Creating Healthy Kid’s Meals

Healthy children’s faire seems to be on everyone’s minds these days, from meals prepared at home to school cafeterias to restaurants. Kids are notorious for being picky eaters, making it difficult to tempt their tiny palates with simply a plate of vegetables. However with a little creativity many meals can be made-over to be lower in calories and fat, without skimping too much on the tastes kids crave.

Did you know that Serv-U has an entire department on their website dedicated to school supplies? Visit our school supplies department to find everything you need to create healthy, fresh and flavorful meals in your school’s cafeteria.

What is your school or restaurant doing to ensure that children receive meals that encourage dietary variety and balance?

Understanding the oil that moves through your commercial fryer is crucial to fryer maintenance. If you seek to maximize the fryer’s useful service life, and continue to churn out fry baskets full of crispy cuisine, focus on the fryer oil. The first in a series on commercial fryer maintenance will introduce you to the most common culprits responsible for degrading your fryer oil.

One major offender is water. Ice crystals from frozen fare are often melted in the oil, in addition to the naturally stored water that some foods release. Solid sediment from the food can also degrade the fryer oil. Salt, spice and batter are the most common forms of sediment. You can minimize the release of water and solid particles by not loading the fry baskets directly over the fryer. Shake off as much excess breading as possible prior to immersing a bloomin’ onion in your double fryer. When sediment particles do appear, use your fryer skimmer to remove the floating particles.

Air and light are also problematic for the oil. It’s easy to position a floor fryer in a cool, dark part of your kitchen. Make sure to store a countertop fryer away from sunlight. Always use a fry basket cover and invest in an overnight fryer cover to increase the life of your oil

Excessive heat is also a factor in fryer oil degradation. High temperatures during start-up hurt the life of your oil and high temperatures during cooking impact the quality of your food. No one wants fish that has been thoroughly fried on the outside, but undercooked within the crispy shell. Calibrate thermostats regularly to ensure accurate temperatures. Rapid changes in oil temperature hasten deterioration.

Avoid introducing water, sediment, air, light and excessive heat to your fryer oil and you’ll prolong the life of the commercial fryer in your kitchen and increase the bounty of flawlessly fried foods in your restaurant.

Without a quality kitchen thermometer, speculation is your only option when attempting to serve your guests succulent beef roasts and tender turkey.  If you no longer want the chef playing a guessing game, waiting until the arbitrary timer buzzes or cutting into breast meat to determine if the dish is "done," then it’s time to invest in the essential kitchen tool—a meat thermometer. There are a wide variety of thermometers available, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.

When picturing a food thermometer, the image that typically comes to mind is a dial thermometer. Though the least expensive option, it can be a challenge to get a correct reading from the face of these thermometers. Temperature is taken through a probe inserted 2 to 2 ½ inches into the food, which means that dial thermometers are ideal for juicy roasts and thick cuts of meat.  

Some dial thermometers can be inserted into the meat before it goes into the oven and keep a constant read. These oven-safe thermometers show temperature in 1 to 2 minutes, but are sometimes accused of causing false high reads due to heat conduction of the metal steam.  A waterproof model may be a good investment in a steamy environment. Other dial thermometers are instant-read for a quick and easy method of monitoring temperature, within 15 to 20 seconds of poking your food product. Be careful to make the distinction between oven-safe and instant-read to avoid serving your lamb with a topping of melted thermometer.

Digital thermometers provide better readability and can improve the accuracy of your cooking and perfect the pot roast. Many have Quick Tip technology on the end of the 1.5 millimeter, FDA-recommended probe. This means that the tip is sensitive enough that you can take the temperature by just inserting the probe ½ an inch into your bird. Shallow reading makes the digital thermometer conducive to use on thin foods.

The screen of a digital thermometer is also easy to wipe clean, so you can keep up with the health inspector’s sanitation requirements. No matter which style of thermometer you are using, it is essential to clean the probe thoroughly between uses. Probe wipes can be a great tool to make this process quick and simple.

