JP2002147762A - Food cooking apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a food cooking apparatus capable of simply and nicely cooking a food. SOLUTION: The internal part of an outer wall 1 is divided into a cooking chamber 2, a machine room 3, and a control chamber 4. From the ceiling of the cooking chamber 2, a food 15 in the cooking chamber 2 is irradiated with laser beam emitted from a laser beam source 5 through an optical fiber 6. The machine room 3 is provided with a magnetron 7, a wave guide 8, and a fan 10 to discharge heat generated from the internal part of the machine room 3. Further, a heater 9 for an oven is stretched around the ceiling of the cooking chamber 2. Two kinds of semiconductor lasers having different wavelengths of 0.8 μm and 1.5 μm are coupled to the respective optical fibers. Further, the cooking chamber 12 is provided at its back with a fan 12 to discharge gas generated in the cooking chamber to the outside of the heating chamber, and at the side of the cooking chamber 2 with an intake part 11 to guide air to the cooking chamber 2.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a food cooker, such as a microwave oven or a microwave oven, which is well known at present, for cooking food in a cooking room.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Modern Japan is said to be an era of satiety, and you can come across a variety of foods. Especially now it is called the gourmet boom, and the city is full of restaurants and many people use it. Customers are eating a variety of dishes and their tongue is growing, so restaurants that serve bad food have been forced out of business and competition in the restaurant industry has intensified. In addition, due to the prolonged recession and changes in the Japanese lifestyle, the number of people who purchase prepared dishes and salads at department stores and take them home to eat as a way to enjoy meals cheaply and without hassle has increased recently. I have. This is called the so-called ready-to-eat industry, and it is growing remarkably. In addition to the wholesale and retail industries, such as supermarkets, which only sold ingredients so far, the restaurant industry, such as restaurants, has entered one after another.
As a result, fierce surviving battles are taking place in the food-related industry, and everybody is struggling to win.
Everyone is eager to pursue delicious food and efforts are being made to outdo other stores.

[0003] By the way, today, there are various utensils for cooking foods. A rice cooker that cooks rice with hot water, a steamer that uses steam, a toaster that raises the heater to a temperature of several hundred degrees and bake the bread with the radiant heat, and uses a gas or electric heater to maintain the inside of the furnace at a high temperature and store food in it And a microwave oven that outputs microwaves by driving a magnetron and heats the microwave oven.

[0004] In all of these cooking utensils, food is processed by heat. In foods heated in these cooking utensils, the protein contained therein is decomposed into amino acids by the applied heat. It is. Many foods contain more or less protein, which is broken down into various amino acids by the action of heat. Typical examples include glutamic acid, which is common in kelp, tomato, and cheese, inosinic acid, which is common in bonito, meat and fish, and guanylic acid, which is common in mushrooms such as shiitake mushrooms. Although these amino acids are so-called "koku" or "umami", they are the substance, but the amino acids are mixed at an appropriate ratio to produce a synergistic effect.
It is known that umami increases. In other words, it is considered that the method of becoming a royal road for cooking delicious food is to decompose the protein contained in the food into as many amino acids as possible. In addition, if as many kinds of amino acids as possible can be produced and combined, more delicious umami can be provided and rich dishes can be provided.

[0005]

However, there is an optimum temperature range and processing time for the decomposition of proteins by the action of heat. This is because when proteins absorb excessive heat, oxidation of substances contained in the components proceeds rapidly. This oxide greatly impairs the taste of human beings because they feel astringency and bitterness. Therefore, cooking by heat requires skill in adding it.

[0006] In view of the above circumstances, it is an object of the present invention to provide a food cooker capable of stably and deliciously cooking.

[0007]

The food cooker of the present invention comprises:
A cooking chamber accommodating a cooking object; and a laser light irradiating unit having a laser light source for irradiating the cooking object with laser light for cooking the cooking object in the cooking chamber. Things.

[0008] At least one of an oven heater and a microwave generating means for heating an object to be cooked housed in the cooking chamber may be provided.

The wavelength of the laser light emitted from the laser light source is preferably in the range of 0.4 μm to 10 μm.

[0010] The laser light source may comprise a semiconductor laser.

The oscillation wavelength of the semiconductor laser is desirably in the range of 0.4 μm to 2.0 μm.

Alternatively, the oscillation wavelength of the semiconductor laser is
The range may be from 0.8 μm to 1.5 μm.

Alternatively, the oscillation wavelength of the semiconductor laser is
The range may be from 0.8 μm to 1.0 μm.

