Method of controlling the operation of cooking apparatus

Abstract

Disclosed is a method of at least partially cooking food items by exposing them to a heated liquid cooking medium supplied by a cooking medium delivery pump and piping to a cooking zone of a cooker including a control unit which, during a cooking process; (a) controls the temperature of the cooking medium delivered to the cooking zone to a pre-determined setpoint specific for the food items by controlling heat output from a heat exchanger for heating cooking medium throughout the cooking process; (b) controls the rate of convective heat transfer to the food items by directly controlling a sensed condition of cooking medium delivered to the cooking zone, other than temperature which is controlled in step (a), related to the rate of convective heat transfer; and, optionally, (c) controls the rate of convective heat transfer to the food items by controlling a sensed condition of the cooking zone related to the rate of convective heat transfer. Cookers which implement the method are also described.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.