Dinner for 60?

Dinner for 60?

By Stephen Matteo Miller

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Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................. 4 Why the Menus Work the Way they Do .................................................................... 5 Principles of Food Safety and How Good Organization Promotes It ..................... 5 Saturday 26, April 2008............................................................................................. 11 Balsamic Roast Beef and Goat ............................................................................................ 11 Mashed Potatoes .................................................................................................................. 11 Salad with Pears and Lime-Olive Oil Dressing ................................................................... 12 Tazziberry Pear Upside-Down Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream ............................................. 12

Saturday 10, May 2008 .............................................................................................. 14 Pasta with Lamb Sausage Sauce.......................................................................................... 14 Salad with Basil-Olive Oil Dressing ................................................................................... 14 Homemade Chocolate Truffles with Vanilla Ice Cream ..................................................... 14

Saturday 24, May 2008 .............................................................................................. 16 Curry Beef/Chicken/Lamb .................................................................................................. 16 Salad with Capsicums and Verjus-Olive Oil Dressing........................................................ 17 Apple and Pear Fruit Tart .................................................................................................... 17

Saturday 7, June 2008................................................................................................ 19 Pizza for 60.......................................................................................................................... 19 Salad with Capsicums and Balsamic-Olive Oil Dressing ................................................... 20 Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin Tops with Vanilla Ice Cream............................................ 21

Saturday 21, June 2008.............................................................................................. 23 Sausages and “Patatouille” .................................................................................................. 23 Salad with Tomatoes and Verjus-Olive Oil Dressing ......................................................... 23 Mango Upside-Down Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream ........................................................... 24

Saturday 5, July 2008 ................................................................................................ 25 Rosemary Roast Beef .......................................................................................................... 25 Salad with Cucumber and Balsamic and Olive Oil Dressing .............................................. 25 Gnocchi in Tomato Salsa..................................................................................................... 26 Blueberry Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches ........................................................................... 26

Saturday 19, July 2008 .............................................................................................. 28 Sliced Goat Topside ............................................................................................................ 28 Salad with Grapes and Verjus and Olive Oil Dressing ....................................................... 28 Penne with Brocollini .......................................................................................................... 29 Chocolate-covered and Plain Dried Apricots with Ice Cream............................................. 29

Saturday 2, August 2008............................................................................................ 30 Roast Veal ........................................................................................................................... 30 Roasted Potatoes.................................................................................................................. 30

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Salad with Blood Oranges and Celery and Sesame Oil....................................................... 30 Pear and Cherry Fruit Tart ................................................................................................... 31

Saturday 16, August 2008.......................................................................................... 32 Pasta with a Lamb Mince & Mushroom Sauce ................................................................... 32 Turkish Style Zucchini ........................................................................................................ 32 Banana Bread with Ice Cream ............................................................................................. 32

Saturday 30, August 2008.......................................................................................... 34 Chicken Soup ...................................................................................................................... 34 Yearling Roast Steaks ......................................................................................................... 34 Roast Potatoes and Spinach ................................................................................................. 34 Pear Chocolate Chip Muffins with Ice Cream..................................................................... 35

Other Recipes ............................................................................................................. 36 Sweet Potato Soup ............................................................................................................... 36 Minestrone Soup.................................................................................................................. 36 Roast Vegetables ................................................................................................................. 36 Strawberries and Mint ......................................................................................................... 37 Poached Pears ...................................................................................................................... 37

References ................................................................................................................... 38

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Introduction What follows is a cookbook that attempts to illustrate for non-professionals how cooking for large numbers of people is not as intimidating as it may seem. Most of the recipes here are intended to serve about fifty to sixty people, but I also report scaled-down versions to serve approximately four people. These recipes, recorded more-or-less as they happened, were served to people attending the Empower food program at Richmond Assembly of God church, in Richmond, Victoria, Australia which ran from May 2007 through July 2009. The program was based on a divinely inspired idea: to cook and serve good food (at no monetary cost) to people facing hunger and possibly malnutrition and health and dietary challenges.1 What you will find in the pages that follow is: 1) a cookbook, demonstrating that cooking good food for large numbers of people doesn’t have to be that hard, and 2) a journal documenting the process through which actual meals came about, including a few cooking tips, albeit from non-professionals.

