Preparing to Freeze

[cdodson]

I know that the mail-order pizzas that you can get from Giordano's and other places in Chicago are prepared half-baked then shipped frozen.  In the interest of preparing a Chicago-style deep dish for someone else's later hot-out-of-the-oven enjoyment, does anyone have any recommendations for cooking times, ingredients to add, etc?

Specifically:

Should you partially bake the pie without the 6-in-1 or cheese toppings (assuming you want to add cheese on top) and add those prior to freezing?

What is the recommended cooking time and temperature?

What is the recommended re-heating/cooking times and temperatures?

What are other considerations when preparing to freeze/re-cook?

I plan to do a little experimentation this week and wondered if someone may have prior experience with this.

Muchas gracias!

[Pete-zza]

Carey,

I don't know how the Chicago guys prepare and freeze their deep-dish pizzas, but it is possible to make and par-bake the crust and use it later to make and freeze an entire pizza. If this is of interest to you, you might want to take a look at the thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1549.msg14273.html#msg14273, where this topic came up a while back in connection with one of our members, jeancarlo, who was in the throes of opening a pizzeria in Mexico. It's possible that there are other and better ways to do what you want to do, but I don't recall having read anything at PMQ.com or elswhere about how to do it with deep-dish, especially in a home environment without flash freezing at very low temperatures.

Peter