FI20206286A1 - Method for preparing a food product containing thickening agent and a food product made by the method - Google Patents

Abstract

The subject of the invention is a method for preparing food in a large kitchen and distributing it to places of use, as well as the food obtained with the method. In the method, liquid and solid ingredients are mixed together and dosed into portion packs, bags or transport containers for transport, where before the food is dosed, a thickening agent is mixed into the food in such an amount that the liquid ingredient solidifies or gels so solid that the mixture retains essentially its degree of mixing at least during dosing into the portion packs or transport containers, i.e. the solid ingredient retains its position in the mixture. In the method according to the invention, the solidification or gelling effect caused by the thickening agent disappears from the food before it is consumed at the latest.

Description

A method for preparing a foodstuff containing a thickener, and the foodstuff produced by the method Field of the invention

The subject of the invention is a method for preparing food in a large kitchen and distributing it to places of use, as well as the food obtained by the method.

Background

In large-scale kitchens, foodstuffs are prepared in large batches in mixing containers, from which they are portioned into smaller packages for transport and distribution.

Several ready-to-eat foods prepared in this way contain both a part made up of liquid ingredients and a part made up of solid ingredients, for example, various non-pureed soups and temptations.

If food mixed from solid and low-viscosity liquid ingredients in the same mixing vessel is transferred from the mixing vessel to the dosage packages, for example by pumping with a food pump, the liquid portion comes out of the mixing vessel first, while the solid portion remains in the mixing vessel, in which case the dosing is too uneven.

Until now, foods containing low-viscosity liquid ingredients have required a lot of labor during dosing, because the solid part and the liquid part have to be dosed separately by hand into transport containers/packages, bags or portion packs, if you want a product of equal quality for each of them.

In addition, the solid part and the liquid part have typically had to be prepared separately in their own mixing containers for separate dosing o 25 —.

When dosing by hand, the edges of the dosing containers often also have to be cleaned O by hand, for example with a syringe, so that the cover or lid of the dosing container, or the bag can be N tightly closed.

Foodstuffs containing low-viscosity liquid ingredients are also prone to the liquid ingredient spilling or draining out of the containers during transport to the places of use and handling at the places of use, pre- > 30 — as a sign of packaging dripping or tipping over.

N The problem also occurs in the cold manufacturing method of food, the use of which N is increasing rapidly.

In the method, the ingredients of the food are mixed in a mixing vessel at a low temperature and usually packed in transport containers/packages,

in bags or portion packs that are transported to places of use, where they are heated or cooked for consumption of the food.

Thickeners are commonly used to modify the composition of ready-made foods to the desired viscosity.

Commonly used thickeners are, for example, potato starch, wheat and corn flour, gelatin, agar-agar, chemical cold preparation additives, modified starch, maltodextrin, guar gum, etc.

As a result, thickeners normally aim to make the consistency of ready-to-eat food solid or sauce-like.

Thickeners are not — previously added to foods only to adjust the composition to the desired level during a certain preparation stage.

Summary of the invention — The inventor of the present invention unexpectedly discovered that the desired type of food to be prepared in a commercial kitchen, e.g. for pumping from a mixing vessel or for manual dosing, storage and/or transport is achieved by adding a thickening agent to the food in such an amount that causes the viscosity of the food containing a low-viscosity liquid ingredient to increase at least — for the duration of the food dosing, preferably until the food is heated, for example for its enjoyment.

Thus, the purpose of the present invention is to provide a method for preparing food in a commercial kitchen and distributing it to destinations, where in the method liquid and solid ingredients are mixed together and packed in portion packs or transport containers o 25 — for transportation to destinations.

In order to enable uniform dosing in the O method, a thickening agent, N, is added to the food before it is dosed, which loses its properties in the ready-to-eat food. z The invention aims to precipitate the food or to adjust its composition to the desired > 30 — viscosity, e.g. sauce-like, solid or jelly-like only momentarily, so that the accurate dosing of both the solid particles and the liquid part in one single work step can be achieved with automatic dosing pumping or manual labor if necessary.

The precipitants used can be, for example, of animal origin, such as gelatin, or of vegetable origin, for example vegegel, agar-agar, locust bean powder or cognac.

Precipitants can also be chemical reagents.

It is typical for the precipitants according to the invention that they are thick when cold and lose their consistency when hot or change to the desired property after a certain temperature.

Thus, the method according to the invention is particularly suitable for use — in the cold manufacturing method of foodstuffs.

However, thickeners can also be used in the method, which cause a solidification effect even at higher temperatures, even up to the pasteurization temperature of 71-74 °C.

Thanks to the method according to the invention, the food can be dispensed from the mixing container with a pump or by hand or another method with uniform quality into the packages.

