Cooking question

[CharlieD]

I am making Pelmeni, relatives of ravioli/tortellini, I'll add the picture later. I need your thought on cooking them. Here is my problem.
This coming up Saturday night is a holiday of Purim. There is special reading, story of Purim, that we will listen to in the Synagogue and will take about an hour. I will be serving the pelmeni soup after for dinner. I will make soup before Shabbat and will put on the stove right after Shabbat to hit up. Because it is 24 quart pot, it will probably take that much time to hit up. The issue is, If I cook pelmeni on Friday and then hit up the soup again, I am afraid they will fall apart. They normally take 10 minutes to cook after throwing them into a boiling water. I don't know I f I make sense here. So please ask questions so I can make the situation clearer. And tell me please what I can do to be able to serve the soup right away, or almost right away, and also not to over cook the pelmeni.

 

[CharlieD]

 

[dragnlaw]

Perhaps you could cook the Pelmeni as normal. Remove them from the water for Shabbat. (perhaps just the tiniest bit of oil to prevent them from sticking together) Then once the soup has completely heated back up - return the Pelmeni to the soup.

Or if they only take 10 minutes to cook, once your soup is completely reheated - toss them in to cook. I assume you are serving them in the soup?

Also my might want to cook them slightly longer if just out of the fridge - that many will cool down the soup quite a bit I should think.

 

[CharlieD]

Yes, I will serve them in the soup. Kind of like tortellini soup idea.
And also yes for quantity. About 250-280.

 

[HeyItsSara]

I guess it would take too long to heat them in an oven or in a chafing dish, huh?

 

[Aunt Bea]

Charlie, you are fearless to take on these monumental tasks, I hope people appreciate your efforts.

This is all new to me but could you cook them and reheat them in shallow pans, in the oven, with a little soup stock and covered with aluminum foil to sort of steam them.

Then add them to the hot stock at serving time.

Good luck and please let us know what you finally come up with.

 

[SGM Chef]

Hi CharlieD,

This needs to be an assembly line process.

To do this meal depends on your available Equipment and labor.

Like how many burners available?
How many large pots? Any large mixing bowls? Flat top grill or ovens available? Do you have a spider?

If I had to do this meal for 250-280 I would like to know how many helpers I have in the kitchen to serve the soup quickly.

Break it into tasks/teams. Specialize your helpers to do a single task.

1. Reheating Pelmeni (Pelmeni pre-cooked for 6 minutes, arrest cooking by cold water bath, gallon food storage bags with a tiny amount of oil, the day before. Leave at room temp during the story of Purim reading. reheat/finish cooking for three minutes in one of the two pots of boiling water, ideally. Remove with spider.) You might be the best person for this delicate operation or someone you trust not to get too rough...

2. Placing Pelmeni into each bowl or cup. (Have a person or two do only this task)

3. Pouring hot broth over Pelmeni in each bowl using Pitchers. (Ladels work fine for home this project needs some speed.)
Multiple pitchers if at all possible with one person only refilling the pitchers and a steady hand pouring.
If you have other solid ingredients, like carrot or celery, they should also be pre-cooked, just short of perfect, and chilled a day or two before, they should be heated and added on or under Pelmeni before pouring the broth. Broth should always be last, lest the bowl should overflow...

4. Pinch of fresh chopped parsley can be done by an adept teen, if that is part of your recipe. Rinse, salad spinner, chop, ziplock.

Clean up crew also.

Hope this helps!

 

[CharlieD]

Hi CharlieD,

This needs to be an assembly line process.

To do this meal depends on your available Equipment and labor.

Like how many burners available?
How many large pots? Any large mixing bowls? Flat top grill or ovens available? Do you have a spider?

If I had to do this meal for 250-280 I would like to know how many helpers I have in the kitchen to serve the soup quickly.

Break it into tasks/teams. Specialize your helpers to do a single task.

1. Reheating Pelmeni (Pelmeni pre-cooked for 6 minutes, arrest cooking by cold water bath, gallon food storage bags with a tiny amount of oil, the day before. Leave at room temp during the story of Purim reading. reheat/finish cooking for three minutes in one of the two pots of boiling water, ideally. Remove with spider.) You might be the best person for this delicate operation or someone you trust not to get too rough...

2. Placing Pelmeni into each bowl or cup. (Have a person or two do only this task)

3. Pouring hot broth over Pelmeni in each bowl using Pitchers. (Ladels work fine for home this project needs some speed.)
Multiple pitchers if at all possible with one person only refilling the pitchers and a steady hand pouring.
If you have other solid ingredients, like carrot or celery, they should also be pre-cooked, just short of perfect, and chilled a day or two before, they should be heated and added on or under Pelmeni before pouring the broth. Broth should always be last, lest the bowl should overflow...

4. Pinch of fresh chopped parsley can be done by an adept teen, if that is part of your recipe. Rinse, salad spinner, chop, ziplock.

Clean up crew also.

Hope this helps!

Thank you

 

[SGM Chef]

Hi CharlieD,

So. how did it go?

 

[CharlieD]

Sorry, forgot to report. I listened to my wife. Cooked pelmeni on Friday. Drained, put it in a large bowl, sprinkled some oil to prevent steaking. Saturday night brought soup to boil, threw all the pelmeni in, brought to boil again, took a long time, probably good 15-20 minutes, served. Except me, everybody were happy. In reality it took just as much time to warm them up as it would have cooking them. Everybody loved it. It really was good. I did not like that pelmeni were overcooked, due to cooking twice.

 

[dragnlaw]

I hear you Charlie, know what you feel about the overcooking. Everyone thinks it's wonderful except you. Been there, done that. But like my daughter says, stop putting your efforts down. She says she can't do that and appreciates the fact that I did. I suppose she's right but still... in my mind it wasn't what I wanted.

 

[larry_stewart]

To cook for the many people and get everything perfect is a real challenge. Many times we are our own worst critics. When I cook for 20 people, Im scrambling around to make sure everything is perfect, all the dishes are done at the same time ... I watch to see who eats what, the looks on their faces as they are eating , which dishes were the most popular ( and least popular), which dishes people took, but left over on their plates... Many times I wont be happy with something that I thought could have been prepared better, and most of the times, the quests don't even notice the things that I am not happy with. The fact that you cooked so much for so many is remarkable in itself.

 

[Sir_Loin_of_Beef]

Cooking question​

Why on earth would anyone ask a cooking question in here?

 

[CharlieD]

To cook for the many people and get everything perfect is a real challenge. Many times we are our own worst critics. When I cook for 20 people, Im scrambling around to make sure everything is perfect, all the dishes are done at the same time ... I watch to see who eats what, the looks on their faces as they are eating , which dishes were the most popular ( and least popular), which dishes people took, but left over on their plates... Many times I wont be happy with something that I thought could have been prepared better, and most of the times, the quests don't even notice the things that I am not happy with. The fact that you cooked so much for so many is remarkable in itself.

Thank you. It's very kind of you.

 

[CharlieD]

Why on earth would anyone ask a cooking question in here?

Huh?