Hello,
I am working on a food safety plan for stuffed baked potatoes and I am not sure how to handle to cooking process.
Process: Potato washing - Baking (60Min 200C) - flattening/pressing (to get a flat side of the shell for easier filling) - cooling - cutting & scooping - deep frying (5min 175C) - freezing - filling with stuffing - freezing (customer heats product up before eating).
The potatoes can be contaminated from the soil and wash water before baking, so baking as the first heat treatment would be the step to reduce the pathogens. Baking would be the critical control step with the critical limits time and temperature.
However if the potatoes are not baked enough we can't flatten them enough so we would automatically put them back in the oven (which hardly ever happens). we always bake them for 60min at 200C, but would we have to record baking temperature/ time for each batch?
OR can deep frying be the CCP as the last heat treatment in our process? and if deep-frying is the CCP, would we have to record frying time and oil temperature?
OR are both heat treatments (baking, deep-frying) not critical control steps, the process is controlled by written recipes, employee training and the final heating by the consumers?
I can't find many resources about the heat treatment of potatoes.
Any inputs are very much appreciated.
Thank you