At least from a kitchen standpoint, the Empower food program borrowed some of the same organizational principles behind Alice Waters’s famed Chez Panisse restaurant.

How? With no professionally trained staff, an excellent formula seems to be to serve one meal that everyone eats (plus an alternative choice if there are any vegetarians.)

In Thomas McNamee’s (2007) account of Alice Waters’s life and her famous Chez Panisse restaurant, he points out that the idea to organize the kitchen around the principle that everyone eats the same meal arose because no one knew how to run a menu-based restaurant, which requires a lot more specialization in the kitchen. A kitchen can really only be so specialized if you have lots of people cooking, or if you have highly trained chefs, who can easily switch between dishes and tasks. Chances are, in a kitchen staffed by volunteers, there will be few with extensive kitchen experience, but even without that there are still many great and simple dishes that can be made for lots of people.

Moreover, the menus are inspired by the principle that you can take a risk and just walk up to a market and think up a meal right on the spot simply by picking out the best available ingredients that appear that day. An additional benefit of doing so is that preparing fresh produce eliminates certain food safety hazards that arise with transporting and storing food.

There are obvious differences between the food program and the restaurant. First, as an enterprise Chez Panisse relies on customers willing to pay to maintain its existence, whereas Richmond Assembly of God supported the program, through volunteers and funding, right from the start in May 2007. So, while restaurant managers have to worry about both the revenue and cost sides of the operation, the Empower program was simpler, as we only had to focus on the cost side, and because we tended to buy food in season, we were always well under budget.

The idea of a soup kitchen probably conjures up certain images that were due for an upgrade long ago. The idea that people who live on the street or under difficult circumstances will eat anything you give them is not true. In a certain sense, the aim 1

Luke 14:12-13 says “When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, brothers, relatives or rich neighbours; for they may well invite you in return, and that will be your repayment. Instead, when you have a party, invite poor people, disfigured people, the crippled, the blind!”

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here is to provide an alternative view of the soup kitchen, one in which: 1) only good soup is served, only if it matches with the main dish of the evening, and 2) the consumption of processed foods is kept at a minimum. To cook for someone, especially a person who perhaps arrives off the street for the first time, can have an amazing effect towards eliminating a sense of alienation, loneliness, isolation, which only works to reinforce the idea in a person’s mind that homelessness is acceptable.

Therefore, this cookbook will hopefully be inspirational in getting people to believe that it is possible to change the world, in this case, one dish at a time.

To make that happen, consider that many or even most cookbooks have a long list of ingredients for each recipe, which make them ingredient and/or process intensive. In some cases, however, you can still get the essence of the dish, without all of the effort, and without losing much flavor, by simply eliminating some ingredients. This comes through in many of the dishes here.

Why the Menus Work the Way they Do While I hope I have made a convincing case that cooking for lots of people, even if you don’t really have any experience running a kitchen, is not as daunting as it seems, there is one drawback to preparing large quantities of food compared to a dinner for four, namely, food safety hazards. This cannot be understated. In the process of preparing large quantities of food, the food becomes exposed to the elements, most importantly, heat and moisture for longer periods of time, which facilitates bacterial growth that can result in food poisoning. The longer the food is exposed the more the bacteria grow.

While it will not be possible to apply the same formula for all dinner events, the way the Empower Food program avoids food safety hazards is that: 1) all two-, and sometimes three-course meals are served within two hours (usually 80 minutes), 2) there are few leftovers, which are either discarded (if the ingredients in their combined raw and cooked form are exposed to temperatures between 5 and 60 Celsius for two hours or more), or kept if they are less susceptible to bacterial growth (as is generally true of baked goods). For those who are planning dinner events lasting more than two hours, knowing more about why this simple formula works will help prevent food poisoning in the home. The basic principles are therefore described next.

