Deep Dish Pizza

OK, I am geeking out about deep dish pizza. Why? Because the secret to getting the pizza right is getting the crust right, which applies most of what I've been figuring out with bread baking for the last few months. Some review:

Yeast breads are either lean or enriched. Lean breads consist of just flour, water, salt, and yeast, and the protein structure comes from developing gluten in the dough; hence, hard bread flour and extensive kneading (and/or autolyse, but that's another show). Enriched breads add softeners such as sugar, butter, or egg yolk, and egg white for additional protein structure. What we want for our deep dish pizza crust is something in between, with some gluten but not too much so it keeps that flaky texture, and some enriching but not too much. We also don't want lots of extra protein because we're not baking a nice fluffy loaf, so the egg is out and we don't want to use bread flour - all-purpose will do perfectly. Here's my version:

The Crust:
8 oz warm water
1 tsp active dry yeast
13 oz all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp good extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp sugar

Dissolve the yeast in the water and let it sit till it starts to bubble a bit. Add the rest of the ingrediends and stir till the dough comes together, then knead with the bread hook on low-medium speed for only a couple of minutes. This is critical - we want a rather slack dough so it'll still be sticking to the bottom of the bowl a bit, and we don't want to fully develop all of the gluten so we're not going to knead the dough completely. When you pull the dough out of the bowl it'll be sticky and a bit stringy and lumpy looking - not like biscuit dough at all, but if you're used to baking bread, it'll be not nearly as smooth. Oil a bowl and place the dough in it, cover and let rise for a couple of hours. Then, divide the dough in half and use each half for one 8-9 inch pizza pan.

The Sauce:
3 shallots, diced (you could use sweet or red onion instead)
3-4 cloves garlic, diced
1 small to medium carrot, finely diced
3-4 tbsp olive oil
salt, pepper, thyme, basil, oregano as desired.
1 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes

Heat the olive oil, then saute the aromatics for 8-10 minutes until they're nice and soft and the shallots are just thinking about browning but not doing it yet. Pull the pan off of the heat and stir in the crushed tomatoes. That's right - the sauce isn't cooked, it is left raw.

The Assembly:
Heat the oven to 425. Press the dough into the bottom of the pan (dust first with cornmeal if you wish) and squeeze it about a half inch up the sides. It doesn't need to come all the way up the side as you'll see when it bakes. Add mozzarella to the bottom to coat the dough - you can shred it but I think it works better if you slice the cheese and lay it in the bottom, just don't leave any sizable gaps. Then, press hot and/or sweet italian sausage (raw) in a layer on top of the cheese so that it's about a quarter inch thick. That's probably 2-3 links of sausage, casings removed, per pizza. Now, toss in some mushrooms and ladle in the sauce until the 'shrooms are just covered. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the edges of the crust are nice and brown and the sauce is just thinking about bubbling. Remove from the oven and add about a quarter cup of parmesan sprinkled on top, then let it rest for 5-10 minutes before cutting and eating.