A leading Australian chef and restaurateur has revealed his secret trick for taking a simple margherita pizza to the next level – and it uses canned fish.
Andrew McConnell is the owner of Melbourne-based restaurants Supernormal Brisbane, Apollo Inn and Cumulus Inc.
He said Good food He cheats when he orders takeout by ordering two margherita pizzas, one for the kids and one for himself, and he ‘dresses up’ his own by covering it with a can of anchovies.
“Should I even say this?” he asked, adding that he will only order pizza from Italian institution Freddy’s on Melbourne’s Chapel Street.
The Australian chef can’t seem to get enough of the salty seafood delights and said he likes them so much he often enjoys a tin on toast.
A staple of Mediterranean cuisine, this intensely salty fish is considered by many to be an acquired taste, but Andrew isn’t the only one who raves about it.
One chef, who had only ever tasted poor-quality anchovies, was surprised to discover that quality versions of the fish, like those produced by Ortiz and loved by chefs around the world, actually made an excellent complement to Italian food.
“I tried some nice anchovies in pasta sauce and… they taste like the sea. They’re still salty, but they have a nice umami flavor,” she said on Reddit.
Chef Andrew McConnell (pictured right) will only be taking takeaway pizza from Freddy’s in Melbourne
The renowned Australian chef and restaurateur orders two margaritas from Freddy’s in Melbourne and adds a can of tinned anchovies to his pizza.
Another fan said she couldn’t understand why the underrated food had such a bad reputation.
Many agreed that anchovies were “the best food in the world” and a common ingredient that enhanced the flavor of popular products such as Worcestershire sauce.
Others said that good anchovies were behind all great Caesar salads, and another agreed with Andrew that the time to add them to a pizza is after cooking it, not before.
“If they are on the pizza for the entire cooking period, they dry out, the omega-3 fats from the fish burn and the aroma is lost,” they warned.
An Italian added that anchovies were a perfect complement to traditional Italian pizza and that pineapple was the ingredient people should start to reconsider.