• Joint development of new recipes for Dialog oven

• Germany represented by Tohru Nakamura

The cooking expertise of 12 international chefs and Miele's Dialog oven – these are the ingredients of the 'The Chef's Dialog', a star-spangled cooking event staged in Gütersloh for the first time. Thanks to the ingenuity of the chefs, new recipes were created uniquely for preparation in the innovative cooking appliance.

The Dialog oven, launched by Miele in the summer of 2018, has raised eyebrows throughout the world. Electromagnetic waves combine in this appliance with conventional cooking methods, resulting in top-class results in the shortest of times. The seemingly impossible becomes reality, for instance when a variety of ingredients for a complete meal are placed on a tray together and are cooked to perfection at precisely the same time. All this makes the Dialog oven an interesting proposition for professional chefs.

All the experts gathered in Gütersloh have been using the Dialog oven for some time already and are now presenting their own recipes. Take for example the Belgian Roger van Damme with his Japanese Matcha Cake in a raffia basket: No problem as the electromagnetic waves penetrate the basket to bake the dough inside. For his vegetarian dish, Nenad Mlinarevic from Switzerland cooked an entire raw cabbage in the Dialog oven for 40 minutes. The result: A slight loss in mass, but uniformly cooked and ideal for further processing.

The next part was dedicated to a creative exchange among the chefs, with working groups rolling up their sleeves and getting down to work. Geir Magnus Svae (Norway) briefly seared a lamb roast on the hob. The meat, together with brown butter, was placed on a bed of hay and cooked for 20 minutes in the Dialog oven. The fragrance alone was unforgettable! Andreas Döllerer from Austria prepared fruit of the sea in his group. Sea bass and great scallops doused in parsley oil in a casserole dish was placed in the Dialog oven. The challenge here was to cook the fish without overheating the temperature-sensitive oil. This is only possible in Miele's innovative appliance. Döllerer put paid once and for all to the preconception that successful chefs jealously guard their creations and are loathe to share their expertise: 'That may have been the case a generation ago. This, though, is a real creative exchange'.  

'For us, today was an amazing culinary experience', was the conclusion reached by Dr. Axel Kniehl, Miele Executive Director for Marketing and Sales and initiator of The Chef's Dialog. Kniehl announced that the series will be continued and that further events are already planned worldwide. In the first Chef´s Dialog no less than 11 Michelin stars and 106 Gault Millau points were involved in terms of awards. The chefs came from Switzerland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Austria, Great Britain, Italy, Jordan and Germany.  

Germany's delegate in Gütersloh was Tohru Nakamura. The 35 year old Nakamura has two Michelin stars to his name; the Gault Millau rates his Munich restaurant Werneckhof by Geisel with 18 points. Tohru Nakamura grew up in Munich as the son of a German mother and a Japanese father. After an apprenticeship as chef de cuisine, he further honed his skills in top-class restaurants before taking over the Werneckhof. Nakamura has developed his own style which is influenced by French, German and Japanese cuisine. His recipe for the Dialog oven was abalone with a miso vinaigrette. Abalone, or ear shells, normally require prolonged cooking; in a Dialog oven they take only 15 minutes. 'The Dialog oven offers top-class chefs many opportunities, many of which have still to be discovered. The potential is huge but demands a new mindset', claims Tohru Nakamura.

One recipe for the Dialog oven was developed by Wahabi Nouri, but his visit to Gütersloh had unfortunately to be cancelled at short notice. Nouri has Moroccan roots but grew up in Germany and has successfully represented the country twice at the Bocuse d´Or, one of the leading competitions for aspiring chefs de cuisine. The 49 year old has been running his own Piment restaurant in Hamburg (1 Michelin star, 17 Gault Millau points) for the past 18 years. Nouri's speciality is French cuisine enhanced with Moroccan spices. Nouri identifies one of the fortes of the Dialog oven as the very short cooking times which 'help with time management and support a structured approach to work'. Nouri's recipe for the first The Chef's Dialog: Gently cooked salmon with tonic oysters and sorrel pesto.
 

The M Chef technology of the Dialog oven

With the launch of the Dialog oven in 2018, Miele revolutionised cooking as this appliance combines innovation with excellent results, simplicity of preparation and massive time savings.

To achieve this, the Dialog oven uses M Chef technology in which electromagnetic waves respond to the texture of food. Whereas conventional heat slowly penetrates food from the outside to the core, the Dialog oven cooks food uniformly throughout its entire mass. This results in meat that is evenly cooked and juicy, in fish retaining its fine structure and bread with a perfect crust. The Dialog oven also makes the seemingly impossible possible: Various fresh ingredients which go to make up a complete menu come together on the oven tray and are all done to perfection at exactly the same time – and up to 70% faster than using conventional cooking methods.

Electromagnetic waves are transmitted by two aerials. During the cooking process, the Dialog oven constantly adjusts frequencies and receives permanent feedback on how much energy the food has already absorbed. Hence, in the truest sense of the word, the appliance maintains a dialog with the food it is cooking.

The Dialog oven has features familiar from high-end Miele ovens, including the pyrolitic self-cleaning function. The Dialog oven's connectivity promises inspiration and enhances the pleasure of cooking. The recipe feature, which is part of the Miele@mobile app, is the ideal platform for experimenting and trying out new ideas. The user can select from numerous automatic programmes which were specifically developed for the Dialog oven. Alongside food preparation videos and shopping lists, the app also allows the food-preparation parameters of automatic programmes to be transferred directly to the machine, eliminating the risk of human error.

For further information, point your browser at revolutionaryexcellence.miele.com/dialoggarer.
 

Company profile: Miele is the world's leading manufacturer of premium domestic appliances including cooking, baking and steam-cooking appliances, refrigeration products, coffee makers, dishwashers and laundry and floor care products. This line-up is augmented by dishwashers, washer-extractors and tumble dryers for commercial use as well as washer-disinfectors and sterilisers for use in medical and laboratory applications (Professional Business Unit). The Miele company, founded in 1899, has eight production plants in Germany as well as one plant each in Austria, the Czech Republic, China and Romania. These are joined by the two plants belonging to Miele's Italian medical technology subsidiary Steelco. 2017/18 turnover amounted to approx. EUR 4.1 bn, with sales outside Germany accounting for 70%. Miele is represented with its own sales subsidiaries and via importers in almost 100 countries. Throughout the world, the family-run enterprise, now in its fourth generation, employs a workforce of around 20,100, whereof 11,200 are employed in Germany. The company headquarters are located in Gütersloh/Westphalia, Germany.