Culinary highlights at DO & CO: the hot kitchen

It’s getting hot – in DO & CO’s hot kitchen! Here is where the cutting, roasting, cooking – and quick chilling – takes place. Find out about how the Cook Chill process really works and how a hot meal of chicken paprika finally lands on your plate in today’s redblog special.

The hot kitchen at DO & CO

Off we go into the hot kitchen at DO & CO– and that’s after all one entire floor of the building! We begin our visit in the preparation zone, which has three separated areas: one for meat, one for poultry and one for fish.

Because of sanitation, each area has its own equipment. The equipment differs in colour to avoid confusion.

This is how the meat is processed – in this case here with rosemary and olive oil .

The Cook Chill process

Hühnerbrust im Heißluftofen

When all is prepared, the cooking phase begins: First the meat is seared briefly – “which gives it a beautiful colour”, explains Stefan Walasek, responsible for Food Safety and Quality Management at DO & CO.

After that, the meat is put into a convection oven to be cooked to a certain core temperature: “As soon as the core temperature is reached, the so-called chillers come into operation: There the meat is rapidly chilled so as to avoid the growth of bacteria.”

Fully cooked and packed

As soon as all components of a menu have been cooked, the portioning phase begins: “Here all is made by hand: Step by step each ingredient is added until finally the dish is weighed and wrapped in foil”, says Stefan Walasek.

The chicken paprika is then placed onto the waiting trolley and at long last ready for departure! By the way: To make sure that the chicken paprika on your plate will be nice and hot, the dishes are put in so-called oveninserts. Those can go directly into the oven on board.