This time of year many chefs and restaurant operators are planning how to adapt their menu to include new flavors and cooking styles to excite the developing palette of their customers. To help you stay ahead of the curve, ACityDiscount has compiled a list of popular food trends we’ve spotted and the equipment you will need to help prepare these food items.
1. Hot Dogs and Sausage Shops. Move over Gourmet Burger Joints, the new thing for 2011 will be hot dogs and house made sausages.
2. Vegetable Based Meals. Steamed vegetables were never really "out" but 2011 trends suggest bigger emphasis as a result of more sustainable cooking and locally grown produce.
3. Fried Vegetables. Once-obscure vegetables are getting the crisp treatment with such items as fried Brussels sprouts, fried cauliflower and turnip chips.
4. Soft-serve. Chefs are using soft-serve ice cream machines to produce savory flavors as well as more exotic flavors, such as the coconut-water soft serve with brownie bites at Belly Shack in Chicago.
5. High-End Junk Food. This trend can go in many directions including gourmet style Cheetos or brownies and pies. You will need a bakery oven if you are baking these tasty treats.
6. Popsicles. Similar to the soft-serve trend, iced treats are showing up in flavors such as sugar-snap pea or blueberry. You will probably need storage freezers for this trend.
7. Pies. Move over cupcakes, make way for pie. Decadence is endless with everything from baked savory, fruit and sweet pies, to individual deep-fried pies.
8. Shrink Wrapped/Smaller Portions. Traditional meals are going way of the fun-size snack. Smaller portions are perfect for smaller wallets and eating on the run. Look closely for mini pizzas and bagels, two-bite hot dogs, mini tacos or burritos, cake truffles, even pot roasts and pot pies, all downsized.
9. Pimento Cheese A little nostalgia will go far next year. Reminds many of us of the mayo vs. miracle whip wars for much of the 20th century post 1950. You will need a commercial grater to cater to your lunch crowd.
10. Jerky Treats. Along with high end junk food there will be jerky. We predict many kitchens will be dehydrating not only meats but fruits as well.
We also noticed that many top restaurant and trend publications are talking about forms of food preparation and themes in their cooking for the up coming year. Below is a list of these methods and themes we feel will feature in the hottest restaurant and catering kitchens.
1. Sous Vide. Sous vide is not a new concept but lately it has surfaced in many of the hottest chef’s kitchen. Sous vide is is a method of cooking food sealed in airtight plastic bags in a water bath for a long time—72 hours is not unusual—at an accurately determined temperature much lower than normally used for cooking, typically around 60 °C or 140 °F. The intention is to maintain the integrity of ingredients. We recommend vaccuum packing machines to get started with this style of cooking.
2. Braising. Braising is a combination cooking method using both moist and dry heat; typically the food is first seared at a high temperature and then finished in a covered pot with a variable amount of liquid, resulting in a particular flavor. Braising of meat is often referred to as pot roasting, though some authors make a distinction between the two methods based on whether additional liquid is added. Forms of Braising include pressure cooking and slow cooking. We recommend a braising pan with a tilting skillet.
3. Smoking. Using an electric or gas smoker is one method of imparting natural smoke flavor to large cuts of meat, whole poultry, and turkey breasts. This slow cooking technique keeps them tender, too.
4. Crudo/Tartare. In Italian cuisine, crudo is a raw fish dish dressed with olive oil, sea salt, and citrus juice such as lemon juice and sometimes vinegar, also known as "raw" in spanish. Some call it "Italian Sashimi". Tartare is a preparation of finely chopped raw meat or fish optionally with seasonings and sauces. You will need specific paring and boning knives to prepare for crudo or tartare dishes.
5. Sautéing, Sautéing is a method of cooking food that uses a small amount of fat in a shallow pan over relatively high heat. Ingredients are usually cut into pieces or thinly sliced to facilitate fast cooking. Food that is sautéed is browned while preserving its texture, moisture and flavor. If meat, chicken, or fish is sautéed, the sauté is often finished with a sauce made from the pan's residue sucs. We have a number of commercial ranges and pans for this style of cooking.
6. Grilling. Grilling is a form of cooking that involves dry heat applied to the surface of food, commonly from above or below. Grilling usually involves quite a lot of direct, radiant heat, and tends to be used for cooking quickly meat that has already been cut into slices (or other pieces). Click here to see our line of grill tops for commercial kitchens.
7. Sustainability. Plainly put, sustainability is using the area in which you live for use and purchase. Using only what you need, seasonally and being environmentally conscious of the effects this has on the planet. To help you be more energy efficient in your restauran, we offer Energy Star rated energy efficient equipment.
8. Hyper-Local. This term means not only local to your region in regards to produce or game, but restaurants throughout the country now have their own onsite gardens, and chefs are doing their own butchering. We offer assorted tools and equipment for chefs to do their own meat and poulty butchering.
9. Food and Alcohol Pairings. This has been a trend with wine for quite a while. And now restaurants are pairing food with beer, sometimes making their own brews, using water filtration systems to purify the water used. Another trend right now is house infused liquors with fruits and spices and fermented on location.
10. Umami. Umami is a Japanese word meaning "good flavor" or "good taste" . "Brothy", "meaty", or "savory" have been proposed as alternative translations, however. In as much as it describes the flavor common to savory products such as meat, cheese, and mushrooms, umami is similar to osmazome, an early Western attempt to describe the main flavoring component of meat as extracted in the process of making stock. We have a wide variety of large capacity stock pots as well as soup kettles and storage. |
