Best Option among Commercial Cookware

What is the factor that differentiates top commercial cookware from regular household kitchen cookware? The price obviously and rightly so! Commercial cookware is meant to withstand the rigors of almost non-stop use in the heavy duty kitchens of restaurants and hotels. High grade materials go into their making and the price commensurate with the quality that is offered by manufacturers of kitchen equipments for hotels.

Criteria that go into selection of Commercial Cookware

Top chefs look for the following factors while deciding their purchase of commercial cookware. They are:

  • Purchase price
  • Ease of maintenance
  • Type of metal
  • Shape of the equipment

All reputable kitchen equipment manufacturers offer the best price for their products. Discounts are also offered for bulk orders. In addition to the price, another deciding factor is the ease of maintenance as chances of the cookware lasting for longer periods are higher if they can be maintained easily. As for the type and shape of the metal several aspects have to be analyzed here.

 Metal Based Commercial Cookware

Commercial cookware is available in different sizes, shapes and type of metal used. The right choice will depend on the kind and quantity of food that is served in the restaurant and the amount of visitors frequenting the restaurant in the course of the day. The equipment’s versatility, ability to be heated easily and evenly, flavors attributed to the cooked food are just a few of the features that are looked into detail by the chefs who would be using them.

The most commonly used metals for commercial cookware are cast iron, aluminum and stainless steel. Let us see the pros and cons of each.

Aluminum: The best thing about aluminum is that it conducts and transfers heat well and is a cheaper option.  It is not heavy in weight and so can be easily handled. However, it gets easily corroded due to acidic foods.

Cast Iron:  This is also an economical option and is liked by chefs as it helps in transferring the flavor to the cooked foods. It is good for slow cooking and food remains warm in it for longer periods of time. But it is heavy and highly susceptible to rust. Thus maintenance too becomes a headache in this type of commercial cookware.

Stainless Steel: Stainless steel is the high end option and better in all respects when compared to the above two options. Ease of maintenance and durability are two top features of this metal based cookware. The downside of steel is that heat is not transferred as effectively as in case of aluminum. But this factor can be overcome by having stainless steel cookware with aluminum or copper bottoms. The good qualities of both metals are combined in this type of cookware. Commercial stainless steel cookware is costly but it is value worth the money as it lasts for long times to come.

Summarizing, it can be said that the chefs should select commercial cookware which they know how to handle well.