[0014] The laser beam irradiation means may be provided with an optical fiber.

[0015]

According to the food cooker of the present invention, by irradiating the object to be cooked with laser light by the laser light irradiating means, the protein in the food undergoes a photochemical reaction due to the light energy of the laser light to be converted into amino acids. Because it is degraded, the degradation of proteins, which was conventionally done only by the action of heat, can also be achieved by photochemical reaction, and compared to the degradation of proteins only by the action of heat, many proteins can be converted with much higher efficiency. It can be decomposed. Therefore, more amino acids can be produced, and heating with laser light is also possible, so that a delicious food with a lot of delicious components can be provided.

Further, since the laser beam has a strong directivity, it can efficiently irradiate the target object with light, and the power consumption can be reduced.

In particular, by setting the wavelength of the laser light in the range from visible light to infrared light, only the vicinity of the surface of the food can be instantaneously cooked to produce the fragrance or bake it. Alternatively, when the wavelength of the laser beam is set to a far-infrared region, a region extending from the surface to the inside of the food can be simultaneously cooked. Further, by combining laser light sources having different wavelengths, cooking with a wider width can be easily performed as compared with the case where only a conventional oven is used.

A lens for condensing laser light on the surface of the object to be cooked and a function for arbitrarily moving a table for placing food may be provided, and a semiconductor laser may be directly used as a laser light source. By performing modulation and moving the table under computer control,
It is easy to write or draw on a part of the food and to heat it locally. This is also difficult with conventional microwave ovens and ovens.

Further, by using a semiconductor laser as a laser light source, an inexpensive and compact food cooker can be provided.

[0020]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

A food cooker according to one embodiment of the present invention will be described. FIG. 1A is a schematic top view showing the internal structure of the food cooker, and FIG.
(B).

As shown in FIG. 1 (a), in the food cooking device of the present invention, an inner box as a partition wall is arranged inside an outer wall 1, a cooking chamber 2 is formed inside the inner box, and an outer wall is formed. The portion other than the cooking chamber 2 in 1 is divided into a machine room 3 and a control room 4. The machine room 3 includes a magnetron 7 (microwave generating means), a waveguide 8, a laser light source 5 in which a plurality of semiconductor lasers are incorporated, and a fan 10 for discharging heat generated inside the machine room 3 from the main body. Is installed. On the ceiling of the cooking chamber 2, an oven heater 9 is stretched. One end of an optical fiber 6 is incorporated at nine locations on the ceiling so that a laser beam can be irradiated directly below the cooking chamber 2, and the other end is connected to a semiconductor laser. Each optical fiber 6 has a different oscillation wavelength of 0.8 μm and 1.5 μm.
Types of semiconductor lasers are combined. Semiconductor laser 1
Since the maximum output of each of these is 10 W, it has a total capacity of 180 W. Further, a fan 12 for discharging gas generated in the cooking chamber to the outside of the cooking chamber is provided on a back surface of the cooking chamber 2, and an intake unit 11 for guiding air to the cooking chamber 2 is provided on a side surface of the cooking chamber 2. Further, the heater 9 for the oven, the magnetron 7, and the laser light source 5 are independent of each other, and the output and time can be freely controlled by a programmed control unit. Further, a sensor (not shown) for monitoring the reflected light of the laser and the temperature of the food is incorporated in the ceiling of the cooking chamber 2 and serves to measure the presence or absence of the food 15 immediately below and the surface temperature.

The food cooker according to the present embodiment is shown in FIG.
Food placed on the turntable 14, as shown in
The heating unit 15 is heated by a laser beam having a wide emission angle emitted from the optical fiber 6 arranged on the ceiling of the cooking chamber 2. The food cooker of the present embodiment has a microwave heating function and a microwave oven heating function as a heating mode,
It has a cooking function utilizing the action of a photochemical reaction by laser light.

Here, a boiled egg is taken as an example of cooking using the food cooker according to the above embodiment, and the effectiveness of the food cooker according to the present invention in a cooking method will be described.

Boiled eggs have more umami when they are half-ripened than when their yolks are completely solidified. This is because the protein contained in the egg has the property of being easily coagulated by heat, so that it hardens before being decomposed into amino acids, so semi-ripened is more delicious. For this reason, it is necessary to perform time-consuming cooking by preparing accurate boiled eggs with accurate time management. Even if a soft-boiled egg is successfully formed, only the central portion of the yolk is soft-boiled, and the outside of the yolk and the white body are hardened due to excessive heat.

