Patent Application
20050136172
The present invention is related generally to food processing. More specifically, the present invention is related to egg cooking methods and devices for mass producing cooked egg products.
Individuals increasingly eat food away from home, or at home, at work, or even in an automobile, where the food was at least partially prepared or precooked outside at the home. Grill fried eggs are well known and have been made for centuries. Consumers prepare grill fried eggs at home, and also eat grill fried eggs prepared in eating establishments. The grill fried eggs are aesthetically pleasing to consumers, perhaps because grill fried eggs have the appearance of home cooked food and/or food prepared at well-established restaurants.
Many consumers demand eggs prepared at ever-increasingly short time intervals. Some consumers expect cooked eggs to be made available in the time between ordering a product at a speaker post, and the arrival of their automobile at a drive-up window in a fast food establishment. Other consumers expect eggs to be made available shortly after paying for the eggs at the counter of a fast food restaurant, expecting to receive the cooked eggs in less than the time required to cook the eggs, for example, within one minute.
Some fast food restaurants grill fry eggs ahead of time, prior to their being ordered. One such fast food restaurant uses a three-inch ring, open at the bottom, in sets of six. These are put on the grill, the egg deposited in the ring, then covered and steamed. These restaurant prepared eggs, while nutritious, do not closely resemble home, grill fried eggs. They are also made prior to being ordered, allowing for the possibility of wastage if they are not sold within an allotted time period.
Another fast food establishment uses a three and one-quarter inch ring, breaks the egg, puts the egg into the ring, breaks the yolk, and partially cooks the egg. The partially cooked egg is flipped over in the ring, and the ring removed. This allows the remainder of the egg to cook and flow outwardly somewhat. This method also requires the eggs to be made ahead of the short time demanded by some consumers, with the cooked eggs being readily distinguishable from an irregular or randomly shaped, home grill fried egg.
Such cooking methods suffer from drawbacks. Firstly, if the eggs are to be delivered to consumers in a time period less than the time required to break the eggs, cook the eggs, and package the cooked egg product, then the eggs must be cooked prior to the time of ordering. This allows for some wastage, as previously discussed. Secondly, while modern eggs are typically very safely delivered from almost all vendors, the possibility exists for some pathogens being carried with the eggs. While this occurrence is extremely rare, it has happened. Thirdly, the manual preparation of grill fried eggs is somewhat time and labor consuming. In some situations, the cooking grill would not otherwise be required but for the requirement for cooking the grill fried eggs.
What would be desirable are methods and devices for mass producing pre-cooked, cooled eggs that resemble grill fried eggs. Such eggs could be mass produced in a controlled environment to substantially reduce the chance of pathogen contamination. The mass produced, precooked, cooled eggs would preferably resemble home cooked grilled eggs. If mass produced, grill fried eggs were made available, fast food eating establishments could save on labor, and reduce wastage by reheating the previously cooked egg products. What would be most desirable are pre-cooked, cooled, egg products that resemble home, grill fried eggs that could be prepared at a fast food establishment in less than the time required to cook the eggs.
The present invention provides methods for mass producing cooked, cooled eggs having a grill fried egg appearance. One method includes depositing an egg product into a plurality of mold depressions, wherein the molds have irregular shaped boundaries. Another method includes depositing an egg product into a plurality of mold depressions having an irregularly varying depth and bottom surface. The methods can further include cooking the deposited egg products in the molds, removing the cooked egg products from the molds, and cooling the cooked egg products below room temperature. Some methods include depositing whole eggs with intact yolks, while other methods include depositing whole eggs having broken yolks. The methods may include allowing the yolk to settle into a minor depression located within the major depression of the mold. In some methods, the yolks are broken by dropping the whole eggs through an egg yolk rupturing device having sharp edges. Still other methods include depositing scrambled egg products or formulated egg products.
In some methods, the mold depressions are arranged side to side in a pan along a width dimension, and the pans arranged end to end along a length dimension, in which the depositing includes depositing a plurality of eggs along the width into the plurality of mold depressions at substantially the same time. The depositing can occur when the mold pans are moving. In some methods, the shelled eggs are located a first distance apart while the eggs are broken, and are diverted to a second distance apart, further apart than the first distance, to be deposited into mold depressions located approximately the second distance apart on center.