In addition, the food does not splash around when pumped from the mixing bowl, but can be dosed cleanly and evenly with a pump or other method.

The pump can also be used with a stronger power, which makes dosing faster.

When using a pump to dispense directly from the mixing bowl into the portion packs, the shelf life of the food can be extended considerably compared to dispensing by hand.

Certain products dosed with a pump can also be cooked in the package after dosing, whereby the product is pasteurized and achieves a very long shelf life without chemical additives or preservatives.

In this case, products can have a shelf life of up to 70 days at best.

When using a pump or a similar method, personnel is not needed as much as when dosing by hand and dosing by combining the components separately, in which case the dosing is many times faster and more accurate.

Thanks to the method according to the invention, the cold preparation of foodstuffs becomes considerably more efficient, and the large kitchen can prepare more foodstuffs in a shorter time, in which case the foodstuffs can be stored, for example, in a cold bank. o 25 O After manufacturing, the foodstuffs are stored N in a cool place in accordance with the food legislation, so when using the method according to the invention, the foodstuffs are, - depending on the thickening agent used, still possibly solid, which is beneficial both during transport and during handling and dosing at the place of use, because for example soup does not slosh and Loisku out of the dose packs when it is in solid form.

N A food product produced by the method according to the invention would typically not need to contain a thickening agent at all, and this is not always even desirable from the point of view of the end result. For example, ready-to-eat meat soup must not be too stiff. In the process, a thickening agent, e.g. gelatin, is added only because the product can be advantageously moved or dosed during the process and only then the solidification/gelling property caused by the thickening agent is used. The property — disappears, for example, when the food is heated to serving temperature. The property can also disappear over time or due to the action of an appropriate enzyme. In the method according to the invention, the solidification/gelling effect caused by the thickening agent has in any case completely disappeared at the latest just before the food is consumed.

The method according to the invention is characterized by the things presented in the identifier part of claim 1. Advantageous embodiments of the method according to the invention are presented in non-independent patent claims 2-7. The method according to the invention also provides a food according to claim 8.

Drawing Figure 1: shows a flow diagram of the method for the production of the food according to the invention Detailed description of the invention Figure 1 shows a flow diagram of the steps of a very inexpensive method of the invention. In this preferred embodiment, the thickening agent is mixed in a separate container with the liquid component of the food to be cold prepared, or O part of the liquid component, and is allowed to stand for a sufficient time for the mixture to solidify. Ready-made thickened sauces, liquids or purées can also be mixed, prepared and packaged for later use (so-called thickener bank). The solid ingredients of the food are added to the mixing bowl either precooked or raw, and then the solidified liquid ingredient is added to the mixing bowl. & Optionally, the liquid ingredient including the thickener can be added first to the S mixing bowl and allowed to solidify, after which the solid N ingredients are added. In this procedure, however, the utilization rate of the mixing container is not as optimal as when solidifying the liquid ingredient in a separate container. The ingredients are mixed at a low temperature for a sufficient time to obtain a uniform mixture in which the solid ingredients are substantially uniformly distributed in the solid liquid ingredient.

After mixing, the food is dosed by pumping, manual dosing or other dosing directly into the dose packages.

In the method according to the invention, a food pump is preferably used to dose the food.

After dispensing, the portion packs are preferably hermetically sealed to extend the shelf life or cooked in the packaging to the pasteurization temperature and then cooled and kept cold until the food is cooked or heated to serving temperature in its intended use — just before the food is consumed.

Cooking or heating the food can take place either directly in the portion package into which the food was portioned after preparation, or in a separate container.

In the present invention, the term food refers to a product prepared in a commercial kitchen, which can be fully cooked or some or all of its ingredients can be completely or partially uncooked, in which case the final cooking of the food takes place in dosing containers, bags or transport containers into which the food was dosed from a mixing container , or in separate containers at the destination. — In the present invention, the term cold preparation refers to a preparation method that takes place in large kitchens, where the ingredients of the food are mixed while cold.

After this, the mixed food is dosed into packages and kept cold until the food is heated at the point of use.

The ingredients used can be pre-cooked, in which case it is sufficient to heat the food to serving temperature of 25 — or raw, in which case the food must be cooked before consumption.

Cooking can take place in the portion pack almost immediately after dosing, N when the product is heated to the pasteurization temperature, a long shelf life is achieved, or only at the point of use just before consuming the food. = > 30 Cold manufacturing is carried out, for example, in the temperature range -1 to +12°C, preferably 2 in the temperature range 0 to +6°C, even more preferably in the temperature range 0 to +3°C.

Or S according to each country's food legislation.

Some of the ingredients can also be frozen, in which case the temperature can be below 0 °C.

