Although everyone is familiar with the Chicago deep dish pizza, I’m not sure many people have heard of Chicago’s second famous pie… the Pizza Pot Pie. There is no question that it has a fanbase, despite the fact that it is not quite as popular as the traditional deep dish. When I was browsing YouTube, I came upon a video of a pizza pot pie. I was aware that I had to make an effort to replicate it.
To begin, could you perhaps explain what a pizza pot pie actually is? To put it simply, it’s a pizza cooked in a bowl rather than the traditional way. But, in order to avoid the possibility of staining or otherwise spoiling a good bowl, we use a deep dish pizza pan with a diameter of 8 inches instead. The sauce itself is also a little bit unusual; in essence, it is a meat sauce quite similar to a ragu or a bolognese. Extremely different compared to a more classic pizza sauce. Yet, the cheese is the element that truly sets this pizza apart from others. It is sticky, it can be stretched, and most importantly, there is a considerable amount of it.
Pizza Pot Pie
Ingredients
- 2 measuring cups of ragu
- 1 cup of roasted bell peppers, sliced, to be used as filling
- a half cup’s worth of sliced olives
- 2 and a third and a half pounds of sliced mozzarella cheese with low moisture
- 1 piece of pizza dough
- a tablespoon and a half of butter melted
Steps:
- Turn your oven up to 400 degrees. Put the ragu in a pot and warm it up over a heat setting of the medium. In the meantime, use the remaining butter to grease the interior of a deep dish pizza pan of 8 inches in diameter. The inside of the pan should be covered with slices of mozzarella, and you should make sure that they go up the sides of the pan as well. Bell peppers and olives should be sprinkled on top of the cheese. Pour the ragu into the pan once it has reached the desired temperature.
- The pizza dough should be rolled out into a circle that is ten inches wide. Proceed with caution as you wrap the dough over the top of the deep dish pan. Put the dish in an oven preheated to 400 degrees Fahrenheit with a sheet tray underneath it. Cook the pizza pot pie for approximately 20 minutes or until the crust turns a golden brown color.
- Take the pizza out of the oven, and using the remaining butter, brush it all over the crust. Put a plate on top of the crust, and then use a pair of kitchen gloves to hold the plate and the pan as you flip them over so that the plate is now on the bottom and the bottom of the pan is facing up. Make a gentle indentation in the crust all the way around the circumference of the pan with a spoon. Take the pan off the heat and serve.
Learn more: Cherry Tomato and Basil Flatbread Recipe