Method of Cooking a Food Item

Abstract

A cooking apparatus has a user interface for selecting a cooking preference, a measurement sensor for measuring a distance between a pair of plates when a food item lies between the pair of plates, a weight sensor for measuring weight of the food item, and a control system for receiving at least one signal from the measurement and weight sensors to determine a cooking profile for cooking the food item to the cooking preference and to calculate a total amount of energy required to cook the food item according to the cooking profile and an amount of energy to be transferred per unit time to the food item, and to control power supply to the heating element based on the calculated amount of energy transferred per unit time to the food item.

1 . A method of cooking a food item using an apparatus comprising a pair of plates in between which a food item is to be cooked and at least one of the plates having a heating element for cooking a food item including the steps of:
 selecting a cooking preference;   measuring a distance between the pair of plates when the food item lies there between to determine a thickness of the food item;   measuring a weight of the food item;   determining a cooking profile for cooking the food item according to the cooking preference based on at least one of the thickness of the food item and the weight of the food item;   calculating a total amount of energy required to cook the food item according to the cooking profile based on the weight of the food item;   calculating an amount of energy transferred per unit time to the food item based on the thickness of the food item; and   controlling power supply to the heating element based on the amount of energy transferred per unit time to the food item to cook the food item.   
     
     
         2 . The method for cooking a food item according to  claim 1  including comparing the amount of energy transferred to the food item to the total amount of energy required to cook the food item during the cooking process.