The invention can also be implemented at temperatures higher than this, for example with ingredients at room temperature or heated ingredients. However, the temperature in the mixing vessel must not exceed the temperature at which the thickening property of the substance used as a thickener disappears. For example, when using gelatin, the temperature of the mixing bowl should preferably not exceed a temperature of 40-42 °C, because the liquid ingredient coagulated at higher temperatures will return to liquid and the mixture must be cooled to a temperature below 40-42 °C and wait for it to resolidify before dosing. Preferably, the temperature during mixing is well below 40 °C. When using gelatin, the temperature must also not exceed 80 *C at any point, — because at temperatures higher than this, the precipitation property of the gelatin is finally lost. In the present invention, the term liquid ingredient refers to those ingredients in the liquid form of the food which, without the addition of a thickener, are liquid both during manufacture and after heating, i.e. they are low-viscosity from the manufacturing process until the food is consumed. With the help of the method according to the invention, however, their viscosity can be changed with a thickening agent to be sufficiently large for at least the time of dispensing the food from the mixing container, which results in uniform dispensing of the food. A liquid ingredient can be, for example, water, meat broth, milk, puree, juice, etc. Thus, for example, an egg is not a liquid ingredient according to the present invention, because when heated, it solidifies irreversibly when the proteins it contains coagulate. For example, in a macaroni box, however, the method according to the invention can be used by adding a boiling agent to the liquid egg milk, which solidifies the food during dispensing. When cooking the O macaroni box, the egg mass inside it causes the final product to solidify, N but the solidifying effect caused by the thickener has disappeared from the final - product. The term solid ingredient refers to all other ingredients of the food. =

O e In this invention, thickening agent means any substance that S can be used to adjust the viscosity of the food to the desired level. The thickening agent can be, without being limited to these examples, animal-based, e.g. gelatin, plant-based, e.g. vegegel, various flours (potato, wheat, corn, etc.),

maltodextrin, guar gum, artificially chemically made thickener such as modified starch, acid and/or base, thickener of marine origin such as fish skin or algae (e.g. agar-agar). Gelatin is a particularly inexpensive thickening agent, because it is pure protein, and thus works as a protein supplement in food. The thickener is preferably temperature-dependent, whereby the effect caused by the thickener on the food changes depending on the temperature. For example, when gelatin is used as a thickening agent, its solidifying effect on the food begins to disappear at a temperature of approx. 40-50 degrees, and above this temperature range, the effect caused by the thickening agent on the liquid ingredient has completely disappeared. For example, the Paulig Santa Maria gelatin powder used in the examples below dissolves in water at 42 °C or warmer. Thus, the product in which the gelatin powder in question has been used begins to solidify only at temperatures below 42 2C, which is lower than the serving temperature of the product, and furthermore, at temperatures close to 42 *C, solidification is very slow and takes several hours, in which case after heating to serving temperature, the product does not have time to solidify before consuming it. If the product is heated from the mixing vessel to a temperature above 80 °C after dosing, the gelatin will definitely lose some of its binding ability, but — in the present invention, this is only an advantage, since the thickening property is to be removed from the final product. The thickening agent can also be time-bound, in which case the thickening agent can be active for hours or days, for example, and then lose its precipitation properties. Another added food can also act as a release agent for thickening. For example, the potato starch-based cold measure o 25 — loses its effectiveness within a few days if honey O or paprika is added to the food, or by adding a similar enzyme.

N - The thickening agent can be added directly to the container in which the food is prepared, and = from which it is dosed into portion packs or transport boxes, or it can be mixed separately first with at least part of the liquid ingredient, and this mixture is allowed to solidify before mixing the other ingredients of the food with.

O S

A portion pack, bag or transport container according to the invention can also be understood to mean a cooking container or package, in which case the food is only cooked in its package.

—The amount of thickener used in the method and food according to the invention strongly depends on the thickener used and the food to be prepared and the initial viscosity of its liquid part. However, these amounts are always significantly lower than what would be needed for a corresponding thickener if the final product were to remain solid — or jelly-like, as is normally the purpose when using thickeners. If too much thickener is used, the liquid ingredient becomes too gelatinous, so that when cold it no longer mixes evenly with the other products, but is lumpy in the mixture, and if you try to dissolve the gelatinized liquid by heating, it needs so much heating that it returns to a completely liquid state. . Below are examples of manufacturing instructions for a few food products prepared according to the method, on the basis of which a professional in the field can easily find the right amounts for each thickening agent and food by experimenting.

