A new cooking technology under development at Purdue University could please both dieters looking for lowercalorie meals and food retailers seeking lower costs. It has the potential to produce “fried” foods using vastly less oil, and to cook them at speeds that make microwave ovens seem as slow as crock pots.
A Purdue professor is working with Anderson Tool and Engineering Co. in Madison County to create advanced prototypes of the device, called a “radiant fryer.”
The first off the line will go to Kevin Keener, an associate professor of food service at Purdue, who will use it for extensive testing. He hopes later models will go to food companies clamoring to try the technique on their own products.
A Purdue professor is working with Anderson Tool and Engineering Co. in Madison County to create advanced prototypes of the device, called a “radiant fryer.”
The first off the line will go to Kevin Keener, an associate professor of food service at Purdue, who will use it for extensive testing. He hopes later models will go to food companies clamoring to try the technique on their own products.
Keener helped create the concept several years ago while teaching at North Carolina State University. There, he and his co-inventor, food scientist Brian Farkas, spent a great deal of time researching, of all things, the frying process. They agreed there ought to be a way to produce food that tasted fried but didn’t have to be submerged in so much highly caloric, dangerous-to-handle oil.
The speed is what attracted the attention of McDonald’s Corp. and other restaurant firms that have looked at the device, Keener said. French fries take about one minute.