Principles of Food Safety and How Good Organization Promotes It The Empower program operates in Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, which is a highly regulated economy. Food Standard Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) develops the food safety standards in Victoria. As a result, the Empower program must have food safety supervisors on the premises to operate. Even if the rules may seem like overkill, it does work to minimize risks of food poisoning, which is especially important for people who may be facing malnutrition. Accordingly, some of the principles are listed below, beginning with a sample daily run sheet. Once you see how to organize the kitchen activities in a way that facilitates food safety it will become easier to appreciate how to prepare a good meal for a large number of people while avoiding food safety hazards.

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Sample Kitchen Run Sheet The Empower team prepares food on premises for about 60 people (give or take 20) each Saturday. To prepare the food, it is necessary to follow food safety principles.

Each team is organized around a food safety supervisor who is supposed to develop and implement a food safety plan to effectively: 1) monitor all food products coming into the kitchen (by completing a goods receiving form), and 2) monitor kitchen activities to minimize the risks of food poisoning.

Typical Saturday Schedule • 11am buy produce from Gleadall St. Market right behind the church in Richmond The market closes around noon, and the produce is still be quite good, while the prices start dropping; if you’re cooking roast vegetables for 60, purchase about 18-22 kg’s of produce (e.g., 10 kg’s of eggplant or potatoes, 6 kg’s of tomatoes, and 6 kg’s of zucchini, etc.; buy what looks best, it’s often the lowest priced because it’s peak season); if you’re buying tomatoes to make a pasta sauce, buy about 7 kg’s of the best smelling tomatoes • 11:30am/11:40am drop off produce at church and begin cleaning up the kitchen After dropping off and refrigerating the produce, and filling out the goods receiving form for the produce, you may wish to fill up the dishwasher, and start washing utensils and pots and pans that will be used • 12-12:30pm go to butcher to pick up meat A typical rule is 200 grams of meat per person, however, given that some people do not eat often, we typically aim for 300 grams, so for 60 people you have to ask for about 18 kg’s of meat (excluding the bone) these days to feed about 60 people, and to go along with the 18-22 kg’s of produce (if it’s roasted vegetables); if you buy meat to make a pasta sauce, buy about 7 kg’s of sausages • 1pm unload and refrigerate meat and continue cleanup of kitchen After dropping off and refrigerating the meat, and filling out the goods receiving form for the meat, continue washing the utensils, pots and pans that will be used, especially the ones used if baking a dessert • 1:30pm go to Coles to pick up cordial and baked goods ingredients for dessert You will normally buy a few bags of groceries, such as 2 bottles of cordial, 2 kg’s of flour if making a baked dessert for 60, 1 kg of sugar, 6-18 eggs, ice cream, butter, flora (for the bread); if you’re making pasta, you may wish to purchase 6-7 kg’s of dry pasta • 2pm unload and refrigerate Coles purchases, finish clean up and begin preparing dessert

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After unloading the packaged goods purchased at Coles, and entering in the information in the goods receiving form you can finish cleaning up the kitchen surfaces and or washing the utensils used in cooking, and set them aside. You can then prepare the dessert to get it out of the way (baked goods are a relatively safe product, which is why you can do it first, and not worry too much about how it’s stored, unless it’s got dairy, or raw fruit, in which case you should be much more careful and pay attention to the food so that it does not get exposed to the 5 ⁰C-60 ⁰C temperature zone for more than two hours if you plan to later refrigerate the dessert, or for more than four hours total).

• 3:30pm begin preparation of mains When cooking for about 60 people, it may take a while, and you would ideally like to time the food so that the food comes out of the oven just before you are ready to serve (cut fruit, vegetables and meat can last no more than two hours in the 5 ⁰C-60 ⁰C temperature range if you plan to refrigerate it, and no more than 4 hours in that range, before discarding. Cut fruit, vegetables and meat exposed to the 5 ⁰C-60 ⁰C for longer than four hours should be discarded. If you’re roasting meat and vegetables you should begin thinking about the time it takes to cook; it may well take 2 hours for meat and at least 1½-2 hours for the vegetables, especially if the oven is very full. If you’re cooking pasta, you may wish to fill up the pot of water now, but turn it on about at 4:30-5pm.

