Cooking tips, tricks, and advice from professional kitchens
My New Favourite Thing
My New Favourite Thing: Super Quick Fresh Pizzas
Dec 6th
Fresh home-made pizza is one of the best things ever. But who can be bothered to make a dough, let it proof, punch it, let it proof again only to still have to make everything you want on the thing?!
The solution I’ve found, (sad that it took me so long to implement even though we’ve been doing this at work since long before I started a year ago) is to make all the components separately and freeze them in individual portions.
For the base, simply make the dough as you would regularly, make enough for however many pizzas you want, and after rolling, freeze.
A sub-tip here is to freeze them all on a baking sheet with a piece of wax paper in between and once frozen, wrap individually in saran wrap to prevent freezer burn.
For the sauce and the toppings, make as per the recipes you like, and freeze in small zip lock baggies. I’ve found this works brilliantly for garlic mushrooms, caramelized onions and sauce so far, and from work I know this also works with sausages (cut to size first).
When you want a pizza, simply pull one bag each of whatever you want on it from the freezer, let them defrost in the fridge (or in the microwave) and there you are home-made from scratch pizza any time you like.
My New Favourite Thing: Peeled Garlic Cloves
Dec 5th
Recently I discovered that my favorite veg store in town sells garlic in the way we get it at work; in whole peeled cloves. These are well priced and seem to, for some reason, keep better than all the other garlic I’ve ever bought before. In some shops, garlic cloves can be purchased IQF (individually quick frozen), but freezing isn’t necessary. The garlic will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator. If you’re worried about the odor, don’t be. Since the garlic still has the thin outer membrane intact, there is absolutely no smell at all.
While you’ve saved the time it takes to peel a clove, which is significant, you still have to chop it. For minced garlic, simply grate the cloves on a Microplane Grater/Zester.
The whole cloves are also perfect for tossing in oil and salt and roasting.