The present invention provides a method for breaking egg yolks including dropping the egg yolks through a device for rupturing the egg yolk sacs. In some methods, the device includes an orifice having sharp edges, and the method includes dropping the egg yolks through the orifice having the sharp edges. Some devices include a plate having an orifice with sharp inwardly protruding edges, and the method can include dropping the egg yolks through the orifice having the sharp edges. In some methods, the device has a plurality of orifices, and can receive a plurality of egg yolks simultaneously. The plurality of orifices can be arranged in a side by side pattern. In some methods, the egg yolk sac rupturing device has a plurality of orifices each disposed in a downwardly extended or depressed plate portion.
The present invention further provides an egg mold for producing eggs having irregular shaped peripheries, the mold including a planar surface having a depression therein, wherein the depression has an irregularly shaped outline. In some molds, the depression outline is asymmetric about any vertical plane drawn through the planar surface and the depression. The mold is preferable formed of a nonstick, food grade material, at least at the surface. Some egg molds are formed as a plurality of depressions in the planar surface of an egg mold pan.
Some molds have a top surface and include a first depression having a first bottom surface and a first depth relative to the top surface, and also include a second depression having a second bottom surface and a second depth relative to the top surface. The first and/or second bottom surface depth can vary over the respective surface. In some molds the second depression has a surface area at least {fraction (1/10)}th or {fraction (1/6)}th the surface area of the first depression. The second depression can have a mean depth of at least ¼ or ⅓ greater than the mean depth of the first depression. The yolk, either intact, broken, or formulated, can be allowed to settle into the second depression, providing a cooked egg product having a prominent cooked yolk.
A device for mass producing cooked, fried eggs is also provided by the present invention. One device includes an egg breaking device comprising a plurality of vertically oriented, side-by-side, egg carousels, where the egg carrying carousels each have a plurality of egg carrier cups rotatably disposed about a horizontal central axis, the egg carrier carousels traveling along a closed loop partly lying within a vertical plane. The device can further comprise an eggshell breaking knife for breaking the eggshells while the eggs are disposed within the egg carrying cups. The device can also include a moving belt including a plurality of pans, with each pan having a plurality of egg cooking mold depressions disposed side-by-side therein. The molds can be disposed to each receive a falling egg from the egg breaking device. In some devices, the molds are disposed directly under the egg carrying cups at the point at which the shells are broken. Other devices include chutes or deflectors to deflect the falling eggs from the egg carrying cups laterally outward to a distance further apart than the egg carrying cups are located from each other, to insure depositing the falling eggs into the molds. In still other devices, an egg yolk breaking device having an orifice for receiving a falling liquid whole egg and having sharp edges for rupturing the egg yolk sack of the falling egg yolk is disposed between the egg carrying cup and the cooking mold. In some devices, the molds have an irregular outline shape, as previously described.
The present invention also provides a cooked, cooled egg product comprising a plurality of cooked egg products having a substantially planar shape and having an irregular shaped outline, in which a substantial portion of the eggs have the same irregular shaped outline, in which the cooked egg products have a temperature of less than 30° centigrade. The cooked egg products are whole eggs having intact yolks in some embodiments, are whole eggs having broken yolks in other embodiments, are scrambled eggs in still other embodiments, and are formulated egg products in yet other embodiments. Some egg products have an irregular shaped surface having an irregularly varying height over the product. Other egg products are cooked formulated eggs having a formulated egg yolk portion and/or a formulated egg white portion, resembling a sunny-side-up fried egg. This product can be made by depositing the formulated yolk into a secondary mold depression and depositing the formulated egg white into a primary mold depression having the secondary depression within.
The present invention also includes methods for making cooked whole eggs including automatically conveying eggs to an egg breaking location, automatically breaking the egg shells of the whole eggs, allowing the contents of one egg shell to fall into one mold, automatically conveying each mold into a heated area, and cooking the egg contents in each mold in the heated area.
