4 minute read
In HOT Water
In the restaurant business, it’s better to ensure you have hot water rather than find yourself in it. Readily available hot water can be a game changer when you need to save on prep time and labour.
BEING PLANT-BASED IS AN increasingly popular lifestyle choice and the demand for these types of options is something to take seriously.
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Although people have been choosing to have an animal-free approach to life for thousands of years, the word “vegan” only came into existence in the 1940s. The coiners of the word were disgruntled vegetarians who broke from the movement feeling that consuming any animal related product, like eggs and dairy was unethical.
At first there were only six of them, but over the last 80 years, their numbers have swelled and now there are millions of vegans around the globe – including more than a million here in Canada (which is expected to grow). More than three quarters of all vegans are between ages 16 and 34, which means if you’re looking to attract customers from Generation Y and Z, you’ll need to consider how you can incorporate a vegan dish or include plant-based options on your menu. Fortunately, that isn’t hard to do.
One of the easiest menu items to veganize is a good-old-fashioned pasta dish. Sure, you can boil up a pot of rigatoni, smother it in tomato sauce, and call it a vegan dish, but since most vegans also happen to be health-conscious and adventurous eaters, you’ll probably benefit from investing some time into getting a bit more creative with your recipes.
Try protein-rich, gluten-free pastas made from chickpea, lentil, or edamame flour. Or make your own pastas from zucchini, cauliflower, carrot, or even green bananas. For toppings, try a Tuscan black kale pesto with garlic and almonds or a rich, creamy sauce made from roasted red peppers, cashews, and cauliflower.
While healthy eating habits have seen pasta trending downward for the last few years, you might be surprised to learn that vegans are among the country’s top pasta consumers, so a gluten-free, vegan pasta dish or two could keep your kitchen staff hopping.
“If you’re getting a lot of orders, it can be a scramble to keep up.” says Dave Ovenell, Vice President, Sales and Service at BUNN Canada.
Ovenell says he first ran into the hot water conundrum decades ago, when BUNN, which is best known for their commercial coffee solutions, was looking to make tea service more efficient. “Restaurants used to have a five-burner coffee machine,” he says. “And one of those elements was for a glass pot full of hot water for tea. So we came up with a dispenser where you could just pull down on a tap and get hot water that way.”
It didn’t take long for restaurant kitchens to take notice – especially pizza kitchens who need precise temperatures of hot water to make consistent doughs. Today the machine is available in two, three, five, and ten-gallon sizes. The bigger versions mount right into your counter to avoid taking up prime real estate in your kitchen space. Plus, it includes dual-voltage and temperature controls, and comes in your choice of colour.
Ovenell adds that a hot water machine is a great investment – for lots of reasons. “The main one is efficiency,” he says. “Having hot water readily available saves prep time and labour. It makes pastamaking so much more efficient.” But pasta-making is just the beginning. “It’s a multi-use tool, so you can use it for all kinds of food prep. You can use it for tea. You can even use it to supercharge your cleaning chemicals and cut your chemical usage in half because the water is so much hotter.”
As a restaurant owner, it’s better to ensure you have hot water rather than find yourself in it. Boiling water may not be the biggest frustration that your kitchen staff experiences, but it is certainly a game changer that will make you wonder why you didn’t implement it sooner. It may even allow you to try out some new menu items without overwhelming the kitchen. How’s that for bringing the heat?