• 5pm begin preparation of salad When preparing a salad the ingredients are typically cut, and cut vegetables and fruit should not be exposed to temperatures in the 5 ⁰C-60 ⁰C range, for more than two hours if you wish to refrigerate. Therefore, plan to cut the ingredients for the salad as soon as possible, and refrigerate and cover, until the meal is ready to be served.

• 6:30pm serve mains Shortly before the mains are served, prepare any salad dressing if there is any.

Make sure all serving utensils and dishes are in place. About 20-30 minutes later, there are usually requests for seconds, or plates and utensils begin to come back in so you can have someone rinse and loading up the plates and utensils into the dishwasher.

• 7:15pm prepare to serve dessert As the supper plates begin to come back in it is also time to start serving dessert, so often you’ll need to get two people to begin plating dessert. Once the last dessert goes out you can begin to focus on the clean up.

• 8pm kitchen officially closes (but if there's a latecomer we try to accommodate) and cleanup of kitchen begins • 9:30pm/10pm leave church

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The run sheet in fact is designed to minimize food safety hazards. The short trips from the butcher shop are meant to minimize the meat’s exposure to dangerous temperatures. Fruits and vegetables in their raw form can generally withstand room temperature, though vegetables such as lettuce tend to wilt fairly quickly. So, it is good to get them into the cold fairly soon. There are generally few hazards purchasing the processed and packaged goods from the supermarket. Having discussed some solutions to avoiding food safety hazards, now we can explore why there are problems.

A major issue in food preparation is bacterial growth. When preparing food, it is important to keep track of several risk factors that make bacteria grow: 1) time, 2) temperature, 3) moisture, 4) oxygen, and 5) low acidity (or high pH). Time and temperature combine to create the so-called “The Danger Zone,” which is summarized below: Temperature What Happens water boils 100 ⁰C sanitizing cooking utensils (and plates) – this can be done with a 82 ⁰C washing machine that has a hot rinse cycle, a hot water tap or a plate sterilizer reheating and cooking food – hot food should be brought to this 75 ⁰C temperature before it is served at a temperature at 60 ⁰C heated food – hot food should be kept at or above this threshold 60 ⁰C Temperatures in the 5 ⁰C-60 ⁰C range constitute the “Danger Zone” refrigerated/cold storage food – refrigerators should be at this 5 ⁰C temperature or below water freezes 0 ⁰C frozen storage – freezers should be at this temperature or below -15 ⁰C Temperatures for Preparing Food When cooking food, the internal temperature must rise above 75 ⁰C before serving.

While that may be too hot to eat straight away, the aim is to kill bacteria. If the food temperature falls below 60 ⁰C, then the food has a maximum life of 2 hours if it is to be refrigerated, and a total life of 4 hours, after which it should be discarded. This is important to know for those hosting all day barbeques and parties, as the food left at room temperature may spoil well before the end of the evening.

The “Danger Zone” and Temperatures for Storing Serving Food Temperature and time combine to create a food safety hazard in the form of bacterial growth. There are so-called danger zones that lie above -15 ⁰C for frozen foods and between 5 ⁰C and 60 ⁰C for unfrozen food. For instance, if the temperature of a frozen item is above -15 ⁰C, then it is in the danger zone; in other words, frozen foods should be frozen solid.

Similarly, if refrigerated food rises above 5 ⁰C it is also in the danger zone. Finally, after cooking food to a temperature of at least 75 ⁰C, if the temperature subsequently falls below 60 ⁰C then it is in the danger zone.

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Sanitizing Utensils One final and important temperature to know is for sanitizing utensils. To properly sanitize washed utensils it is important before using them to expose them to a temperature of at least 82 ⁰C for at least two seconds. This can be done using a dish washer that has a rinse cycle that reaches that temperature, by rinsing them off in near boiling water perhaps using a hot water tap, or with a plate sanitizer.

