News: Banqueting Versatility: The Multi-Talented SelfCooking Center

Rational organises free seminars on banqueting with combi ovens

Because they are dealing with high volumes of food, many banquet systems are pretty inflexible. Not so the SelfCooking Center from Rational. While it is ideal for regenerating high volumes of food quickly, with top quality results, it also opens up a huge variety of options for the banquet chef.

When regenerating food in bulk with Rational’s Finishing feature, the chef arranges the food in advance on plates and stores it chilled. Just before it is required, it is loaded into the SelfCooking Center and the Finishing function brings it up to serving temperature – anything from 20 plates to nearly 200 can be ‘Finished’ at once, depending on the model of SelfCooking Center. Special trolleys that store the plated meals can be wheeled directly from the refrigerator into the Rational, minimising handling.

The SelfCooking Center’s versatility means it can also be used to regenerate many different dishes at the same time, with no risk of cross contamination of flavours, even with a mix of items like fish, puddings and garlic bread. In this way banquet chefs can prepare a variety of special dishes, such as vegetarian or diet options, easily and quickly, all in the one combi, simultaneously. Rational’s LevelControl feature monitors individual shelves separately and tells staff when food on each shelf is ready. For example, steaks on one shelf might be cooked for 10 minutes, while fish can be cooked on another for 6 minutes. The SelfCooking Center will tell the chef when each shelf is ready, taking account of the door opening to adjust timings for other shelves.

The Rational CombiDuo takes this versatility to a whole new level, as it allows two SelfCooking Centers to be mounted on top of each other. This gives double the versatility, in the same size footprint. The Combi-Duo mounting ensures a rigid, safe connection between the combis and the units can be ‘mix and matched’ – for example, a six-grid can be mounted on top of a ten-grid unit.

The last thing any chef wants to do after a busy banquet is clean the oven. That’s where Rational’s new CareControl comes in: simply load the cleaning tabs into the appropriate points on the SelfCooking Center, push the cleaning button and the unit cleans and descales itself. All the chef has to do is remember to shut the door on the way out!

In the run up to Christmas and the New Year, Rational is organising a series of free SelfCooking Center ‘TeamCooking Live’ seminars on banqueting. For information contact your dealer, freephone Rational UK on 0800 389 2944 or call +44 800 389 2944. For product information and contact details see www.rational-UK.com