Some automatic methods include methods for making cooked whole eggs by mechanically conveying a plurality of whole, shelled eggs, mechanically breaking the conveyed plurality of egg shells, allowing the egg contents to fall into a plurality of molds, mechanically conveying the molds containing the egg contents into a heating area, and cooking the egg contents in the molds. Each mold receiving egg content preferably receives one and only one whole egg content. The mechanical methods can include mechanisms selected from the group consisting of purely mechanical, pneumatic, electrical, magnetic, hydraulic, and electromechanical mechanisms and combinations thereof. Some methods include mechanically carrying each egg in an egg carrier, mechanically breaking the egg shell with a knife, and moving a belt or loop formed of linked articulated molds into the heating area. The molds used and the resulting cooked eggs can have round outlines, symmetrical outlines, irregular outlines, irregular surfaces, and/or two different and nested levels of surfaces.
The present invention provides, generally, a device for mass producing cooked eggs having a grill fried egg appearance. The device includes a first part for positioning eggs in a spaced apart relationship from each other and for breaking the eggshells, allowing the whole egg products within to fall. The device also includes a second part, including a belt having a plurality of egg cooking molds disposed to capture the falling, whole egg products within the molds. The molds can be disposed on a longitudinally moving belt, which can propel the deposited eggs in the cooking molds toward an oven.
Irregular outline 32, in the embodiment illustrated, includes outward or convex protuberance 34 and inward or concave region 36. Convex protuberance 34 and concave protuberance 36 may be seen to be substantially rounded in appearance. Another outward vertex 38 may be seen, being formed between a first substantially straight region 40 and a second substantially straight region 42. Yet another outward protuberance or convex region 48 may be seen formed between a first concave region 44 and a second concave region 46. A broken yolk 31 may be seen within egg 30. The present invention includes both eggs having broken and unbroken yolks.
Referring again to
The irregular shaped cooked egg products of
Another aspect of the present invention includes methods for making cooked egg products having broken yolks and the cooked egg products made according to these methods. The time required to fully cook the yolk portion of a fried egg with intact yolk exceeds the time required to fully cook the white portion due to the increased thickness of the yolk. This can result in overcooking of the white portion of the egg in order to fully cook the yolk. The present invention includes a method for breaking the yolk in order to minimize the differences in thickness associated with an egg with an unbroken yolk. This method also improves process efficiencies by reducing the total amount of time necessary to fully cook the egg to an internal temperature of 170 degrees Fahrenheit. The time required to cook an egg with an unbroken yolk can be between 25 percent and 75 percent longer than cooking an egg that has a broken yolk. The cooking of the egg with a broken yolk also results in a more uniform cooking of the egg, which results in improved texture.
In some embodiments, the second depression has a surface area of at least about {fraction (1/10)}th or ⅙th the surface area of the first or primary depression. As used herein, the term “surface area” refers to the projection of the surface area onto the top planar surface 202. Thus, the surface area refers to the surface area that is horizontal when top planar surface 202 is disposed horizontally. Thus, if first sloped region 210 were perfectly perpendicular to top planar surface 202, then first sloped region 210 would have no surface area. The surface area of the first depression, for the purposes of this application, includes the combined surface area of the first and the second depressions. The first depression has a depth relative to top planar surface 202. In the example illustrated, the depth of the first depression is the distance between first planar region 212 and top surface 202. The second or secondary depression also has a depth relative to top planar surface 202. This depth is the maximum distance within the second or secondary depression and the top planar surface. In some embodiments, the depth of the second depression is at least ¼th or even ⅓rd greater than the depth of the first depression. The molds of the present invention have a major width dimension of less than 6 inches and 4 inches, and a maximum depth of less then 1½ inches, 1 inch, and {fraction (3/4)} inch, in various embodiments.
