The one-stop food preparation centre

Just to let you know, I am a great foodie. That is why when I learnt that there was a demonstration using a time-saving machine  in town, I did not need any convincing to attend. And I was not disappointed  because what I  found was an appliance that  could prepare all my favourite dishes just the way I like them, and which many people would love to have in their kitchens.  The roasted lamb chops were soft and succulent, with an inviting aroma.

The appliance, known as  Rational  Cooking Centre, also made  some chicken wings, and they, too, were like nothing I had ever tasted. And the  French fries? They were nice and golden, and just the right texture. The pilau was the best I had eaten in a long time.

Sadly, I had to leave at the end of the demonstration, but I couldn’t have enough of this “super chef” that prepared all the delicious food I tasted in less than an hour.  I fell in love with Chef Rational.

Rational is an intelligent, self-cooking centre on which all you have to do is set and press buttons, depending on  the food you want  to cook and the method, be it frying, steaming, baking or roasting.

After that, it directs you to the drawer in which to place the raw food that you have already prepared. You choose your desired preferences — the brownness, crispiness, and whatever other qualities you want — all at the touch of a button. When you’re set, you close the door and it cooks in less than five minutes, barely  enough time to check the messages you might have received on your phone, or  to  flip through your favourite magazine. There’s no heat, no smell of cooking food, and no smoke.

When it is done,  an alarm  or a beaming light alerts you, telling you it is time to open the drawer door, that your meal is ready. And not just ready, but cooked to your specification(s).

You might want to  call it effortless — or minimum effort — cooking. No sweat, no hot flames, the the food ends up nice and soft, without losing any essential fluids. If it is meat, Rational cooks it well, yet retains most of its juices. If it’s a cake, it comes out sweet, soft and fluffy.

ELIMINATES CHALLENGES

Hospitality outlets like restaurants, hotels, lodges, coffee shops and other institutions that have adopted the Rational self-cooking model say they  have eliminated many of the daily challenges in a kitchen that can be overwhelming, especially in commercial kitchens. This was the subject of a discussion during  the cooking demonstration  at commercial kitchen appliances manufacturer and distributor, Sheffield Africa.

The participants, most of whom were drawn from hotels and the hospitality sector, told of the challenges they had to contend with in commercial kitchens. Among these were their lack of capacity to consistently produce the same quality of food, huge energy budgets, and their inability to operate within food budgets. Conventional kitchens were also seen as too engaging and, therefore, requiring lots of manpower.

However, the Rational self-cooking centre addresses all these challenges in that the automatic self-cooking processes ensure  near-perfect and consistent cooking results.

In addition, a unit can cook many different foods at the same time, thereby saving time and energy.

“In an ordinary kitchen, roasting chicken drumsticks takes 45 minutes. With the Rational self-cooking centre I have juicy drumsticks with a crispy skin in only 14 minutes,” noted Sharon Ouda, executive chef at Sheffield Africa. 

The machine uses hot air and steam technology to cook. The combination of heat and steam in the same appliance offers new possibilities in professional kitchens. It sets the temperature, humidity and cooking time automatically  and senses the current cooking conditions and consistency of the food. It, therefore, gives the precise steam temperatures and maximum steam saturation.

“This guarantees the best possible food quality for healthy and nutritious cuisine, without requiring any costly water softening,” says chef Ouda.

It recognises the size, load quantity, product condition and calculates the browning. It also monitors the cooking level and browning of fried, baked and roasted foods.

The Rational self-cooking centre’s traditional grill pattern has high performance capabilities, as its maximum temperature goes up to 300 degrees celsius for cooking cabinet, the even with large quantities of food.  It has short heating-up times, resulting in minimal energy consumption, adds chef Ouda. The unit comes complete with a grill and a pizza tray, a cross and stripe grill grate, roasting and baking sheets and a multi-baker. A triple glass door with cutting-edge heat reflection ensures minimum heat loss. This enables kitchens to cut their energy costs by  10 per cent. An energy consumption display enables the user to monitor how much energy an individual cooking process requires and how much energy has been consumed per day.

This data can also be downloaded through the Rational remote control, a networked system that is accessible through a smart phone.

The Rational self-cooking centre can grill, roast, bake, steam, stew, blanch and poach. It can prepare grilled fish and meat, leg of lamb, roasted chicken, duck, quail, boiled vegetables, rice dishes, poached and scrambled eggs, cakes, deserts and a variety of pastries. It can also be used for African, continental, French, Oriental and Thai cuisine. What’s more, it uses less fat than conventional cooking, resulting in  healthier food. For instance, on the  tray for making chips, one can prepare large quantities of pre-fried foods such as fries and wedges without additional fat.

