# Electrolux panini grill



## Martindale (Aug 9, 2018)

Panini sandwiches are a good seller but the main downside is the time it takes to prepare and toast the sandwich until everything is hot and toasty. Customers don't understand that they might wait 10 minutes in busy times for their order. I saw they had panini sandwiches at the fast food Tim Horton's here in Canada. I wondered how they would get these out in a reasonable time. I ordered one and it was pretty terrible. I thought it must have been prepared ahead of time and then microwaved. SO I Googled the problem and saw on YouTube this wonderful Electrolux panini grill that does the whole thing in about a minute. WOW....but it nukes the whole thing to get it hot inside and to me nuking a sandwich cannot be a good thing. So before I invest a couple grand in such a machine is there anyone with experience with this grill. Also any other ideas to speed up the process are welcome. We do have a TurboChef and could heat the open sandwich first before putting it on the panini grill but it still takes a long time to brown with the crispy stripes. Help!!


----------



## chefbillyb (Feb 8, 2009)

In my business we did a lot of grilled sandwiches that needed to be done real fast. This is an employee cafe that people only had 20 to 30 minutes to eat. The grilled sandwiches were fast because we could toast both slices of bread at the sometime on the open grill. 
The high volume places I have had Panini sandwiches from NYC to Italy were always pre made then brushed with butter and placed in the panini press. If there is any sauce that goes on the sandwich it's put on before it goes in the press. The last place I had one was at Sophies Cuba in NYC for a Cuba Sandwich. This place gets real busy and pushes out the sandwiches quick. The Cuban Sand has Ham, Cheese, pork, pickles and plantains. I don't think pre making these sandwiches really took away anything. The quality of the meats and cheese were good. Everything gets heated in the panini press while the bread gets a crispy crust.

I agree with you that the perfect panini with the grill marks looks great in a perfect world when people will wait. If it's during lunch you have no choice but to find the fastest way possible to get them their sandwich ASAP. If one of my customers tells me it takes to long, it's my job to figure out how to do get it faster. I had to do this with every item I had on my menu. It doesn't matter how good the panini is if they don't have the time to wait. If it were me I would pre make the sandwiches during the busy time for quicker service. I've seen operations like yours with a large panini sandwich menu. I had to wait in line to order, order my sandwich only to have it wait for another sandwich to come out of the panini press. This is a long process and something you should be concerned about.

I stopped at a sandwich shop in San Diego last month. They offered hot and cold Deli style sandwiches. I asked for a hot roast beef and Swiss. The bread came out toasted from a toaster. Not the kind of sandwich I would have thought it would be.....Good Luck..........ChefBillyB

P.S. Many years ago one of my Chefs asked me for a Panini press for a new Deli lunch menu I started. We had a full kitchen with a large grill. I went outside and found a brick. I brought it to him, told him to wrap it in foil for his new panini press. At the time it saved three thousand dollars.....


----------



## Pat Pat (Sep 26, 2017)

We used a reverse grill method at the restaurant I worked at.

We pre-grilled our breads before service and finished the sandwiches in the oven.

No one can tell the difference.


----------



## Martindale (Aug 9, 2018)

I went down to the restaurant today and tried to figure out what we were doing wrong. Yup...I found exactly the problem. Our staff was not using the grill on high because it tended to burn the panini by the time it was hot throughout. SO...I sent out a group text to the staff stating. Leave the grill on maximum....put the panini in the 550 degree TurboChef for 60 seconds then onto the grill. The grill on maximum takes only two minutes to brown with the nice stripes and the interior is hot with the cheese melted.


----------



## Martindale (Aug 9, 2018)

I went down to the restaurant today and tried to figure out what we were doing wrong. Yup...I found exactly the problem. Our staff was not using the grill on high because it tended to burn the panini by the time it was hot throughout. SO...I sent out a group text to the staff stating. Leave the grill on maximum....put the panini in the 550 degree TurboChef for 60 seconds then onto the grill. The grill on maximum takes only two minutes to brown with the nice stripes and the interior is hot with the cheese melted.


----------



## Martindale (Aug 9, 2018)

I went down to the restaurant today and tried to figure out what we were doing wrong. Yup...I found exactly the problem. Our staff was not using the grill on high because it tended to burn the panini by the time it was hot throughout. SO...I sent out a group text to the staff stating. Leave the grill on maximum....put the panini in the 550 degree TurboChef for 60 seconds then onto the grill. The grill on maximum takes only two minutes to brown with the nice stripes and the interior is hot with the cheese melted.


----------

