Food Preparation Equipment

When I started my own catering company I was stunned by the food preparation equipment that was available on the market. There are so many different types of food preparation equipment available to assist with every task imaginable and I was like a kid in a lolly store.

There was so much choice with the catering equipment that it was hard to know where to start so I made a list of my favorite finds in the food preparation equipment and here it is.

My Favorite Food Preparation Equipment

#1 Food Preparation Equipment: Tomato Slicer Blade – I have always been hopeless at slicing tomatoes and am always squashing which is not great for presentation. Its okay for the family at home but when folks are paying for their food to look good I need to do better. That’s why I love this piece of food preparation equipment it makes what has always been a challenging task for me extremely simple;

#2 Food Preparation Equipment: Stainless Steel Sausage Stuffer – I used to watch my grandfather make sausages. He was a butcher and one of his specialties was a variety of different gourmet sausages that they made on the premises of the shop. When I saw this piece of food preparation equipment it reminded me of that time and how popular his yummy sausages were and I wondered whether gourmet sausages would be something I could specialize in especially as they would be so easy to make with this machine;

#3 Food Preparation Equipment: Onion Peeler – how cool is this piece of food preparation equipment. Hands up everyone who hates peeling onions and the stinging after effect. That has always been me. I use a lot of onions in my cooking and this has always been uncomfortable for me. This is a must have for my kitchen and I didn’t even know they existed;

#4 Food Preparation Equipment: French Fries Cutter – I have always had one of these in my kitchen, as French fries are a favorite of my children. I used to make them the old fashioned way by cutting the individual strands but once I found one of these I make French fries a lot more often. Actually the kids love this machine so I get them to make their own;

#5 Food Preparation Equipment: Electric Pasta Maker – I have always made my own pasta and this is because I love the freshness of home made pasta. It has however always been a rather slow process using the hand pasta maker that has been in my kitchen for years. When I found this piece of food preparation equipment I started imagining the piles of home made pasta that I could make in a short amount of time;

#6 Food Preparation Equipment: Chocolate Tempering System – Mmmm home made chocolate now this is something that I also love to make and want to definitely use in my catering business. Unique home made chocolate delights that compliment any meal or are great for special occasions in specially designed love boxes;

#7 Food Preparation Equipment: Automatic Pineapple Corer – this one tickled my fancy I cannot think of where I would use it as I don’t use pineapple that much and am happy to core it by hand. I would imaging that food preparation equipment like this would be useful at a juicing station or somewhere that makes large quantities of fruit salad;

#8 Food Preparation Equipment: Yoghurt Maker Oven – This food preparation equipment allows you to make your own yoghurt apparently as good as or even better than store bought yoghurt. This is great because I can make delicious creamy desserts that are healthy with the freshest of ingredients, At home we also eat frozen yoghurt with fresh fruit instead of ice cream, which is a huge hit with the kids;

#9 Food Preparation Equipment: Commercial Potato Peeler – This takes all of the chore out of peeling potatoes and I love it. We use a lot of potatoes at home as well as in the commercial catering that I have started doing and this is a huge time saver and very efficient. It frees up my time for the tasks that I love doing;

#10 Food Preparation Equipment: Salad spinner – there is nothing worse (well there is but its not very nice) than soggy wet salad served up to you on the plate, This piece of food preparation equipment gets the salad dry in a few minutes with very little effort. Great for the summer months when salad is a big feature on the catering menu and large quantities at that;

#11 Food Preparation Equipment: Tortilla press and flat bread maker – this is an easy to use hand press machine you just need to insert the dough and within seconds you have a tortilla, roti or regular flatbread which you just need to cook in the oven. Fantastic for when you need to make large quantities of these.

So that is my list of my favorite food preparation equipment. There are gadgets and machines available these days to perform almost every conceivable task, to help save time and reduce valuable time spent on the menial tasks like peeling and cutting. When you have a small business like mine you have to keep the overheads low and it is not practical to have a kitchen hand for these small jobs so the food preparation equipment makes it all possible within my budget.