Helpful Centers

May 31, 2008

The Ins And Outs of Restaurant Equipment

Filed under: Eating Fun — admin @ 7:57 pm

The type of restaurant equipment you will need for your restaurant depends on the type of service you provide. For example, if you are a full-scale restaurant you will need many more equipment items that a small mom and pop store will need. If you are a fast food restaurant, you will need different items than a restaurant along the lines of Ruby Tuesday’s.

There are so many different types of restaurant equipment available throughout the world that it will be in possible for me to write about them all. Therefore, I have chosen a few fascinating pieces of equipment to help you in your search and maybe make your job or that of your employees job a little easier along the way.

You should give serious consideration to investing in a reliable food processor. They save time and labor. The way in which your food is processed, how you chop, slice, mix, grate and blend will greatly affect the amount of time it takes to provide the ending result to your customer. By investing in a quality food processor you are investing in a piece of restaurant equipment that will provide safety, better time management and essentially better results.

The refrigerator is the most critical piece of restaurant equipment you can ever buy. Keeping cold foods cold is essential to food quality and the extreme importance of food safety. Invest in a refrigerator that will show you the temperature accurately on the outside of the equipment. Find a refrigerator that is tough and built to last, with proper usage.

Delivering cold and hot beverages is extremely important to the success of your restaurant. This piece of restaurant equipment should provide a quick and efficient way of dispensing the beverages. You will need a well-designed layout to deliver the best product to your customers. A soda tower has the ability to dispense six different beverages and has an ice dispensing point. The ice dispenser should hold around 100 to 150 pounds of ice.

Fried foods are as popular as ever. To keep pace with the demand, today’s frying equipment offers features that save time and money and help you prepare consistent, quality products. Commercial deep-fat fryers are complex pieces of equipment designed to turn out load after load of perfectly fried foods. Today’s frying equipment is made to be safe, energy efficient, and easily cleanable. Energy efficiency is easy for electric fryers since the heating elements are immersed in the frying medium, giving the highest possible efficiency from the electric source.

Gas fryer manufacturers made their products more energy efficient. Gas fryers heat the food either with a burner under the fry pot or by injecting the gas flame into tubes running through the fry pot. Recently, manufacturers have introduced infrared burners and various types of baffles in the tubes to distribute heat more evenly, extract more heat energy from the fuel, and reduce waste heat needing to be exhausted.

Rory H. Hawkins writes about restaurant equipment and other interesting topics. For more information on buying restaurant equipment visit us today.

April 27, 2008

The Almighty Beer-Can Chicken

Filed under: Eating Fun — admin @ 9:22 am

A popular method of cooking chicken in recent years both in
Barbeque contest as well as backyard barbeques is the beer-can
chicken. Cooking a beer-can chicken couldn’t be any easier but
the results are worthwhile. This is a technique that delivers a
moist, succulent chicken and flavorful chicken. It’s also a bit
of a showstopper and makes a lively conversation starter as
well. Is it chicken in a beer can? Close but try beer can in a
chicken. The beer is used to both keep the bird flavorful and
moist, and the cook happy. By the time the bird is ready to eat,
the chef will not be the only one with a beer belly!

Is it safe to eat chicken that has been in contact with the ink
from a beer can? When the FDA was asked this question they were
not sure because they have only tested the cans as a container
and not as a cooking utensil. However the ink on the cans is
applied at a temperature in excess of 500 degrees while the can
never get hotter then 215 degrees during the cooking process.
The conclusion by most is that there is nothing harmful in using
the cans.

For those cooks who still worry about possible contamination,
vertical stainless steel chicken roasters are available. These
roasters have their own reservoir for beer, water or your choice
of liquid.

1 whole chicken

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

3 tablespoons of your favorite dry spice rub

1 can beer

Preparing the chicken

Remove and discard neck and giblets from chicken. Rinse chicken
inside and out, and pat dry with paper towels. Rub or brush the
chicken lightly with oil then season inside and out with salt,
pepper and dry rub.

Open a can of beer and drink half. Wait 5 minutes then drink the
other half and open a second can for the chicken. Drink half of
the second beer and reserve remainder of beer for the bird.
Using a “church key”-style can opener, pop a few more holes in
the top of the can so that the moisture will be able to escape.

With the can on a steady surface, lower the chicken onto the
can. It should stand on it’s own using the legs and can as a
tri-pod. Refrigerate the bird while you get your grill or smoker
setup.

Preparing the grill

Whether you intend to grill or smoke the bird, the goal is
indirect heat. No coals or burner directly under the chicken.
Place a drip pan under where you intend the bird to sit. If you
are grilling, turn the burners to medium-high on one side of
your grill and place the bird on the other side.

Cooking the chicken

Continue to cook the chicken over medium-high with the grill
cover on for approximately 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 hours. The chicken will
be done when the internal temperature registers 165 degrees F in
the breast area and 180 degrees F in the thigh. Remove from
grill with tongs and move to cutting board. Be careful not to
spill the beer when removing the can. Let the chicken rest for
5-10 minutes before carving. Toss the beer can out along with
the carcass.

April 18, 2008

Hans is author of

Filed under: Eating Fun — admin @ 5:39 pm

Thai BBQ or Barbaque Chicken Recipes
What makes Thai BBQ chicken recipes so delicious? It is all the wonderful and unique spices and ingredients that are used to deliver a flavor that are taste buds enjoy. These recipes are wonderful and give us a new view of how we look at barbeque sauces. You will learn once you begin to try other countries bbq recipes that many spices and ingredients can make delectable sauces that everyone will love.

This first Thai BBQ chicken recipe will give you an idea of all the different items that make your own barbeque sauce liven up the dinner table.
You will need 16 ounces of cubed chicken, 2 tablespoons of curry powder, 1 teaspoon of seasoning salt, 1 garlic clove minced, 1 tablespoon of your favorite cooking wine, 1 tablespoon of chopped ginger, 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of honey, 1 small can of pineapple chunks, 1 green pepper cubed, 1 red pepper cubed, cup of coconut milk, cup of soy sauce, a tad of Tabasco sauce. Mix together all ingredients except chicken, and then marinate the chicken chunks overnight in the refrigerator. After marinating, place each vegetable, pineapple chunk and chicken on a skewer and grill until done.

You can also use part of the above ingredients to create wonderful dipping sauce for your Thai barbeque chicken. Just do not use the sauce that you have marinated the chicken in overnight. Just use enough of the sauce to cover the chicken and reserve the rest for your dipping sauce. Everyone will love this tasty recipe and you will love trying coconut milk for many of your bbq sauces. Pineapple and coconut milk will give your favorite barbeque sauce a new flavor that not many people have tried, but once they do they love the flavor.

About the Author

Hans is author of Steaks, Seafood and
Barbeque guide
and the

Grill and Barbeque section of Patio Furniture Ideas