Poaching is the Path to More Quick Dishes

I’m so happy to share more quick dishes for everyday cooking with you. Earlier this week, I caught a Taco Fish and helped you discover the simplicity of a basic breading procedure you can use on any ingredient in your pantry.

In the time it takes most people to just FIND the right recipe, I can apply a basic cooking method to the ingredients already found in my kitchen.

In the time it takes most people to go back to the grocery store because the recipe told them to, I’ll have cooked, eaten and done the few dishes left.

One of the quickest of the 13 basic cooking methods is Poaching. This is when you cook delicate items in a small amount of flavorful liquid in a gentle fashion.

Poaching is generally used to partially cook items that will be used as an ingredient in another dish. Vegetables are poached before stir-fry to assure they’re cooked correctly. Chicken is poached before being shredded into Burritos. In this case, we’ll poach shrimp to add to other ingredients atop a pizza crust.

The advantages of poaching are many. First, being cooked gently in liquid means you can never burn something being poached. Also, poaching liquid gives you a great opportunity to add flavors to the cooked item. A flavorful liquid will infuse its flavor into the item you’re cooking.

That’s why I think poaching is one of the best way to create quick dishes for everyday cooking. You can’t really mess it up, and the item can even be cooked again.

That’s why I choose poaching for my shrimp pizza. If I were to place raw shrimp onto a pizza crust and attempt to bake it, I’d get a very watery pizza from the liquid the shrimp would release.

However, when I poach shrimp in a flavorful broth with whole garlic cloves, I get partially cooked shrimp that now taste like garlic. It’s a perfect ingredient to create a pizza around because it won’t dry out in the oven and now tastes like garlic!

A store-bought pizza dough with canned diced tomatoes, the poached shrimp, and grated cheese creates the quickest, easiest, most flavorful personal pizza you’ve every had. Plus, it is less expensive than take-out and takes less time than waiting for the delivery.

Quick dishes for everyday cooking always come from basic cooking methods and the ingredients already in your pantry. Dinner can’t be quick or inexpensive if you have to first search for a recipe, then go shopping for the ingredients.