The Hottest Enchilada Ever

"Hands down, the AccuTemp Steam 'n' Hold is the most cost efficient steamer I've ever used," says Jimmy Garcia of El Fenix Restaurant Corporation, Dallas, Texas. "Now, we only go through six gallons of water a day, and use only 1/10 of the electricity. It's a tremendous savings."

Each El Fenix restaurant (there are 16 of them) serves approximately 2,500 to 3,000 meals a day. Once doubtful that the Steam 'n' Hold could handle the restaurant's food load, Garcia found himself pleasantly surprised that the steamer could hold so much at once. Compared to the two-by-three foot AccuTemp steamer, his previous steamers were large and bulky, and required gas valves and a boiler. "Which didn't have anything to do with food preparation," he remembers. "It just ran up operational costs."

The restaurant cooks and holds enchiladas and tamales for the lunch and dinner rush. Garcia is constantly amazed at how the Steam 'n' Hold can deliver perfectly cooked tamales without splitting the skins. "Sometimes we might load too much food into the steamer, but it holds for several hours without any change in the integrity of the products," he comments. "Lunchtime is when we get the most traffic. Our food has to be excellent, and it has to come fast."

Can it really hold food without overcooking?

The Steam 'n' Hold uses a vacuum to reduce the internal cooking chamber pressure. This means you can boil water and steam food at temperatures as low as 150 degrees F. Because steam has a high heat transfer rate, food will be cooked with a minimum of temperature difference between the steam and the food.

Just set the time and temperature. Once the cook cycle is over, the steamer automatically switches to the hold mode and keeps food in a ready-to-serve state for hours. It's that simple!

Garcia estimates the Steam 'n' Hold saves the restaurant approximately two hours in food preparation time. "We simply don't have to worry anymore about the food because it's been holding after cooking," he reports. "Had it not been for the ingenuity of AccuTemp and diversity of its product, I would not be benefiting from all the rewards of the Steam 'n' Hold now."

AccuTemp Products, Inc., 12004 Lincoln Highway East, New Haven, IN 46774. Tel: 219-493-0415; Fax: 219-493-0318.