Greek restaurant style pan pizza

This style of pizza was ubiquitous in western Canada in the 80s and 90s (and probably before) but seems to be almost extinct now that NYC or Neapolitan pizza is the default style. The defining features are: a thick, crisp, slightly bready crust, generous sauce, loaded toppings, and a blanket of browned cheese. If you've never had the style I'm talking about, the closest comparison would be Pizza Hut, but less greasy, and with way better toppings. It's also similar to Regina (SK) pizza, which is a more extreme version than I've described, with a sweeter sauce and toppings an inch or more tall.

So. I spent a couple of months endlessly experimenting with different recipes and techniques, and finally hit on a method that closely approximates my memories of the Greek style pizza I remember from my youth, from Candia's or Alexis Taverna in Kits.

Nothing about this method is hard, but it's multi step and time consuming, and picky, I'm warning you here. There are lots of ways to make pizza faster and more simply. But if you want this particular taste, this is what's going to get you there. Some important points:

• Start the night before. We're making a high hydration, no-knead dough that needs 12-24 hours to rise. I typically start it at 9 pm the night before, and start shaping around 3-4 pm the next day.
• You will need to start the shaping process at least 3 hours before you want to eat, so this is not a weeknight thing, unless you work from home. 
• I'm not picky about the sauce, but it has to be thick. There are so many toppings, sogginess is a constant threat.
• Pans must be heavy and able to withstand high heat and some abuse. I use cast iron skillets and a heavy cake pan that I don't mind getting wrecked. 
• Crust must be par-baked. Not just to make sure you get a good crisp on the bottom, but because you're going to pile so many toppings on that a raw dough will collapse and you'll end up with a soggy, dense, yucky crust. Par-bake for at least 4 minutes (until dough is set) all the way up to 8 minutes if you like a very browned, very crunchy crust. 
• Cheese is a blend of block mozzarella and cheddar or Monterey Jack. About 60/40 or 70/30 split, with mozza being the majority. Why? There's something about this combo that produces the correct amount of greasiness, stretch, and burnt cheese edges. 
• As soon as you pull the crusts out from par-baking, scatter a very light layer of cheese on top. This helps prevent the sauce layer from melding with the dough and making things too wet. 
• Sauce goes on top of this cheese layer, all the way to the edges. 
• Pile toppings on, from least wet to most wet, so the wet stuff has a chance to dry out on top. I typically go in this order: meat, olives, onions, mushrooms (pre-cooked or canned), raw peppers, pineapple. 
• Set your oven racks with one on the lowest setting and one on the highest. This gives you some control if the toppings aren't cooking fast enough and you're worried about the crust burning. Or vice versa. 

OK. I'm going to give measurements and directions for enough for 2 cast iron skillets with a fairly thick crust. You can modify it to make more or less, but keep the ratios more or less the same. This is a fairly forgiving dough - most of the outcome here is from the method of cooking, not the individual components. 

So let's start with the dough:

Mix together:

2 cups of flour (280 g) 

1 tsp table salt

3/4 tsp instant yeast

Stir 3/4 cup water and 1 Tbsp olive oil into the dry ingredients. Add more water as necessary to get a shaggy dough that doesn't have dry flour left at the bottom of the bowl. If you are using weights and baker's ratios, aim for a 70% hydration (196 g of water) dough. Cover and let rise at room temperature for 12-24 hours. At any point after the first 12 hours, when it's fully risen, you can punch down and store in the fridge for a few days. 

After 18 hours


2-3 hours before you want to eat, grease 2 cast iron skillets with a tsp of shortening in each pan. Grease the bottom and a cm or two up the sides. Lightly salt the greased pan with a salt shaker. Cut the dough in half in the bowl, and pull out each portion and kind of fold it in on itself to form a cohesive lump. Why? Because forming a ball or folding it up rearranges things a little so that the yeast can come into contact with new flour without actually punching it down and re-kneading. You want to keep some of the air bubbles that have formed while doing this, but also making a smooth new lump that can re-rise evenly.

Put lump into pan and pull it around a little to stretch it. It will seem like not enough dough and you will have lots of empty space. That's ok. Leave it alone for about 5 minutes.







Then come back to it and start poking at it to push it further to the edges. You might have to leave it again for 5-10 minutes to get it to reach all the way to the edges of the pan. When you get to this point, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 2 hours. You can hurry this stage along a little by putting it in a warmed area like an oven that's been turned on for a minute then turned off, or by a heater or something, but 2 hours at room temperature will get you a nice wet, well risen dough.

2 hours after shaping dough to the edges of pan

Some time while this is happening, get your sauce and toppings ready. 

For sauce, I use 1 small can of tomatoes (pureed) with 1 small can tomato paste. Heat together and season to taste with salt, garlic powder, a little sugar, and oregano. This is not a purist pizza, so honestly, the taste of the sauce is somewhat unimportant given all the other stuff you're piling on. Season it until it tastes vaguely like pizza sauce and move on with your life. You will probably have leftover sauce. It freezes well for your next project, or dump it into your next batch of spaghetti sauce or chili. 

Grate your cheeses and toss together. Drain any canned ingredients like olives or pineapple and pat dry if necessary. Saute mushrooms until they've released their water. You can saute your onions too, or use raw. 

When there's 15-20 minutes left on the rising, preheat your oven to 500F. Put pans in to par-bake for 4-8 minutes, depending on how much crunch you want in your crust.

Take crusts out of oven and immediately scatter a very sparse layer of cheese on.



Then top with sauce, toppings, and more cheese. The top cheese layer should go all the way to the edge.

Put back into 500 degree oven. If you like crispy crust, bake on bottom rack. If you want a softer crust, bake on top rack. These take a while to cook because the toppings are so loaded it's almost like cooking a casserole. Move from top to bottom or vice versa if you think the cheese is browning too fast or the crust is. Start checking for doneness at 15 minutes. If you're using skillets, you also have the option to crisp the crust on the stovetop element if your toppings are fully cooked but the crust is still pale. Use a butter knife to pry up the bottom and check.

Let cool in the pan for a minute or two, then use a spatula to lift onto a cooling rack to cool for another 5-10 minutes before cutting.