Madness In The Kitchen

[dcarch]

Has this ever happened to you?

The past two weeks, many friends and relatives all decided to come visit. The fact that you are known to have the ability to whip up a few nice dishes in the kitchen and the Holidays, gave everyone the right to expect a special meal. No one offered “Can I bring a dish?”.

Because of the weather and schedule changes, plane cancellations, it was impossible to plan any specific meal time.

I had been cooking crazy everyday. Many meals for many days for many visiting friends and families most arriving at unpredictable hours.

It was like juggling with many different objects, blindfolded.

While it was hectic to get all the dishes perfectly done and timely served, it was surprisingly manageable with some proper planning and the heavy use of sous vide cooking equipment and a PID temperature controlled smoker. For instance, almost all the meats were cooked and readied many days in advance. I even got to sit and mingle with everyone and was not stuck in the kitchen most of the time.

The only thing was not having the time to take some decent pictures.

Has this ever happened to you? How would you handle the situation?

dcarch

Rotisserie smoked/chicken

Beef short ribs

Prime rib with mashed chestnuts

Roasted whole leg of lamb

Roasted prime ribs

Ox tail with couscous

Stewed ox tail

Cod filet with black garlic Meyer lemon sauce

Roasted pork ribs

Curry shrimps

Black eyed peas, ham pate in bacon ring, on puffed pastry

[weinoo]

Yeah until I stopped answering the phone !

[rotuts]

well ... If I brought a dish, no one would touch it.

Its like that ...

[Dejah]

Now, these are just hilarious, dcarch, not because YOU think the pictures are "not decent" but because I thought they were good! They are not your usual well laid-out art pieces, but you still did "presentation" that would be considered "wow" by many, including me.

[Plantes Vertes]

I admire your results under pressure, Dcarch!

Recently we gave a big party with guests arriving at all different times. We had to think carefully about what to cook so we could keep food coming without having to cook during the evening. We decided to:

Make cooked food that could be frozen after so that we could make a lot without worrying about waste

Have a number of dishes that could be renewed during the party without a lot of effort, like rice and crudites

Base the menu on dishes that would stand up to being served at different temperatures so timing would be less important

Do a menu of dishes that could be served in various orders so it wouldn't matter if people started eating at different times or went back for more later

Totally empty the fridge, freezer and all the cupboards to make space for party food in case of unexpected guests

[Darienne]

I hope that your friends brought lovely gifts for you or that you are independently wealthy, because feeding all those people all that food must have cost a goodly sum...besides all the work involved. Or did they clean up and do the dishes? Wonderful photos. Delicious entrees. Would that we lived near and were friends. I would have brought desserts.

[glennbech]

Nice pictures, and a lot of good food!

I made a four course dinner for 6 people new years eve. This is the first time I took the time to make a menu, shopping list and schedule in advance. I spent 4-5 hours in the kitchen the night before, prepping, according to my pre-thought out schedule. The goal was - of course, to do as much as possible in advance.

I think the main advantage comes from separating the task of thinking from the task of doing. This is of course, a very obvious principle. I sat down and made a plan of what to be done, in what order, and when. This made a huge difference for me this year.

As you, I was able to sit down, mingle and actually talk with the guests. For once

Edited January 4, 2014 by glennbech (log)

[dcarch]

Thanks everyone.

Many days before dinners, all the protein were precooked sous vide at different temperatures and refrigerated in their respective bags. Then before meal time, all bags were water bath reheated at around 130 F. About 1/2 hour before meal time, they went into the oven at 550 F and served.

Many starch, rice, stuffing, etc were also made ahead. Bread was done at meal time by bread machine.

One thing worked well: All meats were done medium rare. I had a couple of butane camping stoves with cast iron pans on the dinning table. Those guests who wanted their meats well done could sear them themselves.

Do keep one thing in mind when you are in the same situation, do not tell anyone you sous vided. You will be spending hours explaining.

Yes it was not cheap what I spent on ingredients, but I had been on the look out for sales. For instance, prime ribs were $4.99 a lb. Chicken $0.96 a lb. Leg of lamb $2.99 a lb. Pork ribs $1.95 a lb, ducks $1.95 a lb, etc.

dcarch

[gfweb]

Well done!

[thatchairlady]

I wanna come to YOUR house! I'll do ALL the prep and cleanup!! And will bring whatever you want!

[lesliec]

If those are your 'indecent' photos ...

Right, I'm coming to your place too. But I won't tell you when; that would make it too easy.

[djyee100]

Right, I'm coming to your place too. But I won't tell you when; that would make it too easy.

Ditto. But I will bring some good wine and offer to do the cleanup.

I've never had friends and relatives drop on me in quite that fashion, and expect good meals at odd hours. They know I'm more likely to scrounge in the freezer and defrost some hot dogs for them. A lot depends on the kind of messages you put out to people, you know... When you've had time to recover from the crush, you'll probably feel better about all these visits, hectic as the situation was.

My last invitation to my brother, who lives on the East Coast, went like this:

Me: We haven't seen each other in a while. Would you like to come visit here?

He: Is it Dungeness crab season yet?

I guess my family is different from yours.

[heidih]

So you knew they were coming and had the shopping and prep and planning time but it was just the unexpected timing of the meals? Useful info on the practicality of incorporating SV into one's comfortable routine. Was the SV used also then in the re-heating process or how did that work?

