Translating Cooking Techniques

For a new product or menu item, it’s often a long-distance leap from the research chef’s benchtop to the rapid-roasting oven of the manufacturing plant, or the increasingly “speed-scratch” back-of-the-house environment of a national chain. And translating gold-standard flavors into that scaled-up, fast-throughput world sends product and menu developers roaming far beyond the boundaries of conventional cuisine.

Often, a key part of this transition from concept to reality is finding alternative ways to deliver the qualities that a chef creates by searing a roast, smoking a slab of ribs, cooking a roux, browning onions and many other time-honored processes. It may require turning a method like braising on its head and tapping a flavor chemist to add some missing notes. It’s all about being more practical, productive and cost-efficient in product and menu development.

THE MEAT OF THE MATTER

Often, the challenge is finding a faster way to produce the effects of time-consuming cooking processes like braising, roasting and smoking. In the plant, time is money, and steaming is often the most cost-efficient cooking medium, suggests Andrew Bosch, technical sales manager, Gilroy Foods & Flavors, Gilroy, CA. He notes that meats sealed in bags cook quickly with steam, and stay moist and tender with good yield.

However, bag-cooked meats don’t develop the Maillard characteristics of a well-browned roast or braised item. “You won’t get those long-cooked flavor attributes,” says Bosch. At that point, prepared flavors and specialized plant techniques can make up the difference.

But these flavors—even when dialed-down into something as specific as seared pork loin—are rarely one size fits all. “The flavor differs depending on how long the pork is seared,” says Bosch. “So it’s not only about technique, it’s also how long it’s done. That really can have a huge effect on the flavor profile.”

An example of a product frequently reworked in the plant is fully cooked barbecued pork ribs, popular as a restaurant entrée and a ready-to-heat supermarket item. Traditional barbecue generally smokes for 8 or 10 hours over a wood fire. Steaming, roasting or grilling is much quicker—but at the expense of the long-smoked flavor consumers expect.