The versatility of combi-ovens

Thornton Hall's magnum Opus
Popular North-west wedding and conference venue Thornton Hall hotel and health club installed two Lincat 20-grid Opus SelfCooking Centers, one gas-powered and one electric, in its new kitchen, built to service a new function and conference suite which opened in the hotel's grounds last June.

The new conference room can accommodate up to 400 people theatre-style or 250 people for a formal seated dinner. This space can also be divided into four rooms by a sliding wall system.

"We're called upon to produce all kinds of food, from breakfast, lunches, snacks and buffets to fine dining - often at the same time," says chef-manager Rob Lawson, who finds that the ovens answer the need for versatility. "We can even use them to chargrill chicken breasts - 200 at a time in three minutes. We use the "finishing" mode to bring plated food, which has been blast chilled, up to serving temperature for banqueting, and at Christmas we cooked our turkeys overnight, using the cook and hold facility."

"They enable me to produce a meal for 150 pretty much on my own, and we need just three or four people to produce a banquet for 400."

Contact: Lincat 01522 875500

Dream steamer Mark Chan, proprietor of OQO, a 50-seat Chinese tapas cocktail bar in Islington, north London, has a Hobart 10-grid convection steamer in his open-plan kitchen.

Many items on the menu are very delicate and dim sum dishes such as har gau (prawn dumpling) and gee zee gau (mozzarella and Stilton dumpling) can break easily during traditional steaming methods when droplets of condensation can cause water spotting and bubbling of the delicate pastry. However, when Chan steams them in his combi-oven this problem doesn't arise.

"The steam is much finer than that produced using traditional methods," he says. "The steam coverage is more even because it fills the entire cooking chamber and there are no droplets of condensation."

Chan also finds the oven very user-friendly - "a priority for my operation as most of my chefs don't speak any English," he says.

Contact: Hobart UK 07002 101 101

Big breakfast on the go The "bustop" is a mobile catering kitchen that travels the countryside feeding support staff at open-air festivals. Housed in a single-decker bus, the kitchen is capable of feeding up to 400 crew members at outdoor events. It was set up by festival management expert Philip Le Mare.

"I've been working at festivals for long enough to know that there was something missing at most of them - and that was good food for the crew when they needed it," Le Mare says. "Until recently they had to bring their own sandwiches or nip down to the village shop or pub. I spent two years thinking about our catering concept, looking at every festival and site and imagining how to keep the crew happy."

The equipment had to fit a limited space and serve a vital purpose, and the more things one unit can do the better. So a Rational SelfCooking Center 101 was installed. "On site a good breakfast is the main meal of the day for the crew but it takes a lot of time on the griddle and the boiling top to prepare a full breakfast," he says. "We found we could save a huge amount of time by preparing it in the combi-oven."

The oven allows him to fix a full cooked breakfast - including eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, fried bread, baked beans and scrambled eggs - for up to 40 people in 15 minutes, and up to 400 in a morning.

"For example, with the baked beans, we'll start on a program that steams initially, then finishes on high heat, and at that point we can put in bacon and sausages. For bacon, we can prepare 2.5kg at once on one of the special granite trays, and with the possibility of using 10 trays we can produce 25kg of bacon at one time. We use a program that starts at 150°C then goes up to 200°C to crisp it off gently."

Enough scrambled eggs for 200 portions are produced in one program and fried bread is made on granite trays and sprinkled with oil before cooking.

Lunches are normally cold sandwiches and snacks, so when breakfast is over Le Mare uses the slow-cooking facility to start preparing the evening meal of shepherd's pie or chilli. "Rice comes out beautifully," he says.

Contact: Rational UK 0800 389 2944

Feeding the 4,000 Paul Miller is head chef at Sherwood Forest Center Parcs, Nottingham, where he and his team cope with the demands of 4,000 guests.

The installation of three Angelo Po combi-ovens has changed the kitchen's approach to banqueting. "Our biggest event to date was for 423 covers," Miller says. "With the regeneration capabilities of our combis we had served all the guests within 13 minutes with just five chefs. Before we used the combis it would have taken at least 20 minutes with 11 chefs working."

He describes the combis as an integral part of the operation, used throughout the day for baking, cooking, regenerating and steaming. "As soon as the team arrives in the morning they switch the combis on. By the time they are changed into their uniforms the ovens have reached a temperature of 180°C and we can begin cooking par-baked baguettes. Within 25 minutes we've got 600 freshly baked baguettes."

And they're also helping with energy efficiency. "They heat up and cool down within four or five minutes, so you're not inclined to leave them switched on when they're not in use," he says. "We're always looking for way to minimise waste and energy consumption."

Contact: Angelo Po 0870 460 6750

Variations on a theme park Having had a 40-grid Alto-Shaam combi-oven installed by UK distributor Equip Line in 2004 for use in the Towers Family Restaurant at Alton Towers theme park in Alton, Staffordshire, the Tussauds Group subsequently bought two more last year for other areas of the park's catering.