In use, a yolk can be deposited into the second depression while an egg white is deposited into the first depression. The yolk may be a whole intact yolk, a whole egg broken yolk, or a formulated yolk, depending on the embodiment. In some methods, the yolk is deposited into the second depression first, followed by depositing the egg white, either natural, enhanced, or formulated. In other methods, the egg is deposited at once, and the yolk allowed to settle into the second depression. In one such method, the yolk is a formulated yolk, having a heavier density than the egg white. The heavier density formulated yolk thus settles into the second depression while the egg white is primarily located within the first depression. Pan 200 can then be subjected to heating, thus cooking the egg products within the molds. The pan can then be inverted and the cooked egg products dislodged. The resulting egg products will have the yolk portion prominently displayed, resembling a grill fried sunny side up cooked egg. The resulting cooked egg can be a natural whole egg, or an egg having a formulated yolk and/or white portion.
The irregularly varying height of the cooked egg products in
The present invention also includes devices for mass producing eggs having a grill fried egg appearance. The mass produced, cooked, and cooled egg products can include the intact or broken egg yolk products, and/or the irregular shaped cooked egg products previously described.
In the embodiment illustrated, the bottom of each depression was cut into eight equal segments 132 separated by openings 134 therebetween. The segments thus formed were then bent downward to form an opening for the liquid egg contents to pass through. As the liquid egg white and yolk fall through this opening, the pointed portion of each segment ruptures the membrane of the yolk sac, causing it to break. Varying degrees of yolk spread on the finished fried egg can be achieved by changing the size of the opening on the yolk breaker. After the egg passes through the egg yolk breaker, it can be deposited into the mold on the cooking oven to be cooled. The segments meet at a central aperture 136 formed at the vertices of the segments. The segments can have sharp edges, both along their sides and at their vertices, which can rupture the egg yolk sac. The present invention includes generally any device having an aperture with sharp edges, internal or external, for rupturing the egg yolk sac.
The egg carriers may be seen to form 5 side-by-side columns of egg carriers, for example, egg carriers 160 and 161, disposed alongside each other and traveling vertically downward at one point. The egg breaking device of
The egg carriers at the position indicated at 174 are disposed directly above five chutes or deflectors including a right-most chute or deflector 176 and a left-most chute or deflector 178. The illustrated embodiment utilizes a conventional egg breaking machine, a Diamond W80 modified for the present use. A belt 180 having a plurality of pans, for example, pans 182 and 184 may be seen. Each of the pans includes a plurality of molds or depressions 186. Depressions 186 may be seen located a distance apart that is greater than the distance separating egg carriers 160 and 161. In order to deposit the falling eggs coming from egg carriers 160 and 161 into the more widely separated molds 186, chutes or deflectors 176 through 178 may be used to laterally disperse the falling whole liquid eggs. In the example illustrated in
Device 120, in the embodiment illustrated, is based on a modified Diamond W80 egg breaker (Diamond Automation, Farmington Hills, Mich.). Modifications to the diamond W80 breaker can include shortening the in-feed conveyor, modifying the frame, and electronic control changes to synchronize the egg breaking equipment with the cooking oven. Eggs can be loaded manually onto the in-feed conveyor by means of a vacuum assist mechanism. The eggs can then be positioned into lanes by a series of guide rods. These eggs can then be transported via spool conveyor rollers to the egg loader where they are deposited into individual egg holders or egg carriers. The eggs can then be cracked with a knife attachment and the shell spread, allowing the egg contents to drop into the yolk breaking device. The empty egg shells can then be automatically deposited into an auger, which conveys the shells to a holding hopper. The oven, which can be referred to as a mold oven, can be a 40-foot gas-fired forced convention oven, made for example by Wolverine-Proctor & Schwartz (Merrimac, Mass.). The cooked eggs can then be cooled in a spiral freezer and packaged. All of the modifications in this paragraph are well within the abilities of those skilled in the art, provided the teachings of the present inventory.
The detailed description above should be read with reference to the drawings, in which like elements in different drawings are numbered identically. The drawings, which are not necessarily to scale, depict selected embodiments and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. Several forms of invention have been shown and described, and other forms will now be apparent to those skilled in art. It will be understood that embodiments shown in drawings and described above are merely for illustrative purposes, and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention as defined in the claims that follow.