However, if cooked in the food cooker according to the above embodiment of the present invention, a soft-boiled egg can be made more easily, and above all, the whole egg can be processed into a soft-boiled state. The egg is cut into the dish and irradiated with laser light (wavelength 1.5 μm) at 90 W for about 15 minutes. As a result, the boiled eggs in a semi-ripened state as described above were completed. This is because the laser light of this wavelength has the property of being gradually absorbed in the white and yolk of the egg, so that the protein is decomposed almost simultaneously at the surface and the center of the egg. In addition, since the energy of the laser beam was effectively used for decomposing the protein, the egg itself did not rise so much and the coagulation was suppressed. This is something that could not be achieved with a microwave oven or microwave cooking method,
It turns out that cooking by light is very effective. Further, in this cooking example, the 1.5 μm band was selected as the wavelength of the laser beam, but the wavelength range of 2 to 10 μm longer than this wavelength band was selected.
Even in the far-infrared region of the band, by changing the irradiation time of the laser beam, it is possible to provide a delicious cooked food in which amino acids are largely decomposed and heated.

Next, as another example of cooking using the food cooker according to the embodiment of the present invention, a steak often cooked in an oven or the like will be described.

In general, steaks using beef are burnt to the outside on the outside, and freshly burned meat at the center is said to be delicious. This is the result of first trapping umami inside by baking the outside of the meat with heat to prevent a solution containing proteins and lipids, such as gravy, contained in the meat from flowing out. Also, if the meat is too grilled, it will be too hard and the texture will be worse. This is because protein fibers contained in meat have a property of shrinking with heating. Therefore, in order to make the steak delicious, it is important to bake the surface as soon as possible and finish the inside so that the protein fibers do not shrink. Therefore, when grilling meat with the power of gas in a frying pan or an iron plate, it is necessary to set the iron plate itself to an appropriate temperature in advance and to delicately control the temperature of the iron plate even after pouring the meat. Also has an optimal value and usually requires considerable skill.

Using the food cooker according to the above embodiment of the present invention, first, the temperature is set to 150 ° C. by an oven and the room temperature of the cooking chamber is raised. At the same time, 200 g of 2 cm thick beef is irradiated with 90 W laser light (wavelength 0.8 μm) for 5 minutes on each side, and both sides are baked. Oven at 150 ° C
The reason why the temperature in the room is increased by setting to (1) is to assist the processing by the laser beam. In food processing by laser light, there is a threshold for successfully cooking food,
The oven is responsible for supplying the energy to reach that threshold. With this, the surface of the meat is baked and hardened, so that the meat juice from inside becomes hard to come out. Finally, raise the temperature of the oven to 250 ° C, and heat-treat it for about 5 minutes to keep the center of the meat in a rare state, and still keep the umami and richness in the meat. Can be baked.

As described above, in this embodiment, particularly, by using the function of the existing microwave oven and adding cooking means by light, the initial surface which requires advanced technology by the conventional cooking method is baked. Even an amateur can easily perform the work with good reproducibility.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 shows a food cooker according to one embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Outer wall 2 Cooking room 3 Machine room 4 Control room 5 Laser light source 6 Optical fiber 7 Magnetron 8 Waveguide 9 Oven heater 10 Cooling fan 11 Intake part 12 Oven fan 13 Door 14 Turntable 15 Food

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. A cooking room accommodating an object to be cooked, and a laser light irradiating unit having a laser light source for irradiating the object to be cooked with laser light in order to cook the object to be cooked in the cooking chamber. A food cooker characterized by that: 2. The food cooker according to claim 1, further comprising at least one of an oven heater and a microwave generating means for heating the food contained in the cooking chamber. 3. The food cooker according to claim 1, wherein a wavelength of the laser light emitted from the laser light source is in a range of 0.4 μm to 10 μm. 4. The food cooking device according to claim 1, wherein the laser light source is a semiconductor laser. 5. An oscillation wavelength of the semiconductor laser is 0.4.
The food cooker according to claim 4, wherein the range is not less than μm and not more than 2.0 μm. 6. An oscillation wavelength of the semiconductor laser is 0.8.
The food cooker according to claim 4, wherein the range is not less than μm and not more than 1.5 μm. 7. An oscillation wavelength of the semiconductor laser is 0.8
The food cooker according to claim 4, wherein the range is from μm to 1.0 μm. 8. The food cooker according to claim 1, wherein the laser beam irradiation means includes an optical fiber.