Long Prep: from raw ingredients to ready to use toppings.

In Long Prep, we first de-label, wash, and dry our raw vegetables, and clean any other ingredients as needed (such as removing the skin from an onion). Then we have the option of either rough chopping our vegetables by hand and then finalizing them in the food processor, or do all the cutting by hand with a sharp knife. Either method is equally effective, I have arrived at cutting by hand as my preferred method.

NOTE: for a quality pizza, some ingredients like mushrooms need to be cut right before they are used. So you can store them whole in a tray, and then wash and cut them right before use. Mushrooms for example can really improve a pizza or any dish, so it’s really worth it to take the time to use them generously once you have become proficient.

Once our vegetables are chopped and other ingredients prepared, we squeeze dry the freshly-cut vegetables in paper towels to remove any excess moisture, and put them into a paper towel-lined clear containers to store in the fridge. We also put any other ingredients into their own clear containers, using paper towels to control moisture as needed, one ingredient per container. NOTE: I have found that it helps if all the containers are identical or just two sizes.

We can then use our clearly identifiable pizza toppings on our pizza, or a calzone, or a stir-fry, or an omelet.

Our process today, Long Prep is naturally followed by “Short Prep”, the process where we package those now prepared pizza toppings produced in Long Prep, from their clear containers into divided trays to be used in pizza Composition later that day or the next day.

So let’s get right to it!

EQUIPMENT LIST
apron
kitchen towel
wet towel
paper towels

food processor
timer
colander
cutting board
butter knife

plastic jars

INGREDIENTS
1 red pepper
1 orange pepper
1 yellow peppers
1 cup whole mushrooms
1 onion
1 clove garlic
2 jalepeno peppers

We will take our bell peppers, remove the stickers, clean them and put them into a strainer to dry.

We will roughly chop the onion

And the garlic

We will clean the jalepeno peppers and we are ready for the next step

We will roughly cut up the bell peppers and onions for the food processor, mince the garlic and cut up the jalepeno pepper

Next we will put the mushrooms into their container

We will add each ingredient to the food processor bowl, making sure to shake the bowl so the ingredients are evenly distributed on the bottom and in the cutting blades.

We will squeeze the freshly processed pepper or onion in a paper towel

Flip it over and give it another squeeze

Add to a container with a paper towel at the bottom.

Do this for each of the peppers and onion

Today we took another step on the road to pizza prosperity with our review of Long Prep. We learned how to process our raw ingredients and turn them into legitimate pizza toppings. Then we took our toppings and put them into clear containers, and put those containers in the fridge

The utility of Long Prep will become especially evident when we learn the next step, Short Prep. Short prep involves our measuring and cleanly storing all pizza toppings we need for the composition of one (or more) complete pizzas.

When we put all the steps together: Long Prep Short Prep Pizza Dough Composition we have a complete system to allow us to eat pizza often and stress free.

Thanks and see you next time!