took a month to get them.  I first heard about Lloyd Pans and their cutter pans on the PizzaMaking.com forums .   Same place that I sourced my Detroit-style blue steel pans that I've put through their paces over the past four-ish years. This is part of the email I had with the Lloyd Pans customer representative - who couldn't have been nicer. We are the manufacturer of the pans you see on our website. We build them here in Spokane, WA so these will be "hot off the press" for you! :)   We are booked heavily in production right now, but are running extra shifts to get the work out s...