Conversions and Yields in Culinary Arts

Conversion of Portions

1. What is the conversion needed to convert from the following amounts to the target portions?

a. From 25 portions to 20 portions?

b. From 45 portions to 65 portions?

c. From 50 portions to 350 portions?

d. From 350 portions to 30 portions?

2. In a container of frozen RTS Cream of Celery Soup product, the manufacturer guarantees that the soup contains 1/5 real celery. If the frozen soup yields 2.45 L of soup, what is the volume of celery that you would expect went into making this product?

3. For this same product, if the celery used in making the soup had a yield in the food factory of 78.8%, how much volume of celery would they have had to start with to get 35 containers of soup? 

4. You are coaching a client to make healthy smoothies for breakfast three times each week. Each smoothie requires about 125 grams of Kale. When your client makes them, they are planning to prepare a smoothie for themselves and their roommate. Kale lasts over one week in the fridge, so you only have to buy it once a week. If Kale has a 90% yield factor, how much Kale would you need to tell your client to buy each week?

5. In looking at the Pork carcass question in class slides, if the average pork carcass weighs 183.3 lbs, answer the following:

a. How many Kg of Butt/Picnic Roasts would you expect to get from this pork carcass?

b. If you were able to get 21 Kg of Loin (to make chops or roasts), what would be the % yield of Loins from this Pork carcass?

c. You get 17.5% of Blade bone/Spare Ribs, what weight in Kilograms are you getting from this carcass?

6. When making a large batch of Quinoa Casserole, you process (clean and trim) all your vegetables. The weight of your recipe after cooking is 3.12 Kg but you started with over 8 Lbs of ingredients. 

a. What is the Yield % of your recipe, in other words, what were your losses (in weight) from processing your vegetables? 

b. If the Quinoa in the final recipe weighs 500 grams, what is the percentage of weight that the quinoa comprised in the total recipe?

c. Before it became popular, Quinoa cost $ 5.55 per Lbs, now it costs $ 8.00 per Kg, what is the percentage increase or decrease of the price of quinoa?

7. You can purchase frozen corn niblets for $ 3.00/bag (2 lbs in a bag) or you can buy corn-on-the-cob and cut your own niblets from it. If niblets yield 150 grams from one cob and you can only buy whole cobs of corn; what is the better buy if each whole cob-of-corn costs you $ 0.75? 

8. You can purchase Pulled Pork for $ 8.50/Kg RTS or you can make it yourself. If you make it yourself, the Pork Shoulder costs $ 2.99/Kg raw. If you trim off 10.5% of fat, lose 12.8% in cooking and the bone in the shoulder accounts for (weighs) 18.4%; what is the better buy (ignoring labour costs and other factors) buying it ready-to-serve or making it yourself? 

9. When steaming rice, you need 1 part of water to every ½ part of rice. What is:

a. The proportion of water to rice?

b. The ratio of rice to water?

10. When making instant mashed potatoes, you need 130 grams of instant mashed potato powder to every 450 grams (or ml) of water (or milk). What is:

a. The ratio of water to instant mashed potatoes (round a bit if it helps make the number easier)?

b. What is the proportion of instant mashed potatoes to water?