One of the pieces of equipment we are most excited to install in our commercial kitchen is the combi-oven. Other facilities similar to ours have found that their combi-ovens are among their most popular equipment. A combi-oven is capable of cooking with dry heat (as with a regular convection oven) or with steam, or with a combination of the two.

Anyone familiar with ovens will know that many of the challenges come down to not just the temperature and heat circulation inside the oven, but also to how much moisture is retained or expelled during various stages in the cooking process. In a regular dry-heat oven, you only have direct control over the heating aspect. Various techniques like basting, marinating, dry rubs, water baths, covering, quick broiling and so on can affect the moisture in the food, but only indirectly. The ability to dial in a precise amount of steam injection or steam venting with a combi-oven allows for much more precise control.

A combi-oven is the perfect appliance for a range of cooking techniques. It makes quick and easy work of steaming vegetables, puddings, sous-vide cooking, “air frying” and steam-injected sourdough baking. Our particular oven has the ability to store several hundred recipes. That means that kitchen users who are using the oven regularly will be able to have their ideal timing, heat and moisture combinations stored on the oven for repeated access at the touch of a button.

Our combi-oven is the CombiPro model from Rational®, a commercial workhorse that will serve a vast variety of needs. It will be complemented by a similarly high-quality convection oven for even more capacity.