Skillet Stuffed Pizza
A Chicago deep-dish worked over for a dutch oven: sausage, mushrooms, and cheese sealed under a lid of dough with sauce on top.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 69
- protein
- 28 g
- serves
- 6
- prep
- 45 min
- cook
- 45 min
- total time
- 90 min
- water
- 300 ml cold
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| All-purpose flour | 4 1/2 cups | measured into a bag at home |
|---|---|---|
| Instant yeast | 2 tsp | instant, not active dry, so it needs no proofing |
| Sugar | 2 tbsp | |
| Salt | 1 tsp for the dough, 1/2 tsp for the filling | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp, plus more for the pot | |
| Lukewarm water | 1 1/4 cups | about 300 ml |
| Mild Italian sausage | 1 1/2 lb | bulk, from the cooler |
| Onion | 1 medium, chopped | |
| Green pepper | 1 medium, chopped | or 10 oz frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry |
| Mushrooms | 8 oz, sliced | |
| Whole milk mozzarella | 10 oz, sliced thin | |
| Canned Italian tomatoes | 1 can | drained and chopped; save the juice for something else |
| Italian seasoning | 1/2 tsp | |
| Fennel seed | 1/4 tsp | |
| Grated parmesan | 1/3 cup | the shelf-stable green-can kind is fine |
Method
- Mix the flour, yeast, sugar, 1 tsp salt, oil, and water in a pot or bowl. Knead until it is soft and holds together, then cover and leave it an hour. Cool weather takes longer.
- Brown the sausage in the dutch oven over the fire, breaking it up. Add the onion, pepper, and mushrooms with the 1/2 tsp salt and cook until the water they throw off is gone. Scrape it all into a bowl and wipe the pot.
- Oil the pot. Press two thirds of the dough across the bottom and a few inches up the sides.
- Lay the mozzarella over the dough, then the sausage and vegetables on top. Roll or press the rest of the dough into a lid, set it over the filling, and pinch the edges to the bottom crust. Cut two vents.
- Spread the chopped tomatoes over the lid. Scatter the seasoning, fennel, and parmesan.
- Lid on. Bake with coals underneath and about twice as many on top, 45 minutes, turning the pot and the lid a quarter turn every ten minutes. Done when the top crust is firm and the edges are brown.
- Pull it off the heat and wait ten minutes before cutting or the filling runs.
This one stays a real bake because the whole point is the two crusts. It needs a dutch oven and a cooler, so it belongs at a car camp or a basecamp, not in a pack.
The order inside the pot matters. Cheese goes down first, against the bottom dough, so it seals the crust from the meat juice. Cooking the vegetables until they stop weeping is the other half of that job; raw mushrooms and peppers put out enough liquid to turn the base to paste. Sauce sits on top instead of inside, which is how the Chicago version works, and it keeps the top crust from drying out under the coals.
Packing
Flour, yeast, sugar, and dough salt go in one bag at home so camp mixing is one pour. Sausage and mozzarella ride in the cooler. Tomatoes, parmesan, and spices go in the dry box.
Variations
- Swap the sausage for a can of drained white beans and skip the meat entirely.
- Pepperoni instead of sausage cuts the browning step, but you lose the fat that flavors the vegetables.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/stuffed-pizza