Time There is a so-called 2-hour/4-hour window that food safety standards must meet in principle in Victoria. For instance, if you plan to refrigerate the food after preparing it, then the ingredients must be exposed to above 5 ⁰C for no more than two hours. If the food’s exposure to temperatures above 5 ⁰C and below 60 ⁰C is more than two hours but not less than 4 hours, then it must be used immediately, and it must not be re-refrigerated. Food exposure the so-called “danger zone” for more than four hours must be thrown out.

High Risk Foods High risk implies that bacterial growth occurs at a high rate. Meat, fish and shellfish in almost any form (canned, raw, or cooked) is susceptible to high bacterial growth.

The same can be said of dairy products, in any form. Finally, foods high in starch when cooked (not in their raw form), and therefore exposed to moisture, are also highly susceptible to bacterial growth. This explains why dry pasta and rice can be left at room temperature for long periods of time, while cooked pasta and rice has a two hour/four hour life span. Fresh fruits and vegetables in their raw form can be exposed to room temperature for as long as it retains its moisture. However, once they are cut, then the same two hour/four hour window applies. This is not true of dried fruits and vegetables, which have much less moisture.

Low Risk Foods Low risk foods include those high in sugar, salt, or acidity. So, jams and jellies are resistant to bacteria, as are dried baked goods since all have low levels of moisture.

Potato chips or dried salted foods (such as meat and fish) can be exposed to room temperature. Finally, acidic foods (those with a low pH) are also at low risk for food poisoning, and include fresh (uncut) fruit, yoghurt, and pickles.

Tips for Defrosting: When cooking with frozen food, it is important to thaw at temperatures below 5 ⁰C, but this can take a long time (as long as 48 hours). If time is an issue, then some shortcuts include cutting the food into smaller pieces before thawing. Microwave ovens can also be used to thaw frozen food. Finally, running cold water (20 ⁰C or less) can be used to thaw foods.

Tip for Cooling Food: One problem with preparing a large quantity of food is that it can take a long time to cool down (if it was above 60 ⁰C, it may take more than two hours to get below 5 ⁰C, which means that bacteria could grow during that time). So how do you get large quantities of hot food prepared for refrigeration? If it’s a large pot of soup, one solution is to pour the soup into smaller containers so that the heat 9

can dissipate. This will also work for large trays of hot cooked food. Another alternative is to place the tray (not the food itself) uncovered in a cold water or ice bath.

Tips for Reheating Food: When reheating cold food (food that was stored at temperatures below 5 ⁰C), it is important to get the temperature to 75 ⁰C (not 60 ⁰C) as quickly as possible, without burning it. That means the food should not simmer to 75 ⁰C, as this can potentially expose the food to the danger zone for longer than the two hour/four hour window. Stirring frequently helps to avoid cold spots during the reheat.

Handling Food: Clean Surfaces, Cross-Contamination and To Glove or Not to Glove?

One issue that is of utmost importance is avoiding all cross-contamination, whether it’s contaminating cooked food with raw food, or cooked or raw food with contaminated surfaces. That’s why in the sample run-sheet above, you see that sanitizing the kitchen comes before the actual cooking. You may never know where, when or how bacteria may have emerged on food or a non-food surface, so the best way is to inspect the food or sanitize the surface yourself. If food is contaminated, then properly dispose of it. If a surface has been contaminated with food or non-food substances (your hands, a box or bag that you used to transport the food, etc.) then you should clean the surface on which food will go.

Related to this is the issue of topping up dishes. You may often see people reloading a dish of food with freshly cooked food. The problem with doing this is that once a dish goes out to serve it may easily be contaminated. You do not want to add fresh food to a contaminated tray, so the best way to avoid this is to put out new food on a new serving dish.

