Chicken Noodle Soup Archives

Essential Commercial Kitchen Equipment Needed for Chicken Recipes

Chicken is a ubiquitous protein. The average American consumes over 100 pounds annually. In an increasingly health-conscious world, chicken is considered healthier than most red meat. If you’re a foodservice operator (or planning to be), you should consider expanding chicken options on your menu. Chicken is nutrient-dense, relatively inexpensive (at the moment), and can be prepared in many ways.

The equipment you’ll need to prepare the chicken depends on what kind of chicken you plan to serve. Operators should consider three categories of equipment when expanding their chicken offerings: fryers, ovens, and holding cabinets.

Fryers

When we think chicken, most of us probably think first of fried chicken. It’s a large share of the fast food market. In an industry survey, eight of the top 50 restaurants in the United States are fried chicken concepts.

If you anticipate offering fried chicken, you’ll obviously need a fryer. Pressure fryers are a great option. There are multiple advantages to using pressure fryers. They cook faster and more consistently than open fryers. Cooking oil lasts much longer. And customers often prefer the taste and texture of chicken prepared in a pressure fryer, according to some fast food operators.

Pressure frying is ideal for breaded bone-in chicken, wings, filets, or tenders with traditional breading. Winston’s Collectramatic® pressure fryers check off all the boxes. They are highly efficient, available in 4-head and 6-head capacities, and have minimal moving parts. They are true workhorses with decades-long lifespans.

Any Winston pressure fryer can also be used as an open fryer by simply removing the lid. An open fryer may be your best option if you primarily serve more delicate or super crispy foods, such as fish, seafood, double-breaded chicken, fries, onion rings, etc. Your specific menu will determine the best choice. Of course, the Winston team will be happy to advise you on your decision.

Commercial fryers are available with either gas or electric power. Your local energy infrastructure will determine which is a better option for you. However, Winston’s Collectramatic Fryer line is only available as electric.

Whatever type of fryer you choose, you’ll need to filter your cooking oil periodically. Some fryers have the filter integrated into the fryer itself. Winston offers a stand-alone shortening filter. The advantage of this is that a single filter can be used to service multiple fryers. The Winston filter is easy to move and has a low profile to make it easy to store out of the way when not in use.

Cook and Hold Ovens

Of course, fried chicken isn’t the only chicken consumers crave. Chicken lends itself to various preparation methods, such as sous vide, roasted, poached, baked, grilled, and more. It can be the main entrée or the base of a delicious stock – the possibilities are almost endless. Fortunately, so are the applications you can accomplish in a CVap oven!

CVap ovens use controlled vapor heat and dry air heat to create the ideal cooking environment for almost any type of food. CVap can replace most of the cooking equipment in your operation. Importantly, CVap ovens allow you to scale up your production. Capacities of up to 14 shelves allow for high production in a small footprint. Imagine trying to match that production scale with immersion circulators, woks, or kettles.

Do you serve barbecue? You can add the Winston Smoker Box accessory to your CVap oven to convert it into a traditional smoker. Bear in mind that once you add a smoker to a CVap oven it will no longer be a ventless oven and will either need to be under a hood or rolled to a safe outdoor spot.

Staging chicken is another great application in CVap. Simply put, staging is cooking food to a temperature just below the serving temperature and holding it there. When an order comes in, the food can be pulled from the oven, finished on a grill or skillet, and served to the customer in a fraction of the time it would take to cook from raw. This is an effective process no matter what your center plate protein is, but it’s particularly powerful in a chicken program.

Holding in CVap

CVap technology was initially developed for holding cabinets. Of course, the technology has evolved as an incredibly precise cooking technology. Hot holding continues to be a critical process in most kitchens.

CVap ovens can do double duty as holding cabinets. This prevents food from overcooking and frees staff from constantly monitoring the oven. It also makes it possible to cook overnight, removing the need for staff altogether. Holding serves a double function. It maintains product quality over time, improving service and reducing waste. It also improves efficiency by keeping the high-quality product at hand and accessible.

CVap Holding Cabinets offer the same incredible precision as CVap ovens. CVap cabinets are also a perfect partner for fryers. For example, fried chicken can be held in the cabinets for extended periods, making it possible to build up inventory for rush periods. CVap cabinets offer a superior hold by keeping chicken crisp without making it soggy or drying out, especially when compared to chicken in lower-tech holding appliances, such as heat lamps or dry, hot boxes.

Holding isn’t limited to fried chicken. CVap cabinets are also great for holding more succulent dishes. They can simultaneously hold sides, such as mashed potatoes or mac & cheese, with the same precise hot hold.

Poultry in a Post-Pandemic World

According to poultry industry reports, consumers have fundamentally changed their habits, compared to the pre-COVID-19 world. Consumers are spending more now, to regain opportunities they missed during the pandemic. Experts recommend that chicken brands should position themselves as a splurge, rather than highlight chicken as the value protein, to attract these consumers.

The report went on to say that brand loyalty took a hit during the pandemic. This may provide an opportunity for other chicken concepts to charm customers away from the more established operations. Perhaps there’s never been a better time to expand your chicken offerings. Contact us to discuss how Winston can help your operation take advantage of the changes in chicken.

Want to Know More?

We’ve done a fair bit of research into chicken. Here are a few of our chicken blogs to get you pondering poultry.

Easy Soup Recipes to Warm Your Menu This Winter

It’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Most humans are hard-wired to crave comfort foods in freezing weather. Of all the comfort foods, soups seem to be the best at warming our innards. Many folks think of soup as something that’s prepared on a stovetop. But CVap® ovens are also great for making soup. You can scale the process up to crank out gallons of soup to keep your sales hopping all day. It doesn’t matter whether you’re making soup from scratch or retherming pouches of premade soup – CVap’s got you covered.

