Zachary’s Chicago Pizza is a Berkeley, California institution.  The lines at their College Avenue and Solano Avenue locations can be long as they take no reservations, but the wait is worth it.  Their “stuffed” pizza – different from Chicago deep dish in that the ingredients are stuffed between two layers of dough in a deep dish pan and then chunky tomato sauce covers the top of the pizza – is something right out of heaven, especially their mushroom and spinach pizza.  (right)

Chicago natives and deep dish purists will grouse that Zachary’s isn’t “real” Chicago deep dish pizza.  To them I say, “Fine.”  I’m not concerned about the authenticity of Zachary’s; I’m concerned about how good their pies taste.

On Monday I got a hankering for a mushroom and spinach stuffed pizza so decided to create one.  I started with homemade honey whole wheat pizza dough.  Zachary’s does not use the whole wheat dough for their regular pizzas, although the option is available for their “Good Health” chicken breast and spinach pizza. 

Unsure whether they pre-cook their spinach and mushrooms (both give off a lot of liquid when cooked and I didn’t want a soggy crust) I went ahead and pre-cooked then drained the ingredients.

Assembling the pizza was fairly easy, using a small spring form pan that I normally reserve for cheesecakes.  The dough was nice and thin on the bottom layer.  I added a generous portion of mozzarella cheese and the drained spinach and mushrooms.  A second layer of dough was added, also rolled thin.  There was a problem that as I tried to pinch the two layers of dough around the top, I wound up with a much thicker crust than I wanted.

The pie was topped with thick, chunky tomato sauce, made by simmering a can of crushed tomatoes with oregano, basil and a touch of cayenne pepper until it was reduced to a thick sauce.

Thirty minutes in a 200 C oven produced a nice golden crust and an internal temperature of 70 C.  After letting the pie set for about five minutes, I opened the spring form pan.  Et voila, it looked a lot like the real thing!

But the truth is in the taste, right?  So Tawn and I dug in and put this pie to the test.  As I had feared, the crust at the top edges of the pie was indeed too thick.  But the flavor was a very close match to the original and it was very satisfying. 

Next time, though, I’m not going to pre-cook the spinach: it became stringy and tough in the second cooking. 

Right: The finished product, fresh from the oven.

Thankfully, I had extra dough left over that I put in the freezer, so I can try this recipe again sometime soon and see if it can be improved upon.