— Examples Example 1: chicken soup Ingredients: o 25 — Ripe chicken strip 5 kg O Paprika 2 kg N Onion 2.5 kg - Mushroom 2 kg = Chicken broth 101 * 30 — Gelatin powder 120 g & Spices (curry, garlic, paprika powder)

O S

Preparation: Approx. 1 liter of ready-made chicken broth and 120 g of gelatin flour were mixed and heated to a temperature above 42 *C to dissolve the gelatin. When heating, the temperature did not rise above 70 °C. This solution was mixed with the rest of the chicken broth and allowed to solidify in a refrigerator at about 4 °C overnight (the minimum time recommended by the manufacturer is 4 h). The dosage according to the instructions for the gelatin powder used (Santa Maria) is 270 g / 10 liters of liquid for soft jelly and 400 g / 10 liters of liquid for solid jelly. In the chicken soup of the example, only 120 g of gelatin / 10 liters of chicken broth were used, so that the broth would not have solidified too much, and would therefore no longer mix with the other ingredients in the mixing bowl. Lightly gelatinized chicken broth was poured into a mixing bowl (Metos pot Proveno 1003G) and mixed lightly. The other ingredients were added to the mixing bowl and the bowl was tilted about 45-50?. The soup was mixed without heating (cold preparation) for approx. 70 s until the mixture was of uniform quality. A pump (Metos Dos 2) was connected to the mixing vessel and 2 liter fillings were pumped into the dose bags (80 micron soup bag, size 300x400 mm) with a 38 mm nozzle. The soup was cooked to a temperature of approx. 90 °C in portion bags, allowing it to be pasteurized at the same time. After rapid cooling, the shelf life was several weeks. When the soup was heated to serving temperature (approx. 75 °C), no difference was observed in the composition of the product compared to chicken soup made without gelatin.

Example 2: fattening product and ham temptation In this example, the preparation of a separate fattening product for storage (the so-called fattening bank) was first tested, and then the use of the fattening product prepared in this way in the production of ham temptation was tested. S 25 | | S Ingredients: N Cream 101 - Gelatin powder 120 g z Ripe Potato strip 21 kg c 30 — Frozen onion 2.5 kg & Ham strip 5 kg N Spices (black pepper, salt)

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Preparation of the thickening product: 120 g of gelatin (Santa Maria) was dissolved in about a liter of cream warmed over 42 °C and the mixture was poured into the final cream in the mixing bowl (Metos pata Proveno 100 3G). The cream was mixed and heated to approx. 70 °C. The cream was pumped into 3 kg bags (Metos Dos 2 pump) and quickly cooled within approx. 50 minutes in a cooling pool (refrigeration cabinet also possible) to below 3 *C, when the cream gelled. Sizing preparation bags were stored in a refrigerator (approx. 4 °C) for further use. If necessary, the thickener preparation could also be heated to a pasteurization temperature of 71-74 °C, in which case a small additional dose of gelatin may be needed depending on the preparation. In this case, the shelf life of the product is several weeks and it can therefore be used as a bulk bank product. Preparation of the ham temptation: All the curd preparations prepared in the previous step were poured into a mixing bowl (Metos pot Proveno 3G) and mixed lightly. The solid ingredients were added to the mixing bowl and the bowl was mixed at a 45-50* angle for about 70 seconds. A pump (Metos Dos 2) was connected to the valve of the mixing vessel and the product was pumped into cooking vessels weighing 5 kg at a speed of approx. 14-17 seconds per vessel. The ham temptation was cooked in the oven according to the instructions. No difference was observed in the baking result compared to the ham temptation made without gelatin powder.

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Claims (8)

Patent Claims 1. A method for preparing food in a commercial kitchen and distributing it to the intended use, in which liquid and solid ingredients are mixed together in the method and dispensed into portion packs, bags or transport containers for transport to the intended use, characterized by the fact that before the food is dispensed, a thickening agent is mixed into the food in such an amount , that the liquid ingredient solidifies or gels so solid that the mixture essentially maintains its degree of mixing for at least the time of dispensing into portion packs or transport containers, i.e. — the solid ingredient maintains its position in the mixture, when the solidifying or gelling effect caused by the thickener disappears from the food before it is consumed at the latest. 2. The method according to claim 1, in which the food is prepared using a cold preparation method. 3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, in which the solidification or gelling effect caused by the thickener disappears by heating the food to serving temperature or by cooking it just before consumption. 4. The method according to one of claims 1-3, in which the thickening agent is first mixed separately with at least part of the liquid ingredient, and the mixture is allowed to solidify before mixing with the other food ingredients. o 25 — 5. The method according to one of claims 1-4, in which the packaging is carried out with a food pump, by transferring the solid food mixture from the mixing device to portion packs, bags or transport containers. z 6. The method according to one of claims 1-5, wherein the thickening agent is * 30 — gelatin. S S 7. The method according to claim 6, in which the solidification or gelling effect caused by the thickener disappears from the food at a temperature above X degrees. 8. Food, which has been prepared by the method according to one of claims 1-7. O OF O OF OF I a a Oh 00 OF O O OF O OF