Tips for equal servings

[Shalmanese]

I've always been challenged with certain dishes to split them evenly and effectively among many plates for serving.

Say you have a big pot which has some long noodles, a creamy sauce, small cubed chunks of chicken, peas & matchstick cut carrots. You want to split this evenly between 6 plates. Every time I've done it, someone gets the bulk of the chicken or a large pool of sauce or some other form of unevenness.

Or say you dress a salad of lettuce, grape tomato & sliced cucumbers in a large bowl and now want to split it into 4 smaller plates.

Does anyone have any tips with how they deal with this kind of situation so that there's some semblance of evenness?

[David A. Goldfarb]

Toss aggressively and serve when it looks even.

If you've got the space for it, you can also make up all the plates at once, so you can even them out before serving, if some of the ingredients have settled to the bottom of the serving vessel, rather than serving each plate as it is made up.

[heidih]

This may be a bit simplistic, but I take the base item (like the noodles or the lettuce), portion that on the plates, and then using a serving spoon or tongs with bigger paddles, I try to portion out the special bits onto the base item. Then if it is a saucy or juicy item I tilt the dish, take the serving spoon and give each plate a nice spoonful.

[Tri2Cook]

Exact sameness can be difficult with a dish like your noodle example but "some semblance of evenness" shouldn't be that hard. Toss it all together, divide it among the plates take a quick look for any obvious imbalance, redistribute a few things as needed and call it close enough. I don't think anybody at the table is going to know they got 2 less chunks of chicken or 3 more peas than someone else. And yes I do understand that even if they don't notice, you will. I'm the same way... but I've slowly accepted that in some cases it's ok to relax and call it close enough (as long as it's not a quality or taste issue of course). With casseroles and stews and things like that, if they look the same then they are the same. Nobody will count.

[rooftop1000]

Get a nice box of latex gloves and portion with your hands, no shooting cherry tomatoes across the counter

tracey

[Chris Amirault]

I do it like Heidi instead of tossing it violently. The lighter stuff is on top -- noodles, say -- so plate them evenly first, then add the stuff that's heavier on top evenly.

[Canned Tuna]

You can divide the food while it's still in the cooking vessel (like a pizza), then plate each portion seperately.