Equipment in Action: Cook Chill
Restaurants use cook-chill equipment for much food preparation
By Lisa Bertagnoli, Contributing Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 8/1/2007
For some, the mention of cook-chill systems can still call to mind images of huge stainless-steel kettles and vast cooling vats, industrial-strength kitchen gear that comes with price tags that can be upward of $200,000.
Complete cook-chill systems exist primarily in high-volume noncommercial and recreational settings. Workhorses capable of prodigious output, they’ve become even more efficient over the years, with new pumping systems that allow operators to preserve the consistency and texture of products such as soups and stews.
Full systems no longer are the only way cook-chill adds up. As operations such as hospitals adopt room-service-style menus for patients, other configurations and uses emerge. Chris Clements, president of Frank Clements Associates, a Houston-based foodservice facilities-design firm, explains that a growing number of operators are looking for the "chill" component of cook-chill—in other words, a blast chiller—that will quickly lower cooked foods to safe storing temperatures. "They’re popular because of HACCP [hazard analysis and critical control point] requirements and local food-safety codes," he says.
Chillers are classified by how many sheet pans they hold. Sizes range from two-pan undercounter models to models that can be as large as a walk-in cooler.
TD Banknorth Garden, the Boston arena that’s home to both the NHL Bruins and the NBA Celtics, last year installed a $13,000, 24-pan blast chiller in order to aid production, says Rolf Baumann, corporate chef for Buffalo, N.Y.-based Delaware North Cos., which manages TD Banknorth’s foodservice. The arena seats 17,000 and has five dining facilities (including The Boardroom, above); on game days, the kitchen serves 2,500 to 3,000 meals to guests in suites alone.
At least 40% of the menu, including vegetables, proteins and ice creams, is produced using the chiller. Gelato is portioned into 1-ounce containers and blast-frozen. At service time, items are removed from the freezer and placed on trays. The desserts can remain at room temperature for 30 minutes and perfectly maintain their shape, Baumann says.
More-efficient production is but one of the chiller’s benefits. Others include less waste and extended refrigerator life of foods. Items quickly chilled have a life span that averages two days longer than foods cooled by other methods, Baumann adds.
But the biggest and most important bonus may be increased food safety. The chiller can cool 720 cooked chicken breasts to a safe holding temperature in 24 minutes, he says.
Cook-Chill Food Safety
Although proper cook-chill procedures destroy disease-causing pathogens, reduce spoilage microorganisms and inactivate enzymes that can compromise food quality, carefully monitored food-safety precautions are a must. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture offers a useful online training guide (www.mda.state.mn.us/food/business/ modules/cookchill/default.htm) to the cook-chill method that covers key food-safety measures. Among them:
Careful monitoring of time and temperatures is critical. The danger zone for creation of organisms that create spoilage and illness is internal temperatures between 41F and 140F. At receiving, cold ingredients must be at or below 41F.
Proper temperatures must be achieved at cooking. Hamburger must reach 155F before cooling; chicken must reach 165F.
Once properly cooked, food must be chilled quickly in a two-step process: from 140F to 70F in two hours and from 70F to 41F in four additional hours.
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