SC - OOP - Resturant Talk

[Christi Rigby]

Angie Malone wrote:
> 
> Greetings.
> 
>   I am in need of saffron for a feast and I am planning to order it online
> in bulk.
> 
> Does anyone know what is a 'reasonable price' and how far does 2 g  go?  I
> saw one place that has 2 g for $5.95 or 4 g. for $7.95.
> 
>         Angeline

The last time I bought saffron specifically for a feast was an EK 12th
Night which fed over 400. I bought an ounce and used less than half of
it, and that was in a fair number of dishes, three or four, as I recall.
It can be pretty hard to calculate since recipes for small amounts of
food tend to ask for fractions of a teaspoon or threads.

I think your best bet might be to check food service [bulk] recipes that
might contain saffron in a comparable usage. For example, I have a
recipe for ten 5-ounce servings of risotto Milanese which calls for 1/6
to 1/3 g saffron, soaked in a cup of stock, added near the end of the
cooking process. Presumably 50 servings would call for 5/6 of a gram, etc.

Someone will undoubtedly tell us at this point that multiplying by the
same factor the servings are multiplied by doesn't work with spices. My
own experience has been that if done properly, it does, but this is not
something I wish to argue now, so if somebody has a better idea, or
specific experience with multiplying saffron, now's the time to tell us
about it.

First off, it would probably be a good idea to state what dishes you are
using it for, if it is a flavoring, a coloring, or both, if it is a
surface colorant, as with endoring, etc. How many are you serving?

With regard to price, $2-3 per gram isn't bad. You don't want to pay
much more than $4 under any circumstances. When I buy it by the ounce I
pay about $1 per gram, but that's a lot of saffron. 

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com