South Carolina Deep Dish Pizza

This is a dish from my brother, Sir Ryan’s South Carolina kitchen that has been talked about for a few years. Over time he has worked on convincing me to give it a try, and though it sounded fabulous and I wanted to make it, it just never happened. While Ryan and his family were visiting over the Christmas holiday he put one together and proved that this pie was all that. We couldn’t resist giving it another try ourselves a few weeks later and for once the tables turned and I found myself calling the novice chef brother of mine for advice.

Make this as simple or complicated as you like, buy premade dough or make it fresh yourself, buy pizza sauce or create your own. For me this is a fast, decadent meal, and I prefer to keep it that way. Maybe if I had some Jersey tomatoes available I would make my own sauce.

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 ½ ounce grated parmesan cheese
1# Pizza Dough, make it fresh or buy premade from the market
10 ounces pizza sauce
2 cups shredded mozzarella
2 ¼ ounces turkey pepperoni
4 ½ ounces (1 cup) cooked turkey sausage crumbles
1 green pepper, small diced
1 medium yellow onion, small diced
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
2 tablespoons julienned basil

Preheat oven to 350. Sauté the garlic, peppers, onions and basil until fragrant and set aside. Gather the remaining mise en place and 9” spring form pan, or another deep round pan you have in your kitchen arsenal. Coat the pan with olive oil and dust the parmesan cheese evenly around the surface. Place the dough ball in the pan and push the bulk of the dough towards the edges. Start the layering process with a sprinkling of shredded mozzarella, followed by the pizza sauce and then the meat and vegetable toppings. Apply pressure to the toppings, causing the dough to move towards the edge and grow up the pan. Top with cheese and layer in the same order, each time pushing down to move the dough up the sides of the pan. End the layering with a healthy amount of cheese and a dusting of parmesan. Bake for 60- 70 minutes, getting the top to be bubbly, golden, mouthwatering perfect.

This is a pretty massive deep dish, certainly enough for 4 filling servings. After removing it from the pan (the spring form pan makes the removal so easy), the pie just looks sinfully irresistible.