[Sca-cooks] Coping with limited cooking facilities for feast

[David Friedman]

>I will be serving feast for  72 in a few months. The kitchen has one 
>domestic stove - four burners and one oven, it is also small- about 
>10x10 feet. Suggestions are welcome on how to work with these 
>limitations, esp what period recipes/foods can be cooked prior to 
>the event and transported easily.  It will be the beginning of 
>summer here. This will be my first feast.
>
>Theadora

Several suggestions:

1. See if anyone in the group has a big propane burner stove. They 
aren't very expensive, and one is equivalent to quite a powerful gas 
stove burner.

2. There are soups which can be mostly made in advance, then brought 
to a boil and the ingredients that thicken them added. You still need 
a burner, but only for long enough to bring the liquid to a boil. 
Pottage from meat, which you can find in the Miscellany on my web 
site, works that way and is very good.

3. If you are cooking a lot of rice, say a 5-10 gallon pot, you can 
do it by bringing the water to a boil, adding the rice, bringing it 
back to a boil (stirring some to prevent sticking--the weight of that 
much rice pushes it down), then taking it off the stove, covering it, 
and letting it cook with its own heat. That frees up a burner faster 
than if you cook it on the burner, and also reduces the risk of the 
rice at the bottom burning and sticking.

4. Things that can be made off site and brought to the event include 
Barmakiya (best made off site shortly before the event), Badinjan 
Muhassa (can be made a day or two in advance), Hais, Khuskhananaj, 
Current Cakes, gingerbrede (all desert type things). Also pies such 
as Tart on Ember Day or Spinach Tart.

(All recipes in the Miscellany).

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Misc10_Draft/Misc10_Draft.html


-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com