Yet another related issue that arises when preparing food is whether or not to use disposable gloves. The easiest way to answer the question is to ask: how many tasks do I have to do? If you are just doing a few tasks, then wear gloves, but change them after each task to avoid cross-contaminating food. On the other hand, if you have many tasks to do, then don’t wear gloves, but wash and dry your hands frequently, between each task.

The reason for these rules of thumb is again to avoid cross-contaminating food. If you have ten tasks to complete, then you would have used up to twenty gloves, which is wasteful, so it is more reasonable and safe to wash and dry your hands. It’s not a good idea to wash gloves in between tasks since you can’t be sure that you’ve rinsed off all the soap from the gloves (e.g., removing the gloves to inspect with your bear hands could contaminate the food).

With the basics of food safety in mind, we can now get on to the menus. Unless otherwise indicated, the menus are reported as they were recorded.

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Saturday 26, April 2008 On this particular Saturday, some volunteers met at the Queen Victoria or “Vic” market, a large partially enclosed, partially covered outdoor market just north of the Central Business District of Melbourne. No one had any ideas about what to do. So, we relied on trusty fallback: just pick the best looking ingredients (i.e., the ones that speak the loudest), and think up the meal on the spot. Walking through the Vic market, the limes were the first to shout out. We walked past once, but we were definitely coming back. Then, a few aisles over, it was the Red D’anjou pears; after squeezing them to make sure their appearance was not deceiving, the deal was done.

It was on to the vegetables. First were the cos lettuces; nothing spectacular, as it’s probably not the best season. But they looked good. Then 10 kg’s of potatoes (we decided it was going to be mashed potatoes). We’re almost done, but we still need some finishing touches. Tazziberries! What a great discovery; spicy but sweet (it may not sound appetizing, but you might think of them as combining the taste and texture of a persimmon and a blueberry). They’ll go great in a pear upside down cake (for 60), so two punnets (2x100g’s) should be sufficient. Let’s get down to the meat.

At the butcher, we’re offered two great looking beef topside roasts (5kg’s worth), and we also pick up 3 kg’s of goat. The final stop is the super market to get the dry and other ingredients, listed below.

Balsamic Roast Beef and Goat For 40 Beef Topside (5kg) Goat (3 kg) Balsamic vinegar (roughly ½ bottle) Olive Oil Salt & Pepper

For 4 500 g’s of beef 300 g’s of beef

To prepare the meat, it’s simple, even for 8 kg’s it still takes about 10 minutes, so this is a technique that you can use for any red meat. First, preheat the oven to 230 ⁰C (450 F), as the meat will be seared in the oven at this temperature for the first five minutes. Second, place the meat on an oven rack and lightly coat the surface of the meat with balsamic vinegar (just enough to darken the color). Third, coat the meat with salt and pepper (we used about 1 cup of a half & half mixture of salt and pepper).

Finally, pour and rub olive oil over the surface of the meat so that you get a light coating that hardly drips oil. Once the meat has been prepared, it can go into the oven for five minutes at 230 ⁰C (450 F); then turn the oven down to about 180 ⁰C (350 F) so that you cook it about 30 minutes per kilo (the cuts of meat we had were cut roughly into 1.5 kg pieces). Note, if you’re overstuffing your oven, it helps to add an additional 20 ⁰C to the cooking temperature.

Mashed Potatoes For 40 Potatoes (10kg) 500 grams of butter 1 litre of milk

For 4 Potatoes (1kg) 50 grams 100 mls of milk

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Boil a large pot of water. Peel the potatoes. When the water begins to boil drop in the potatoes and cook until they are easily pierced by a knife. Drain the water and then mash the potatoes. Add 600ml’s of milk and butter to taste.

Salad with Pears and Lime-Olive Oil Dressing For 40 Limes 5 6 cos lettuce 6 Red D’anjou pears Extra virgin olive oil

For 4 ½ of a lime 1 small cos lettuce 1 small pear

This salad was inspired by the “Classic Italian Salad” recipe (see p. 258) from the cookbook called Easy Italian by Ursula Ferrigno. Cut the salad into edible-sized pieces and place in a glass or plastic bowl to be covered and chilled at a temperature below 5 ⁰C. Next slice the pears, not too soon before serving time, then add them to the salad, cover and chill again. Squeeze the juice from the five limes into a bowl, add to that an equal amount of extra virgin olive oil. Just before serving, pour the dressing onto the salad and toss.

