“Having the RATIONAL in the kitchen is definitely a stress reliever because I know that we can duplicate recipes with exact precision, and we can duplicate them under different circumstances.” – Aaron May, Executive Chef, Neon Collective
In the R&D Kitchen at Golden West Food Group in Los Angeles, Executive Chef Aaron May oversees a bustling team of several dozen culinary professionals as they work to create new foods to manufacture for retail sale. They rely heavily on RATIONAL precision and technology help determine the ideal way to cook, finish, and re-thermalize different products.
“We are developing hundreds of products at all times,” Chef May says. “There's 200, 300 products in development, and that's everything from marinated meats to ready-to-eat entrees to desserts and everything in between. I'm developing all the recipes and products with them using the RATIONAL and making sure that I'm delivering that precision that they expect.”
Whether it takes six or 60 iterations, Chef May knows his team will achieve the same output every time, regardless of external conditions – as opposed to regular convection ovens where outcomes may differ.
Aaron May, Executive Chef, Neon Collective.
As executive chef with Neon Collective, May oversees culinary productions for hundreds and sometimes thousands of people at major sporting events and music festivals. He’s worked with some of the top celebrity chefs and biggest brands on the planet.
“Whether it's sports or music, it's amazing to be able to share my food and work with other brands and celebrity chefs to bring their food to life,” he says.
“Having RATIONAL in the kitchen is definitely a stress reliever because I know that we can duplicate recipes with exact precision, and we can duplicate them under different circumstances,” he says. “Whatever I'm cooking, I know that RATIONAL is going to come through for me and do a great job and do it the same every time.”
“It's important to learn why stuff doesn't work,” he emphasizes, “and I think that's how you get to the iteration that is the best. It's the most cost-optimized, flavor-optimized – it’s the ideal of whatever that dish is supposed to be. Today, for example, we baked cookies three different ways, reducing the amount of humidity in the oven, increasing the amount of moisture, adjusting the temperature, adjusting the cook time. The precision that RATIONAL offers helps optimize what it is we're making.”
In the R&D kitchen, about 40% of the food touches RATIONAL. At events, the percentage is slightly higher as they use on the iCombi Pro to cook, re-therm, and hold many items.
“There’s obviously a lot of benefits to using the RATIONAL,” May says. “It's easy to clean, I can steam, I can roast, I can use a combination of steam and dry heat. And I think that the flexibility that it offers along with that precision and ease of use is remarkable.”
It saves on labor, particularly when used for overnight cooking, to cook and hold, and to prepare multiple items at once. His favorite feature is its ability to reduce moisture and use dry heat to finish items to a perfect crisp. “That ability to play with the moisture and dry heat is really something that sets it apart from everything else,” he says.
It also has many of the same cooking features as the large-scale equipment used in commercial production, so they can gain meaningful insight into what outcomes will look like.
“People who are afraid of missing out on some of the animalistic cooking techniques of open flame and stovetop cooking, I think once you see the results and you realize how easy it is to use and how precise it is, you get to love it,” he emphasizes. “I cook cheeseburgers in my RATIONAL. I cook chicken wings in my RATIONAL. And I don't miss the deep fryer and I don't miss the charcoal grill when I do that. I get all the flavor that I need.”