“The full tray gives 200 portions of fries at a go in 15 minutes and uses 95 per cent less fat, giving 40 per cent fewer calories,” says chef Olivier Aimon of Rational International AG.  He adds that not only it is possible to make large quantities at ago, but they all come out exactly as the centre is directed.

THINKS AHEAD

Equipped with sensors, the machine also is highly adaptive and “learns” the user’s cooking habits and preferences and implements them.

“It thinks ahead and constantly re-programmes the ideal path to your desired result while cooking. It also sends signals to alert you regarding what it is doing so that you can make any amendments if need be,” says chef Ouda.

Consequently, you don’t have to keep monitoring what is cooking, yet everything will still turn out exactly the way you ordered. Since the Rational self-cooking centre is  a digital cooking device, it eliminates any room for error, said chef Aimon.

“This goes a long way in ensuring consistency in quality since it is like one chef doing all the cooking in  a restaurant,” he said.

Besides, the food quality is high as the cooking technique retains most of the qualities of the raw materials. “The Rational self-cooking centre gives up to 20 per cent less shrinkage of raw materials compared to conventional cooking. This gives higher volumes,” said Shailender Singh, director of food and beverage at the Sarova Stanley hotel in Nairobi.

Singh added that the appliance can cook different kinds of cuisines and foods to perfection without any supervision. It also caters for big functions without causing you any stress as it is can prepare thousands of meals in a day.

“With the rational self-cooking units, we managed to serve more than 7,000 guests in a day. Within two preparation days, we cooked and chilled 1.7 tonnes of food. On the day of the function itself, we regenerated the food with the “finishing” function of the machine in shortest time, and of the same quality as freshly cooked.” The “finishing” function is the remotely controlled tray that heats pre-cooked food.

In institutions that have adopted it,  like at the Sarova Stanley, the Rational cooking machine has changed the perception of cooking and simplified the art of cooking.

“It reduces the need for manual labour in the kitchen and has made it a fact that cooking can be as hygienic as possible,” said Chef Aimon.

When used effeciently by having all drawers cooking at the same time, the energy costs come down since it can cook  several different meals at a go. This ensures optimal  use of electricity, leading to reduced costs. It also saves time since it can cook various meals  within a short time, unlike conventional  electric or gas cookers.

Manufactured in Germany by Rational International AG, the Rational self-cooking centres are considered “specialists” in hot food preparation in the world’s professional kitchens.

For more than 40 years the machines have prepared meals across the world. It is estimated that more than 100 million meals are now prepared every day using the Rational self-cooking units around the world. Sheffield Africa has been distributing the Rational self-cooking centres in Kenya and the East African region for the last seven years.

Sheffield Africa, the Rational International AG partner in Kenya, has been conducting free trainings 20 times a year, especially  for hotels, restaurants, and retail food businesses.  The  Rational self-cooking centre is fast replacing other kitchen appliances in hotels, such as convection ovens, tilting pans, boilers, deep fryers, steamers, pots and frying pans, along with a lot of time and effort to prepare a good meal. The rational self-cooking machine is perhaps on of the few modern kitchen appliance  one can use to whip up a complete menu in a few minutes.

The machine occupies less than one square metre, yet it is a complete kitchen unit that automatically cleans itself thoroughly, thereby enhancing kitchen hygiene. You can set it to automatically clean itself if you wish. Depending on how dirty the unit is, it determines the necessary cleaning stage and proposes the optimum dose of cleaning agent and de-scaler, explained chef Aimon.

The machine is fitted with an efficient care control automatic cleaning system that detects dirt and removes it at the touch of a button. This function, too, adapts to the user’s requirements and proposes the best cleaning at a given time. “The end result is a sparkling, hygienic cleanliness that saves time, preserves the environment and saves money,” says chef Ouda.

Since it takes up little space but accomplishes more in less time, the rational self-cooking machine frees up to 30 per cent of all space since it frees up between 30 and 40 per cent of all standard cooking appliances.

IN FIGURES

200

The number of portions of fries the appliance prepares in 15 minutes

40

The percentage of calories reduced in fries since rational uses 95 per cent less fat than conventional cooking

10

The percentage of energy institutions that use the appliance save when they use it optimally