The ovens are used daily from 8am until 7pm and assist the brigade of five chefs to cater for 100-2,000 guests a day in the Towers Family Restaurant and two hospitality suites, and for 100-700 in a staff restaurant. The original oven is used mainly for roasting meats such as beef, gammon and turkey and steaming vegetables including carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, peas, and sweetcorn. The other two are additionally used for regenerating plated meals such as ring of Cumberland sausage on a bed of mustard and leek mash, and duckling served with a rosemary-scented potato.

Contact: Equip Line 01895 272236

Best for banqueting Ross Priory Hotel on Loch Lomond is in great demand for wedding receptions, with weekends booked two years ahead and midweek weddings becoming increasingly popular.

Even with this level of banqueting and function work, head chef Nicky Shillan refuses to take the cook-chill efficiency route and instead keeps to cook-serve and silver service for banqueting work. "Cook it and serve it straight away can't be beaten for taste," he says.

At the heart of the banqueting food production are two six-grid Falcon TMS combi-ovens, which Shillan says are capable of cooking virtually everything on the banqueting menu. He has no deep-fat fryer, no salamander grill and the only range equipment is two electric solid-top hobs.

The combi-ovens are stacked on top of each other and for most of the time one is permanently in steam convection cycle and the other in dry heat. This allows him to roast, bake, steam and gratinée simultaneously. Shillan finds the evenness of cooking means that even delicate items such as salmon portions are as evenly cooked on the top shelf as on the bottom. "The heat distribution is so even that I can make it a seven-grid combi by putting a tray in the bottom of the oven," he says.

Contact: Falcon Foodservice Equipment 01786 455200

More kit, fewer chefs Home to Lancashire County Cricket Club, Old Trafford is an international venue with 12 meeting rooms, executive viewing boxes and banqueting suites catering for up to 400.

Executive chef Nick Ashurst heads up the catering teams responsible for serving up to 9,000 meals during a four-day test match. "We currently have 14 Convotherm ovens at the club," he says. "The technology means we need just three chefs to prepare a silver-service banquet for 400, so I've been able to reduce permanent staff numbers from 12 to six over the past few years which represents a huge cost saving."

Dishes on the banqueting and à la carte menus include shank of lamb braised in an Irish broth laced with stout, and poached salmon fillet cooked with braised red onion and artichokes all cooked in the combi-ovens.

Contact: Convotherm (part of Enodis UK) 020 8561 0433

Quality for the kids Bradley Stoke Community School in Gloucester opened in September 2005 with 180 pupils, a figure set to rise to 900 by 2009. The challenge facing the man responsible for catering in South Gloucestershire Council, trading support manager David Orpen, was to provide nourishing yet popular food to customers known to prefer convenience to nutritionally healthy food.

Head teacher David Baker wanted his pupils to have quality meals using quality ingredients. He also wanted to create a social eating environment. An Electrolux Air-o-steam 20-grid gas combi-oven enables most of the food to be cooked from scratch. Dishes include locally sourced organic beef and pork twice a week with organic carrots and potatoes from Highgrove. Home-made pizza is also on the menu.

Contact: Electrolux Foodservice0121-220 2800

Ten things you didn't know your combi could do

Slow cooking - the oven will cook cheaper cuts of meat at low temperature for a long time and will produce stews, braised dishes and even soups and stocks.

Dough proving - normal ovens usually can't drop to a temperature low enough for dough proving. Combi-ovens are so controllable, you can achieve the 25-29°C needed for optimum yeast
growth.

Jams, marmalades and chutneys - normally done on the stove top, but very controllable in a combi-oven as you can set the oven for exactly the right setting temperature.

Rice - steam an equal amount of rice and water with seasoning for 15 minutes to produce fluffy results.

Poaching - being able to combine steam with low temperatures (30°C - 99°C) enables you to gently poach fish, fruit, etc.

Grilling - because humidity levels can be accurately controlled, it is possible to grill steaks and also any number of products simultaneously, such as a full English breakfast, with no transfers of flavours from product to product.

Pan-frying - advanced temperature and humidity control systems allow you to prepare pan-fried dishes, such as trout, without even needing to turn the product during cooking.

Deep-frying - using a pre-fried product it is possible to replicate deep-fried foods such as chips and breaded products, owing to the accurate control of temperature and humidity.

Toasting - efficient removal of excess moisture allows you to toast with crisp results. As well as bread and teacakes, you can also toast coconut, nuts and other ingredients, for pâtisserie work.

Drying - using the dry heat cooking setting, the temperature control can be set to a temperature just hot enough to evaporate the moisture in food and low enough not to colour it so products such as tomatoes, plums, figs, apricots, strawberries, rhubarb and citrus fruits can be dried out. Meringues can also be dried out in a combi in a much shorter time than with traditional methods.