Tazziberry Pear Upside-Down Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream For 40 For 4 2 punnets of Tazziberries handful of berries 3 tins of pear halves in juice (815grams) 1 tin of pear halves 400 gram 1350 grams (6 cups) of butter 1 cup of butter 450grams (2 cups) of dark brown sugar 1/3 cup of dark brown sugar 1350 grams (6 cups) of light brown sugar 1 cup of light brown sugar 18 eggs 3 eggs 2025 grams (9 cups) of organic self-rising flour 1 ½ cups of self-rising flour ground cardamom 8 litres Bullas Vanilla ice cream To prepare the Tazziberry-Pear Upside Down cake, it’s also simple. (This recipe is an adaptation of the Mango upside down cake recipe that appears in the Book of Caribbean Cooking, McGraw Hill). First, preheat the oven to 180 ⁰C (350 F). Next pour out the tins of pears into a bowl (a little juice will be reserved to moisten the batter at the end). Then arrange the pears in the bottom of a clean cake pan. After that, take about 1kg of butter and break it into pieces and pour into a large bowl along with the light brown sugar. Mix them up with a fork (or by hand; yes we use gloves) so that you get something that looks and feels like wet sand. In a saucepan, melt the remaining butter and dark brown sugar (an equal amount of light brown sugar will work), and then pour this over the pears into the cake pan. Next break open 18 eggs, and you can try to remove the colozae, the little white membrane that attaches itself to the egg yolk; removing it makes it easier to mix the batter, because they do not break apart. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl. Sift the 9 cups of flour into a bowl, and take a pinch of the flour and drop and stir into the beaten eggs. Then pour the eggs into the bowl with the butter-sugar mixture and begin to stir. Once that’s done, pour in flour, a little at a time, and stir. The batter should be a little stiff at this point, so add about 18 tablespoons of the pear juice. After rinsing off the Tazziberries you may add them into the batter, along with any other ingredients you may think of (if you don’t have 12

Tazziberries, a good spice to add is ground cardamom). You may cook this for about 55-60 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when you lightly press into the center of the cake and it springs back. Once it’s done, you can separate the cake from the sides (if necessary) and let it sit for five minutes. Then place a flat tray or plate over the top of the cake and flip it over, and remove the cake from the pan.

Total Cost Estimated number of diners: 40. The total cost for this menu was 189.45 AUD (which at the April 25th, 2008 exchange rate of 1.07 AUD/USD comes to 177.06 USD).

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Saturday 10, May 2008 This meal started when Ali asked if we could make chocolate truffles again. Truffles!

They’re really easy to make. So then the only trick this time was to organize a meal that sort of went around the truffles. The other issue was that the number of volunteers for this week was a bit uncertain, so a simple main would be in order: pasta with a sausage & tomato sauce, and a salad as well.

Pasta with Lamb Sausage Sauce For 50 5.7 kg’s of Moroccan Sausages 6 kg’s tomatoes 6 kg’s spaghetti salt pepper olive oil

For 4 4 large sausages 800 grams of tomatoes 750 grams of spaghetti

There’s a really easy pasta sauce, which helps when cooking for a large number of people: take flavourful/spicy sausages and cook them up in olive oil (less than usual as sausages tend to have a good amount of fat), and chop them into smaller pieces, then add tomatoes (either canned whole Italian or fresh ones), and finally add salt, pepper.

Boil the water and add the pasta. With large pots you may need to cook the pasta a little longer as the temperature of the water may not get up to a rolling boil. Cook to taste.

