Two-surface grill with adjustable gap and multi-stage method for cooking food

A method of cooking in a plurality of stages a food product having a nominal initial uncooked thickness on a grill having first and second opposable platens, each platen having an opposable cooking surface, comprising:

• placing the food product on the first cooking surface;
• moving at least one of the platens so that the platen cooking surfaces are in an opposed relationship, the opposed cooking surfaces defining a gap spacing that is controllable and adjustable;
• storing in a programmable controller a cooking program including predetermined gap spacings selected based on the nominal initial uncooked thickness of the food product;
• communicating commands generated by the cooking program from the programmable controller to a drive mechanism operatively associated with at least one of the platens;
• and
• controlling and adjusting the gap spacing by the drive mechanism in response to the commands by moving the at least one platen with respect to the other platen to the predetermined gap spacings so that during at least one stage of the cooking the gap spacing is less than the nominal initial uncooked thickness of the food product and during at least one subsequent stage of the cooking, the gap spacing is increased so that it is greater than the smallest gap spacing in the initial stage but is still less than the nominal initial uncooked thickness of the food product.

A five-stage method of cooking meat having a nominal initial uncooked thickness on a grill having first and second opposable platens, each platen having an opposable cooking surface, comprising:

• placing the meat on the first cooking surface;
• moving at least one of the platens so that the platen cooking surfaces are in an opposed relationship, the opposed cooking surfaces defining a gap spacing therebetween that is controllable and adjustable;
• storing in a programmable controller a cooking program including pre-determined gap spacings for each of the five cooking stages;
• and
• communicating commands from the programmable controller to a drive mechanism operatively associated with at least one of the platens to control and adjust the gap spacing to the predetermined gap spacings by moving the cooking surface of said at least one of the platens relative to the other platen so that during a first stage of cooking the gap spacing is approximately equal to the nominal initial uncooked thickness of the meat, during a second stage of the cooking the gap spacing is less than the nominal initial uncooked thickness of the meat, during a third stage of the cooking the gap spacing is approximately equal to the nominal initial uncooked thickness of the meat, during a fourth stage of the cooking the gap spacing is less than the nominal initial uncooked thickness of the meat, and during a fifth stage of the cooking the gap spacing is less than the nominal initial uncooked thickness of the meat.