[weinoo]

Many days before dinners, all the protein were precooked sous vide at different temperatures and refrigerated in their respective bags. Then before meal time, all bags were water bath reheated at around 130 F. About 1/2 hour before meal time, they went into the oven at 550 F and served.

[dcarch]

Thank you everyone. If you bring wine, you all are invited next time. :-)

Actually not much clean up afterwards. Lot's of paper plates were used. There is a Party Goods store with very nice designs.

You also will notice the plate the fish is on. The plate was made from pressed palm leaves. Very sturdy and disposable.

So you knew they were coming and had the shopping and prep and planning time but it was just the unexpected timing of the meals? Useful info on the practicality of incorporating SV into one's comfortable routine. Was the SV used also then in the re-heating process or how did that work?

Yes, SV was basically reheating for the final prep. SV meats days in advance has to be done carefully.

I went thru very extensive sanitary routines. Everything was sanitized including the bags, which were steamed before using. The meats were dumped in boiling water for a few seconds before bagging. I also have a 55 watt germicidal UV light which I turned on in the kitchen for a few minutes to sanitize all surfaces, cutting boards, utensils, etc.

Seasoning for the meats has to be very light. You don't want the meats become cured ham.

dcarch

[lindag]

All I can say is that I think you're a genius!

[SylviaLovegren]

Wow. My response to such a situation is to have on hand crackers, breads, cold cuts, cheeses, a pot of soup or beans and/or a big ol' stew, maybe a ham. A heck of a lot less work than yours but nowhere near the variety or sophistication.

[Darienne]

The traditional ploughman's lunch can work very nicely and serve folks with different tastes and dietary restrictions, which old guys, like us, often have. (Skip the ham for me...I have an aversion to ham. ) Add salady items.

And I usually have a freezer with meals frozen in it which defrost well and can be served over some grain like rice or quinoa. And ice cream in the dog freezer.

[annabelle]

dcarch, you realize that you just kissed all future dinner invites good-bye, yes?

Friends will look at each other and say "Good lord, Bill! We can never come close to that. We may as well just order in a pizza."

Of course, you can counter this spread-o-rama that you did (and it was fantastic, make no mistake) by serving potato chips in a bag and dip in the plastic container from the deli if anyone drops in.

[Plantes Vertes]

The most reliable remedy for kitchen madness is ample alcohol. Soak cook and guests in wine for several hours.

[dcarch]

Madness?

While everything was going on trying to put food on the table, I opened the refrigerator door too quickly, one doz eggs from the egg compartment all fell on the floor! !!! xxx***&1?###@*!!!!

dcarch

[ChrisTaylor]

Yeah. I've done that. A few times. You made the right choice going with paper plates and such. I figured that one out a while ago. Because sure as shit you'll get left with basically all of the dishes to deal with the next morning. For more recent efforts I've gone with things easily prepared for a large number of people: things like pulled pork shoulder, smoked turkey, slow roasted lamb shoulder and sous vide pork belly. Boneless or nearly boneless meats--i.e. the kind where you can run a knife down here, just like so, and pull away the bones are good. Easier to serve. Easier to handball the serving to someone else while you're busy with other tasks. You're right: sous vide is a wonder. Slow-roasted and smoked foods, which can be held for a little while in a warm oven if need be, are good, too. A big tray of mixed roasted vegetables is easy. A lot of salads can be prepared either in advance and then dressed at the last minute or assembled very quickly within a couple of minutes, particularly if you can recruit an assistant that knows which end of a pan goes on a stove. The platter of cheeses and cured pork goods is a good idea, too. Surely someone can be recruited to, you know, unwrap slices of this and slices of that and arrange them in some vaguely artistic fashion on a wooden board. Of course, I've had mixed success with these. I find people stop eating the stuff once 'real food' appears. There's also something to be said for food that can be assembled by diners.

Essentially, I aim, to get last minute tasks for dishes, down to no more than 5-10 minutes. Bonus points if the last minute task involves a brief swim in a water bath (if you only have one water bath and a few things to reheat, a pot of water on a low setting with an induction stove will do the trick) and a quick session in a frypan. True 'madness in the kitchen' is assembling everything, from scratch, on the day itself with a view to it all being ready pretty much by the time people will be sitting down, ready to eat. Done that a couple of times and, you know what? Forget it. It's rubbish. By the time you have finished and everyone is eating, it's not like you'll have the energy reserves to deal with people.

EDIT

That's when you really just love getting a request to, oh, make someone's friend a cocktail about now. Right when you've served all that food and dropped the eggs.

Edited January 5, 2014 by ChrisTaylor (log)

[rotuts]

eggs in the egg compartment ?

I keep mine in the box-ish they came in on a shelf. a bit low down to keep cool.

just saying.

[kayb]

dcarch, I'll add my admiration to the rest. Particularly intrigued with the ham and black eyed pea pate. Details? They're neat-looking little things.

Question on sous viding and holding meat. How long does it take a good-sized piece of meat -- say 4-6 pounds -- to come back up to temp in the water bath?

[scubadoo97]

Beautiful meals as usual Dcarch. Some how I'm picturing these beautiful plates on paper plates. Just can't do it