Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Measuring – testing – or controlling by inanimate means – Preparing solid product in final form by heating
Patent
1997-10-17
1999-11-02
Yeung, George C.
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Measuring, testing, or controlling by inanimate means
Preparing solid product in final form by heating
426509, 426523, A23L 100
Patent
active
059765917
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to cooking food at low temperature (of the order of 50.degree. C. to 80.degree. C.), and more particularly cooking foie gras and fish. The invention also relates, when cooking frozen food, to controlling the thawing, heating, cooking sequence.
In the particular case of foie gras, preparation can be performed in various ways, depending on temperature and on length of cooking time: lightly cooked, part-cooked, or for potting. These various degrees of cooking lead to different taste qualities and different keeping properties.
Although it is relatively easy to make potted foie gras at home by cooking it through to the center at a high temperature (greater than 110.degree. C., thereby sterilizing it), it is much more difficult to obtain a part-cooked foie gras having satisfactory taste qualities. It is necessary not only to avoid insufficient cooking that fails to penetrate to the center of the liver (where part-cooked foie gras is generally prepared by cooking whole livers or at least a large volume of liver, e.g. in a pot), and also to avoid excessive cooking which would degrade the aroma, the savor, and the bouquet that make this dish attractive.
Consumer interest in part-cooked foie gras is increasing, given its exceptional taste qualities providing it has been properly prepared.
This difficult preparation can be mastered in satisfactory manner on an industrial scale or on a craft scale, and part-cooked foie gras are readily available on sale in jars, in cans, or in vacuum packaging.
Nevertheless, it is much more difficult to control preparation of part-cooked foie gras at home, there being a large empirical content in such preparation with a corresponding risk of failure or of poor control over the qualities of the final dish. Preparation is usually performed by cooking in a pot that is placed in an oven or in a bain-marie in an oven, but because of the considerable temperature gradient, cooking is particularly difficult to control and achieve in uniform and reproducible manner, giving rise in particular to the risk of the liver being overcooked on the outside or even right through.
Given the present enthusiasm for home preparation and the ever-increasing availability of raw livers on the market, a need has arisen for making it easy and reliable to provide pots of "part-cooked" foie gras, i.e. preparations that are not suitable for preserving, at temperatures lying essentially in the range 50.degree. C. to 75.degree. C., and capable of being implemented by the general public (or indeed by professionals) without requiring special skill or experience and in a manner that is reliable, simple, and nevertheless completely under control.
Turning now to fish, although fish can be cooked at high temperature without damaging its nutritional or taste qualities, numerous recipes, and in particular those based on interchange with a cooking medium such as a stock, are better performed at low temperature, not exceeding 95.degree. C. (like steam cooking). It is known that cooking fish at below the boiling temperature of water conserves all of the properties of this food. A known recipe consists in plunging a fish into hot stock, turning off the heat, and alloying it to cook merely by exchanging heat with the cooking medium, however that recipe is very difficult to get right as to duration and final quality of the cooking: if cooking is allowed to continue for too long (for a large piece of fish), then everything cools down quickly, and if it is not allowed to go on long enough, then cooking can be insufficient. The increasing attraction of fish, in particular with improved distribution means, makes it particularly advantageous to have a method of preparation that is adapted to providing control over the cooking cycle.
Finally, turning to frozen foods, food is often thawed, then heated, and where appropriate cooked in a microwave oven, which can require two or even three distinct modes of operation to be performed one after the other, thus making it difficult to control times and powers which vary fr
REFERENCES:
patent: 2787549 (1957-04-01), Heald
patent: 4331127 (1982-05-01), Grosso
Beard, Jr. R. William
Yeung George C.
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