Why vegetable preparation is at the core of every kitchen. 

When Michael Pollan told us to eat more plants it was well-meaning advice indeed. But probably even he did not envision the voracious monster that plant-based has become.

As more and more of your menu items focus on fruit, veg, and free-from alternatives, is the time now ripe for investing in a veg prep machine? Let’s dig a little deeper and see why vegetable preparation really does lie at the heart of your operation.

The growing popularity of plants.

Vegan substitutes and plant-based jiggery pokery aside, vegetables really are beginning to take their place at the head of the table. Fuelled by environmental concerns and an increasing awareness of health, a love affair with artisanal produce and heirloom varieties began. We brought the outside in and placed nature unapologetically on the plate. A kitchen garden is at the top of every chef’s wish list, with a growing number of farms diversifying into the chef market. Foraging continues its rise in popularity. If you are looking for colour, texture, and flavour (because who isn’t) the greengrocer is where it’s at.

Veg prep has always played a central role in the kitchen.

Yet vegetable preparation has long been at the core of the kitchen. The beating heart of everything you do. Well before the marketing team came up with the term plant-based (thanks for that) there were vegetables. We may not have idolised them as we do now but veg prep has always played a central role in any kitchen. Just ask the commis.

It’s 6am and the veg man just arrived. If you are lucky, you aren’t there to greet them. Part of the ebb and flow of any kitchen, the veg delivery happens with such alarming regularity that you barely register its existence. Unless you are left to sort the fridges (AGAIN) when it’s about as welcome as finding out the KP has phoned in sick (AGAIN). Yet, despite their newly elevated status, we take the fundamental importance of vegetables in the kitchen for granted.

An indispensable ingredient.

Veg have always been there. Sewn into the psyche of the cook, through training, osmosis, or DNA.

Onion, carrot, and celery form the humble beginnings of many a great dish. Stocks, soups, sauces, and stews all begin here. With the sweet, earthy roundness of carrots. The savoury flavour enhancer that is celery. The subtle and softly melting acidity of onion; where would we be without you? Such indispensable, non-negotiable, central ingredients. So central that we buy them by the sack full. A good stock may be the foundation of flavour but a well-cooked base bears equal weight.

But reality bites. Before the magic can happen, someone must chop the lot. This is the part where the inspiring music, abruptly, stops.

Take a walk into the walk-in. Whether your kitchen is big or small, your output large or limited, what you find in there is a shedload of veg. Which come tomorrow will have been used and replenished. Take a good look at it, in its entirety, and consider that over the course of the day (possibly before lunchtime) it will all need to be broken down. Sliced, diced, and shredded into submission. Not to mention neatly, consistently, and with as little waste as possible. Blue plasters? Under the sink, chef.

Mercifully, help is at hand.

Make life easier with a vegetable cutting machine.

What you need, is a vegetable cutting machine. It will not only speed up your vegetable preparation processes but will do it uniformly and efficiently.

From space saving table-top models to floor standing workstations there is a vegetable cutter and slicer that will do the hard graft for you. Regardless of whether you do thirty covers a day or three thousand.

Here at Robot-Coupe we are constantly innovating, without compromising on the quality that we built our considerable reputation on. Which means your cabbage won’t get caught in the cutter. Thanks to the properly precise exactitube you can expect ribbons to be actual ribbons, and slices to be slices. However long, round, small, or just plain weird your veg may be.

And with prep time this efficient you can quickly replenish mise en place to meet demand. Because we have all been there. Prep to the max and rain halts play. Keep it minimal and you get caught with your pants down. Consistently meeting demand without loss of quality or increased waste has to be the ultimate goal of anybody in the business of food.

With more cutting options than you can shake a stick at, there are plenty of discs to suit. All of our veg cutting machines can grate, slice, julienne and ripple cut. The CL50 gourmet will prep brunoise as fine as 2mm, create waffle cuts for the perfect veggie crisps, and even chop parsley.

If potatoes are your bag, then consider the potato ricer attachment or the mashed potato accessory. Shake up your sides with a range of sizes from skinny french-fries to fat chips.

The Ultra Pizza Pack is designed for perfect pizza prep with everything you need and nothing you don’t.

To see exactly how much you could do with a vegetable cutting machine, why not book a demo?

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