cooking for 12 people next week

sweet, more good tips

also, it's about the love

i love to cook because my brain is calm and i'm not thinking a million miles a minute, so the more time it takes the better, as long as i have the time, which given that this event is on a weeknight, i wont have a lot of time.

encey can you elaborate more on making the pasta ahead of time? that was one thing i wasn't sure about. i thought about doing the main dish as a ravioli dish as the end result isn't really the prettiest thing, any experience with ravioli making?

lol also can i say that if i was coming round to break bread and scoff wine chez fred, i'd be disappointed if you spent the whole night slaving away in the kitchen.

you could make a righteous soup the day before for 1st course with home made bread, scallops next (this is where you'd be longest away from your guests), serve the salad with the pasta main, cheese board to finish, nutella on your wife's tits when your guests leave.

i hope i didn't spoil this thread talking about tits.

Fred I need you to invent something like skype that sends food through the internet

  On 12/9/2009 at 10:57 PM, Fred McGriff said:

i love to cook because my brain is calm and i'm not thinking a million miles a minute, so the more time it takes the better

I'm still not a natural at timing and thinking through the dish without planning the shit out of it ahead of time, so the actual cooking part is not the easiest for me unless it's a good day and I'm just in the zone. But the prepping is where it's at for me. I could chop onions for a day, it's meditative as fuck.

  Quote

encey can you elaborate more on making the pasta ahead of time? that was one thing i wasn't sure about. i thought about doing the main dish as a ravioli dish as the end result isn't really the prettiest thing, any experience with ravioli making?

Well, whenever I've made fresh pasta and cooked it, I'm left over with more than we need, so we just put it in a container, and when we heat it up in the pan the next night, say, it tastes damn well like new.

In your case, rather than cooking the pasta all the way through and saving it a day ahead of time, my idea was to basically give it the quickest blanch you could (since fresh pasta seems to cook in less than a minute anyway) -- so like, 20-30 seconds, and then you let it finish cooking when you stir it into the finished ragu. Just stir it around until the sauce heats it up and sticks all over it *masturbates*

Ravioli is not all that different from cut pasta -- you just make sheets, top it with balls of filling spaced 1-1.5 inches apart, water or egg wash that bottom sheet and stick the other sheet on top, press down around the filling balls, then use a knife or one of those cool rolly things to cut the squares out. They're done cookin when they float up to the top, again usually very quick.

Another thought I had was, if you're worried about the stirred-in pasta looking like a mess, a different approach both visually and in terms of cooking time would be to make your ragu, and then just cook the pasta right before serving since it only takes a minute anyway, and plate it by dolloping the ragu on top of a pile of pasta. That way people can blend the sauce in themselves, you can top it with some nice dandruffy parmesan shavings, and the plating would no longer resemble mensesnudeln.

That was a rather rambly post, sorry.

  On 12/9/2009 at 10:20 PM, Ivan Lennovitz said:

  On 12/9/2009 at 9:30 PM, Joyrex said:

I'd consider getting a catering company's quote on how much the dinner will cost you and compare that to your time plus the cost of materials to you and say 'fuck it' to the cooking part, and entertain your guests with burlap drawings.

No, no, it’s about actually doing everything yourself (hence the homemade fettuccine), rocking it, then earning everybody’s fucking respect.

Well, of course, yes - I was being facetious...

I think it's been mentioned before, but make a list of everything, the ingredients, etc. and plan the whole thing out, and look for patterns where you can combine cooking times and/or prep so you can do things efficiently as possible. Anything that can be made well ahead of time and be re-heated, most certainly do, since the flavours only get better when food sits and marinates in it's own juices (lasagna is a good example - it always tastes better the next day for some reason).

i'm cooking for 8 tomorrow night keeping it real simple - eyeball it

4 breasts of chicken, finely chopped

8 eggs

2 red peppers, roughly chopped

2 yellow peppers, roughly chopped

2 onions, roughly chopped

salt, brown sugar, coriander seeds, garam masala

500g diced large field mushrooms

a handful of shallots

3 large mild chilis

750ml natural yoghurt

750g balti paste (2 patak's jars)

8 cloves garlic and lots of peppercorns with some saffron and more garam masala, smashed thoroughly

basmati rice and some more saffron and peppercorns

boil water. hardboil eggs. heat large pot and add oil.

add the onions and peppers, stir til sizzling, add salt, peppercorns etc, wait for peppercorns to crack

add the chicken and mushrooms, garlic, chili, shallot, and saffron and fry til the chicken is 90% done

sprinkle in brown sugar and fry on a high heat until things start to caramelise

then add balti paste and after a minute or so peel the hard-boiled eggs and add them to the pot too

add the yoghurt, then simmer the balti until the meat starts to turn to threads and the eggs turn well fucking yellow

get some rice going. optional peas. drain the rice and add saffron and peppercorns

everyone gets a delicious balti egg. serve with big naan breads.

Chicken pieces (loads)

Uncles Ben's Tikka Masala curry sauce (lots of jars of)

Basmati Rice (lots of)

Onions (loads)

Garlic (loads)

Potatoes (lots too)

Spices:

Curry

Chilli

Ginger

Coriander

little bit of cinnamon

Naan bread (lots of)

Make rice.

Fry chicken pieces well and add spices to chicken. Stir a bit. Add Uncle Ben's. Stir a bit. Add garlic. stir a bit. Add onion. stir and let simmer. (I like adding the onions last so they remain as crunchy as possible)

If you want it a bit creamy colored, add some coconut milk. If none of your guests are allergic to nuts, add some cashews to the mix!

Heat up naans in microwave.

Serve up your fine curry with a few brewskies and your guests will be happy ones! :)

AJW make me dinner please.

nutella dessert? how fucking passe dude.

nutella is shit. chocolate and bread just don't mix.

  On 12/20/2009 at 4:17 AM, AJW said:

nutella is shit. chocolate and bread just don't mix.

fuck! thank you, finally someone with taste and common sense.