The Complete Handbook of Food Service Baskets

Chapter 1: Understanding Food Service Baskets

A food service basket is any wire, mesh, or perforated container used in the handling of food, but that simple definition undersells the specific nature of the tools this book covers. We are not talking about the flimsy wire shelving in a home refrigerator. We are talking about hard-working, engineered implements designed for specific thermal or physical duties in a professional or semi-professional environment. These are the baskets in the deep fryer that hold a heavily loaded batch of chicken wings, the steamable inserts that hold vegetables over a brasserie's heat well, the fine mesh cones that strain a delicate consommé, or the heavy-duty wire frames that hold a block of cheese over a melting tunnel. In every commercial kitchen, a basket is a tool for moving food into an environment, holding it there for a precise amount of time, and extracting it safely, and its design dictates quality and safety.

The primary and most common category of food service basket is the fryer basket. These are used in open deep-fat fryers and are principally designed to transfer heat efficiently and rapidly while protecting the food. Most fryer baskets are manufactured from carbon steel wire, which is then either zinc-galvanized or chrome-plated. The wire diameter is a critical specification; a typical commercial basket uses a frame of 5mm or 6mm wire for the rim and a lighter 2mm to 3mm wire for the mesh or grid. The reasoning is purely thermodynamic and