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Forum Thread - keeping food hot

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tranzform, on 19/2/2006 10:28pm

Hi

I usually cook my curries at home for friends and family, so when I cook a curry it tends to be one type of curry for the night i.e. Tikka Masala.

However I have been asked to run a curry night for some of my friends at a local bar and while I am looking forward to it I am unsure how to keep individual meals warm once cooked. i.e. A table of four order 3 different types of curry, I want to serve the table all at once so I cook one curry, then I need to keep it warm while I am cooking the other curry's.

I know this may seem a silly question but how do they keep them warm when they are done in the restaurants.

Thanks

Mark

Mamta, on 20/2/2006 06:51am

I am not sure what they do in a restaurant, but I would keep it on a hot plate or in a pre-heated oven at around 100 C, not too hot.

You may get better answer if you post the question at one of the BBC message boards at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbfood/F2670471 , which is visited by several professional chefs.

Mamta

AskCy, on 20/2/2006 11:17pm

I'm guessing here ...

that they wouldn't keep individual meals warm..I'd guess it would be a big pan of one sort of curry just left on a low heat, another pan of another etc..

Probably have a load of chicken going in the Tandoor at once.. roughly knowing how much will be needed per cooking time (ie lets say on average they need 10 for the tables they have..they would have ten in as it opened.. as they came out they would put ten more to be ready for the change of customers etc)..

(I'd also guess things like naans could be premade then a quick refresh in a normal oven if turn over was so high..)

Ian Hoare, on 23/2/2006 09:18am

It's probably a mistake to keep food hot at too high a temperature, as you don't want to continue cooking the food. A commercial hot box is set at around 65C to 70C and I think that's amply hot enough. What WE do at home, is to cook all the different dishes, stopping short of the final dum (simmering with last minute spice addition) and cool as fast as possible (we're not professional restaurateurs so we don't need blast chillers). Then when we're about to eat, we re-heat everything, adding the final spices and simmer 5 minutes before serving. If we needed to keep things hot, we'd merely pop then into a hostess trolley at 70C.If we didn't have that, we'd use an oven at that temperature.

On subsequent evenings, we usually reheat our plated up food in the microwave, if it's just for the two of us, otherwise we reheat gently to a simmer and pop it into the hotbox again.

Hope that helps.

ATB

Ian

Sachin, on 8/12/2018 02:48pm

Is there any appliance which can keep curry warm on dining table?

Mamta, on 8/12/2018 04:24pm

Thermal serving pots/casserole pots may be the answer for you. I use them when I have more than 4 people to serve. Or you can buy/borrow a hot plate from a friend. Heating at the last minute is not easy.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingavon-BS100-Stainless-Buffet-Warming/dp/B007R468FS/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1544286227&sr=8-6&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=hot+plate&dpPl=1&dpID=31kb4Q8uzGL&ref=plSrch

Martin, on 8/12/2018 06:53pm

Just for information look at this link: http://www.greatcurryrecipes.net

It shows how restaurants can cope with so many recipe choices at any one time. For big parties, say 10 -20 people I'll do some of these recipes which I know will turn out fine. For smaller parties the suggestions for keeping food warm from the list all seem OK to me. Popadoms seem to require a lot of oven space if you are doing them in advance though.

Hope this is of some help,

Martin

Mamta, on 9/12/2018 06:27am

Thanks Martin, looks like a great website for Indian restaurant food, and great pictures too :). For family, I use my heat tray, supported by some last minute heating in microwave.

For more than 4-5 people, I use my old hostess trolley, which keeps food piping hot. Until a few years ago, I used to cook for 20-50 people for parties and hostess trolley was the best way to keep food hot, as well as keep me free to enjoy the party.

MayaGreen, on 22/2/2019 07:07am

You may try keeping it in termopots as I do in my restaurant. I own a little fast-food cafe so sometimes I need to keep food warm until visitors come and I'm used to buying kitchen equipment here mcdonaldpaper.com. I like this site as it offers good delivery conditions and relatively low prices.

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