Here are a few great easy soup recipes you can whip up in a CVap oven.

Kickin’ Chicken Noodle Soup

What soup is more comforting than chicken noodle soup on a frosty winter day? It’s one of those flavors that instantly takes you back to being a kid. It’s particularly good when you’re battling a cold. That’s not a superstition. Evidence has shown that chicken noodle soup can reduce cold symptoms. It’s chock-full of electrolytes, which help you stay hydrated.

Our chicken noodle soup take utilizes CVap ovens and our Collectramatic® Fryers. The result was a soup that combined many flavors and textures. It’s sure to warm the coldest heart. Check out the recipe here.

Vietnamese Pho Soup

This flavorful broth recipe has some good bones – literally. It calls for over eight pounds of beef, pork, and poultry bones, roasted in a CVap oven. This recipe is one you’ll need to plan, as it calls for simmering for at least 12 hours.

Pho (pronounced fah) is a Vietnamese staple. There are countless variations of this easy soup recipe. Our recipe is rich in different flavors and textures. You may want to consider offering this as part of a Tết celebration, Vietnam’s observance of the Lunar New Year.

Lobster and Fresh Corn Chowder

Here’s a tasty chowder that’s a little decadent. The chowder recipe includes lobster, scallops, veggies, and a brunoise of new potatoes, onions, celery, and carrots. The advantage to preparing this chowder in a CVap oven is that you can stage all the key ingredients in the CVap while the lobster shells enjoy a day-long simmer to create a stock. At serving time, the scallops just need a quick sear to finish. Then the impressive final dish is assembled – with a base of veggies, topped by lobster meat, a couple of scallops, and a generous ladle of the lobster stock. It’s a soup that’s as impressive to look at as it is to eat. It’s a perfect soup on a frigid day to make diners daydream of warm days near the ocean.

Beer Chili is Awesome

Chili is great any time of year. But it really hits the spot in the wintertime. You can spice it up with as much extra heat as you want to bring some warmth to a cold day.

A customer challenged us to see if it was possible to prepare beer chili using just a cook and hold oven. As this recipe shows, it’s not only possible but also awesome. So, bring on the beans! Bring on the meat! Chilly weather is chili weather!

Gumbo Ya Ya!

By the time mid-winter gets here, we’re sick of it. Good thing Mardi Gras comes around to add some color and fun to the never-ending greyness of late February. And we’ve got the perfect dish to inject a little Cajun flavor into your menu.

This spectacular gumbo has it all: veggies, sausage, chicken, and crawdads. Like many great soups, you’ll want to let it cook overnight to coax every bit of flavor. A little roux, a little rice, and you got yourself some great gumbo.

Chicken Stock – CVap Style

Behind every great easy soup recipe is an outstanding stock. In this post, Chef Sam walks us through how to use your CVap oven to create gallons of chicken stock. It’s the perfect base for multitudes of soups. The important thing about this stock is that it can easily be frozen to use at another time. And it makes the most of the chicken, with virtually nothing going to waste.

Retherming Soup in CVap

So far, we’ve elaborated on some great scratch recipes you can make in a CVap. But many excellent pre-prepared canned or bagged soups are available from your favorite foodservice distributor. Use a CVap oven to retherm your premade soups, and you can really scale up production. Our largest ovens can hold up to 28 hotel pans, allowing you to cook gallons of soup at once. CVap technology ensures that no matter what soup you’re retherming, it will never scorch or overcook. And CVap oven’s automatic hold cycle keeps soup hot and fresh throughout your meal service.

From Soup to Nuts

These are just a few ideas for souping up your menu. Need more ideas or suggestions for adapting an existing recipe to CVap? Just fill out our contact form. Our culinary experts will be happy to help! There’s no need to limit questions to soup. We can help with just about anything!

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Kickin’ Chicken Noodle Soup: A Bowl Full of Delicious!

There’s something deeply satisfying about chicken noodle soup. It resonates with most people. It’s good for the body. Soothing for the soul. It transports you to a nostalgic happy place from your childhood. Chicken soup is transcendental.

It can also be an eloquent expression of different techniques. We utilized both CVap® and Collectramatic® equipment to create a chicken soup with a robust flavor profile and a broad range of textures.

For the broth, we combined chicken carcasses and aromatics, including carrots, onions, celery, thyme, sage, parsley, and rosemary. It was slowly reduced in a CVap Cook and Hold Oven set at 180°F Vapor/210°F Air for eight hours, with Constant Cook ON.

Chicken thighs were vacuum-sealed with olive oil and salt and poached at 165°F Vapor/175°F Air for two hours with Constant Cook ON. The result was a confit with an almost buttery texture. We removed the skin from the poached chicken and open fried it in a Collectramatic fryer at 350°F for four minutes.

Next we steamed celery, carrots, and onions in a CVap at 200°F Vapor/200°F Air for one hour. After that the steamed veggies joined the stock. This tasty concoction was held until it was time to assemble the plates. We purchased fresh noodles from Whole Foods Market and steamed them at the same settings as the vegetables.

Next came the plating. We started with the steamed noodles and topped them with the vegetables, followed by pulled confit of chicken.

Finally, we poured hot stock over the bowls and garnished with fresh herbs and the fried chicken skin crisps.

The final result was a soup that was blissful. It combined so many textures and flavors. Our tastebuds were delighted, and our souls satisfied.

It just doesn’t get more satiating than that!

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