SC - Kitchen Steward Panics, film at 11:00

[Heitman]

CorwynWdwd at aol.com wrote:

> First. I keep getting told I'm underestimating the roast beef. I figured
> about a pound and a quarter for a table of eight, REMEMBER, there's other
> meat dishes.
> 
> 1. What, in the lists estimation, is adequate to keep a riot from happening
> and yet allowing us to keep the leftovers to a minimum?

As Ingus Moen suggested, I'd think more in terms of about a half pound
per person. Yes, there are other meats, but yes, there may or may not be
waste, depending on the cut of beef. Also, and to my mind just as
important, is the question of..."There's been some shrinkage!!!" Other
important considerations are the perception of slice size versus number
of slices: are you roasting big primary cuts, like whole top rounds (or
whatever) and then subdividing them, which also limits the dread
shrinkage, or do you have 1.25 lb chunks of beef x number of tables?
This can be a completely perceived issue. For example, a couple of years
ago I did a feast which involved, oh, I don't even remember, maybe six
or eight meat dishes. Normally I'll have three or four. In this case I
was trying to do something more along the lines of a tasting menu, with
little two-ounce servings of a lot of dishes. One of the things I wound
up doing was cooking boneless pork loins cut in quarters, so each table
ended up getting around 1 3/4 - 2 lbs of meat, before cooking. If you
simply cut the meat into four segments along its length, you get little
square hunks that look painfully inadequate for the job of serving
eight, no matter how many people you're serving, whereas I found that if
you split them the long way, then across the waistline, if you know what
I mean, you get what still registers to the mind's eye as a full-sized
roast for eight, with pretty little medallion-sized slices, that cooked
quickly and looked good on the platter surrounded by, as I recall, Sauce
a la Barbue Robert.

Also, I note that the beef is served in the first course. Again, this
can be a perception problem. While pies are wonderful things to have in
the first course, they can still come across, somehow, and accurately or
not, as not quite a meat dish. You might consider the chickens with the
pies for the first course, and the beef and meat strawberries in the
second (are the strawberries made of beef?).  My experience has been
that when R.B. is in the first course, there will be those who will do
their level best to fill themselves up on it, out of either an inability
to pace themselves confidently (most Americans still have no real
concept of a multi-course meal) or a deep concern/suspicion that
whatever follows it will be either inedible or simply non-existent. This
has nothing to do with your previous performance as a cook, and isn't a
comment on you. It's just how it is, often. Now, when there isn't enough
beef to satisfy this animal urge, no matter how misplaced, the claim
will be made that there wasn't enough beef. Of course if there was
"enough beef", you're quite likely to have mounds of leftovers. Period
English cooks called this "6e Catche XXII"     

> 2. I have the estimated time to cook each meat pretty much down. For one of
> each. Is there a handy-dandy way of estimating how much more time I need for
> mass quantities? A simple mathematical extension of the time wouldn't be
> right would it? After all, their still individual portions, even if they are
> several pounds combined. I've done this. I should know this.

Hmmm. Assuming you have the same size pieces as you're serving them in,
you _should, in theory_ be able to do the usual X minutes per pound
thing, provided you have adequate space between roasts in pans, etc.
You'll need for it to be this way, anyway, to get roasts that are
actually brown. In actual practice, though, I'd allow about an extra
hour overall. Large hunks of meat are still quite cold in the middle,
and when several of them go into a hot oven, the hot air of the oven
just seems to sit there for as much as a half hour or so before having
much of an effect. On the other hand, if you end up taking your meat out
of the oven an hour before service, again, large chunks won't have too
much of a problem staying pretty hot. After all, they continue to cook
after they come out of the oven anyway. BTW, you probably want around
130 degrees F. internal temperature for a decent-SCA-sized hunk of beef
to continue to cook up to 150, medium rare...now for those who like
plywood, you adjust accordingly.
 
Adamantius, who is now realizing for the umpteenth time that a lot of
cookery is hard to put into words
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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