For an extremely precise reading in the quickest time, the best option is a thermocouple thermometer. Thermocouple needle probes bring you the temperature of your beef practically instantaneously and are NSF listed. Waterproof models are ideal for use in harsh wet and steam-filled kitchens. Though this is a more expensive option, it is also the most professional thermometer on the market.

Once you have narrowed it down to the proper model, your next concern is making sure the thermometer you buy will be accurate. The number one issue of health inspectors is food temperature.  The fastest way to have your business closed, other than by a heath inspector, is lawsuits and lost business from a mass food poisoning.  Unfortunately, most of us in the foodservice industry know someone who was negatively impacted by a food poisoning issue.  All this can be prevented by carefully calibrating your thermometer using one of these two techniques:

• Ice Point Method: Fill an insulated container with a mixture of crushed ice and water to create a 32 degree environment. Insert the thermometer to the appropriate immersion depth, and wait for a Fahrenheit temperature model to read 32 degrees. Adjust the thermometer accordingly if it is inaccurate. Be sure to hold the stem of the instrument at least one inch away from the bottom and sides of the container to avoid error. Your thermometer can be calibrated to within 0.1 degree using the ice point method.
• Boiling Point Method: Bring a container of water to a complete rolling boil then insert the thermometer to the appropriate immersion depth. Allow a two-inch clearance between the bottom and sides of the container and wait for a Fahrenheit temperature model to read 212 degrees. You should be able to adjust your thermometer accordingly to within 1.0 degree accuracy when tested with the boiling point method.

Now you are ready to test the temperature of your dish! In order to get an accurate reading, most health inspectors require the core temperature of the food to be measured, avoiding bones, which heat faster than the meat and will throw off your reading.

By purchasing a quality meat thermometer you are making an investment in the success of your restaurant. Just one food safety scare could have you closing your doors for good. So keep the salmonella, E. coli and other disease-causing bugs at bay, and order that meat thermometer.

Crispy french fries, crunchy onion rings and juicy deep-fried chicken strips are staple indulgences at restaurants across the country. Mastering the art of frying to turn out delicious golden results can be key to attracting loyal customers. The process starts with shopping for the fryer best-tailored to your restaurant’s menu.

With so many styles, sizes and options to choose from it can seem hard to keep your head above the fryer oil when trying to make the best kitchen equipment decision. Here is a quick run-through of the three basic types of fryers and the advantages of each method of crisping your cuisine.

Tube fryers are the best option for preparing heavily breaded foods such as bloomin’ onions, fish, chicken and fresh foods. These fryers have a wide sediment zone or “cold zone” to collect crunchy particles that are lost during frying. Tube fryers are heated by gas burners that run through the tubes and warm the oil.

Open pot fryers are more versatile than the tube type and ideal for fries, jalapeño poppers, mozzarella sticks and frozen breaded foods. The deep cold zone design makes open pot fryers easy to clean. Both gas and electric compatible types are available. Gas has the advantage of immediate heat, but electricity is more environmentally friendly. Open pot fryers, regardless of their heat source, have a reputation for being a longer-lasting appliance than the tube variety.

Flat bottom fryers best suit free-floating food products such as funnel cakes, donuts, tortilla chips and taco shells. These shallow fryers have no sediment zone and are heated from below. Delicate foods will do well in a flat-bottom fryer, but they are not equipped for high-volume tasks.

Once you have figured out which type of fryer is appropriate for your restaurant it is time to decide how much tank capacity you need. Buying a “50-pound fryer,” for example, means purchasing a fryer that holds up to 50 pounds of fryer oil. A general rule of thumb states that a quality fryer can produce a volume equal to 1.5 to 2 times the weight of oil it holds. Your 50-pound fryer could produce 100 pounds of crispy onion rings per hour, under ideal conditions.

If you have additional questions about ordering fryers, fryer accessories, or other commercial kitchen equipment from Serv-U, feel free to contact us via phone at 800-797-3788 or click the picture of the customer service representative at the top left corner of each page of the site to launch a live chat.