The Kitchen Appliance Khanh Nguyen Can’t Live Without

Most people buy a pizza oven to make pizza. Not Khanh Nguyen. The executive chef at Sydney’s King Clarence uses his for everything from crusty sourdough to a centrepiece beef Wellington.

Nguyen, who also led the kitchens at Aru and the now-closed Sunda in Melbourne, shares his Gozney Dome home cooking adventures with his 128,000 Instagram followers on a regular basis. Nearly a year in, he’s still fired up about the versatile oven. “I’ve probably put on six kilos from using it so much,” he says.

Nguyen’s feed proves the viral pizza oven is a genuine kitchen workhorse, not another impulse buy that gathers dust next to your waffle maker. Scroll through his videos, and the evidence is hard to argue with, from sourdough loaves and bolognese scrolls that belong in a bakery window to a steak-and-egg sanga with caramelised onions that’s ready to cure your worst hangover.

He’s not the only pro playing with fire. Other fans of the British brand include Aussie chefs Joel Bennetts, Isobel Whelan-Little and Darren Robertson, author Julia Busuttil Nishimura and cook and creative Jessica Nguyen (no relation to Khanh).

We asked Nguyen what he loves about the versatile machine and the dishes he keeps coming back to.

What’s your favourite home-cooking appliance?

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll probably know the answer: it’s my Gozney pizza oven. Most people think of it purely as a pizza oven, but it’s capable of so much more.

What do you love about it?

Technically, it’s a really impressive piece of equipment. It can run on both gas and wood, giving you two very different cooking environments. Gas allows you to control and stabilise the temperature very precisely, while wood adds that live-fire element and a subtle smokiness that’s hard to replicate with anything else.

What I enjoy most is that it’s not a set-and-forget appliance. Because of the high temperatures and live fire, you have to stay engaged with the cooking process: managing the flame, rotating the food, and reading the heat inside the oven. It feels much more like cooking over a proper fire than using a standard oven, and that hands-on aspect is something I really enjoy.

What do you use it for?

I love how versatile it is. I’ve baked bread, roasted vegetables and meats, made toasted sandwiches, and used it for all sorts of high-heat cooking. For the first five months after installing it, I was probably cooking with it at least five days a week.

Shop the Gozney Dome at gozney.com.

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