[Sca-cooks] More from the newby

[Decker, Terry D.]

As long as everyone gets stuffed and your feast breaks even, don't worry
about leftovers.  You can throw them away, donate them to the nearest
foodbank, or cycle them to the tavern.  Leftovers are wastage and should
have been planned for in the budget.

To reduce leftovers you need to consider the recipe, the finished dish, and
the size of the portion.  For planning, I tend to use 12 dishes, each with 4
oz. portion for a total of 3 pounds of food per person.  I estimate the
weight of the finished dish and determine the number of portions the
finished dish will provide, then use that to determine the quantities of
ingredients required.  I would also recommend getting hold of a copy of Food
For Fifty to look at systematic recipe expansion.

The two places that most people have difficulty with expanding recipes are
spices and dried ingredients such as grain and legumes.  Spicing does not
usually follow a linear expansion and should be done "to taste."

Grain easily triples in volume and weight during cooking.  One cup of dried
rice will produce three cups of cooked rice with a finished weight between 1
1/2 and 2 pounds.  For my feasts, I've found that 1 cup of dried grain will
feed 12 to 16 people, depending on the dish (rice pudding goes over well,
but a plain frumenty doesn't).  For a dish like blancmange, the chicken also
goes against the total weight of the dish, so you will use less rice per
portion.

In the few places I've used dried legumes (I prefer canned or frozen to save
time), I've found that 1 cup will usually provide for servings.

Bear


> Another question is about increasing recipes:  I know that some respond
> well to basic math ( Hmm... serves 8, 100 people...8x12==96+another half
> recipe?) but other recipes just don't seem to work out the same
> way--double the recipe, and you somehow end up with either 3 times as much
> or maybe just half again as much.  ( At my first feast, I used the "basic
> math" method with my chicken blawmange and ended up with a *ton* of
> leftovers--I want to avoid that this time round if possible.)
> AElfwenna
>