Just a generation or two ago, many foodservice kitchens were busy, well-staffed places where cooks browned and simmered bones for stocks, butchered meats and fish, kneaded dough, and skimmed and reduced sauces.

That was then, and this is now. With skilled labor becoming increasingly expensive and hard to find, many foodservice operators are moving away from scratch preparation into easy-to-use recipe “components” which not only save on labor costs but also ensure consistency, ease of prep, tighter inventory control and even food-safety advantages.

Manufacturers have stepped up to the plate, with products that range from high-quality stocks and sauces, to pre-seasoned and portioned proteins, ready-to-use sautéed mushrooms and frozen parbaked doughs. Rather than being disdained as shortcuts, these convenience ingredients are appreciated as a great way to add flavor and variety to menus, reduce repetitive kitchen tasks, and free up talent to focus on such necessary strategies as menu development and training. They also allow kitchens to stay on top of rapidly evolving food and menu trends. Speed-scratch components even save on storage—stock one finished item, not its 20 different ingredients.

Time studies of lasagna by the U.S. Army, in re-evaluating its foodservice protocols, showed that a recipe that combines at least some manufacturer-prepared ingredients took 30 minutes, versus 90 minutes for scratch. Alternatives to scratch recipes also rated well in sensory panels.

But it’s more than a matter of flavor, quality and convenience. Consider the example of food bases, one of the earliest “convenience” products. In traditional kitchens, stocks were made from bones, trim and other byproducts from the butchering of whole carcasses, as well as carrot and onion ends, parsley stems, the tough outer stalls of celery and other unusables. Making stock from scratch was a thrifty way to turn unwanted product into soups, sauces, braising liquids and other flavorful items, using cheap labor that was already in-house.

With many meats now coming in the back door in deconstructed form, a chef would have to order bones from the butcher. Those bones no longer come cheap, and then there’s the issue of receiving, storing and using them up in time, to say nothing of training staff how to handle them. All of a sudden, that stock isn’t free anymore.

Then, too, with the safety of the food supply coming under increasing scrutiny, the less handling the better, from the point of view of both the wholesomeness of the food and the personal safety of employees—who wants an $8-an-hour kitchen laborer trimming bones with a sharp knife, or lifting 20-gallon batches of boiling hot stock?

A component cooking approach encompasses everything from using a food base in a soup or pouring prepared dressing on a salad, to assembling a shepherd’s pie with an entire series of value-added items: grill-marked, seasoned cooked meat; precut vegetable blend; beef gravy; prepared mashed potatoes; and a finish of blended grated cheese.

No matter who’s doing the assembling, the product will be more consistent when it’s already been prepared. Many of the components can be used in other menu items—the salad dressing becomes a marinade, the cooked meat goes into a pasta dish, etc. And, perhaps most important, at every step of the way the operator can choose to add a signature touch, with strategic ingredients such as sautéed onions, fresh herbs or a splash of wine.

That’s the power of components.

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