Workflow for cooking in cooking-boxes outdoors

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This is how I had to learn to prepare meals for an Infantry Company of 80 men in the Swiss Army, in the field! Most of the mise-en-place and preparations were performed in the barracks before transporting the cooking boxes by Haflinger Jeeps to the assigned locations.
The Haflinger All-wheel Vehicle

Below are the highlighted instructions to perform this cooking process in the field.

The Cooking-Box cooking divides into three Work phases:

1. Mine-en-Place. 2. Pre-cooking  3. Final Cooking process

Miss-en-place means the ready-to-use preparation of the food and the ready-to-use material set-up according to the instructions below.

Pre-cooking means all work that will be carried out on the open fire, such as:

– seared, dressed, sautéed

-heat water, let food cook for some time

-binding, seasoned, packaged

The pre-cooking

times specified in the cooking recipes must be strictly observed. Under no circumstances should they be shortened.

Cooking

is usually done without the head chef’s intervention with the  Exception of cooking pasta. The cooking time, i.e. the duration of packaging, should not be changed carelessly. The cooking process is influenced by the following factors:

-Time loss through packaging

-Temperature: 1. of the case and  Roasting. 2. Outside temperature

-Quantity of the food

-Consistency of the food

Cooking in cooking boxes requires thorough preparation, which must be completed before you start cooking:

a. Studying of the recipes

b. Ready-to-use provision of the food, which, depending on your preparation, must be measured and divided ahead of time

c. Distribution of the material

d.Orders assigned to the kitchen team

Cooking in cooking crates must be done according to the recipe given because the work processes differ from cooking in stationary kitchens, the experienced chef also has to scrutinize and study the recipes.

The quantity calculation is made difficult by cooking in cooking boxes due to the following circumstance: In addition to the total calculation of the ingredients for a dish, an allocation to the number of cooking boxes required for cooking is also necessary. Depending on the number of units, and where they are stationed, the dishes must be prepared in different cooking boxes. This makes the exact planning and calculation necessary.

Also seasoning the food

is one of the specialties of cooking in cooking boxes. Since the cooking boxes may no longer be opened during the cooking process, this operation must be carried out before packing, that is, at a much earlier point in time than usual. Since the food is not yet cooked softly in order to be able to absorb salt and spices, it takes a certain amount of practice to be able to achieve balanced results by the time the box is opened and the food served.

The cleaning of the cooking crates and the kitchen material, as well as the daily service for the gasoline gas burners, requires more work and more precise control than the cleaning of traditional kitchens. The head chef must also carefully learn, deploy, and monitor his team in this department.

For a longer, extended period of outdoor exercises, we had to build a “Korean Oven” which took a few men to build, in this oven we were able to bake bread and cookies for the soldiers.