Qantas catering king Neil Perry shares his secret to tasty and appealing airline meals

The secret to delicious airline food is as much about the aircraft as the preparation process, says longtime Qantas flight catering manager Neil Perry.

Changes in air quality aboard modern airliners such as Boeing 787s have not only reduced the effects of jet lag, they have made in-flight food taste better, according to long-time Qantas catering co-ordinator Neil Perry.

Speaking at a lunch to unveil a new menu for the airline’s upcoming Perth-Paris flights, Mr Perry said fresh air brought into the cabin and higher levels of humidity not only helped alleviate dry eyes and noses among passengers. “On older aircraft, like the 767s, you’d put out a bead roll and in a few minutes it would feel like toast, the humidity was so low,” said Mr Perry.

“Now the cabin atmosphere is much more like what we experience on the ground.”

He said there was no secret ingredient when it came to adjusting recipes for high altitudes, other than to “season well”.

The secret to serving perfectly cooked seafood in flight, is pretty simple according to Neil Perry.

“The reality is if it tastes good on the ground it tastes good in the air,” Mr Perry said.

“I think a lot of airlines get caught up in that rubbish (about altitudes affecting the tastebuds) and don’t get the design right on the ground.”

However, there were several rules Mr Perry followed when developing new dishes to be served in first and business class, where passengers expected restaurant-quality food.

The first was searing the outside of pieces of meat or fish to kill the bacteria, before quickly reducing the temperature to 4 degrees in preparation for loading onto flights.

“That means when it goes into the oven (in flight) we’re actually finishing cooking – we’re not reheating – and that stops it from drying out,” Mr Perry said.

“A lot of airlines still cook things on the ground and then just reheat them, which is fine for braises and curries and tagines, all of which get better by sitting and developing flavours.”

Crème caramel has been added to Qantas’ in-flight menu for business class on Perth-Paris flights.

Dishes must also be designed to be assembled on board in a maximum of three steps, and there was a 5cm height restriction because of the way the meals were stored, he said.

“The crew are amazing, I take my hat off to them. They’re working in a space no more than 5 foot long and about a foot wide, serving 64 people at once,” said Mr Perry.

“The pressure is on so what we’ve got to do is try to minimise the steps for them, and colour code the various components so they know when to load them, what temperatures they should be at and so on. We want to make it as simple as we can, the plating scenario, and it’s a miracle they do what they do.”

For his French-themed menu, Mr Perry said it would have been great to do a crepes suzette, but “we can’t put flames in the galley”.

Carving knives were also banned as a result of the devastating 9-11 terror attacks in the US.

Mr Perry said when his collaboration with Qantas began in 1997, they had a “beautiful long carving knife” for dishes such as rack of lamb and baked ham.

“After 9-11 we flew for two and a half years with plastic cutlery. The US went back to (metal) cutlery faster than we did, because we’re so risk-averse in Australia,” he added. Among the meals to be offered at the pointy end of Qantas’s 17 hour Perth-Paris flights taking off from July 12, are creme caramel, coq au vin, a tuna nicoise salad and seafood bouillabaisse.

Mr Perry said it took a long time to design the ideal menu.

“We spent a lot of time developing a menu that captures the balance of richness and freshness in French flavours,” he said.

Originally published as Qantas catering king Neil Perry shares his secret to tasty and appealing airline meals