Salad with Basil-Olive Oil Dressing For 50 6 cos lettuce 2 mignonette basil (about 1 fresh bunch) 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil olive oil salt

For 4 1 small cos lettuce a few leaves of a mignonette handful of basil leaves 4 tablespoons of extra virgin salt

Cut the salad into edible-sized pieces and place in a glass or plastic bowl to be covered and chilled at a temperature below 5 ⁰C. Next cut the basil into small pieces and drop into about 1 cup of extra virgin olive. Add a little salt to this mixture. Just before serving, pour the dressing onto the salad and toss.

Homemade Chocolate Truffles with Vanilla Ice Cream Chocolate Truffles For 50 For 4 2 kg’s of Nestle Dark Cooking Chocolate 200 grams of Dark Cooking Chocolate 900 ml’s of cream 90 ml’s of cream cocoa powder cocoa powder 8 litres Bullas Vanilla ice cream 14

The chocolate truffle recipe comes from the Donna Hay collection on Chocolate. It’s just 3 ingredients, which is why we do it. The first step is to break up the chocolate a little while still in the packet (and without breaking the package) with a sturdy object (a rolling pin, or sturdy ladle). Turn on the flame to low, drop the chocolate into the pan, and add the cream and start stirring with a wooden spoon. Don’t delay adding the cream as you risk burning the chocolate. After five to ten minutes, you’ll get a thick ganache. Line a baking tray with baking paper, and pour the chocolate into the tray. Place this tray into the freezer to cool it down fast. Once it becomes firm, take another baking tray and line it with baking powder and lay down cocoa powder.

Plastic gloves come in handy at this point. Take teaspoons of the ganache, roll them into little balls by hand and then roll them in the cocoa powder, and place in a baking paper lined bowl (which will be kept cool once they are done).

Total Cost Estimated number of diners: 50. The total cost for this menu was 192.90 AUD (which at the May 9th, 2008 exchange rate of 1.06 AUD/USD comes to 181.98 USD).

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Saturday 24, May 2008 The inspiration for this meal was the fact that we had not done a curry in a while.

This is a simpler (and hence faster to prepare) version of Jessica B. Harris’s (1991) Trinidadian curry. There are many people of South Asian origin living in the Caribbean, and their influence can be directly observed in many Caribbean specialties. A nice complement to this main is a fruit tart, in this case one of apple and the other of pear.

Curry Beef/Chicken/Lamb For 40 For 4 8.5 kg’s gravy beef 800 grams of gravy beef 100 g (about 1.5 tins) of curry powder 1 ½ tablespoons of curry powder 10 kg’s of potatoes 1 kg of potatoes 1 head of garlic 3 large cloves of garlic 8 white onions 1 large onion salt to taste salt to taste pepper pepper water (a sufficient amount to double the meat-potato volume) Olive oil Beef can be substituted with chicken thighs, or lamb. For vegetarians, we used paneer.

Preparation This curry dish is an excellent example of how increasing the quantity requires changing the way the dish is prepared. When preparing this dish for four people the order of operations is to cook the curry, onions, garlic and meat before adding water to boil and finishing with the potatoes. The dish can be prepared fairly quickly, within one hour.

For a large proportion, preparing this dish can take up to twice as long, and it is necessary to start by boiling a large pot of water. The remaining ingredients are cooked on the side, and then added to the boiling water, starting with the potatoes.

All remaining ingredients are cooked on the side in the same order, and this mixture is then added to the boiling potatoes.

First, bring a large stock pot (a 100+ quart size) of water, filled 3/5 to the top, to a boil. While the water is heating, finely chop the onions, and set aside (cover and refrigerate if not cooking immediately). Then chop the potatoes in 6 (8 if they are large), cover and refrigerate if not cooking immediately. Next, grate the garlic on a plate against the tip of a fork. Alice Waters suggests this technique, and it really seems to get the best part of the garlic. She also suggests removing any green parts of the garlic; this eliminates unwanted bitterness. Finally, cut the meat in pieces similar in size to the potatoes (cover and refrigerate if not cooking immediately).

Cooking When preparing this dish for four, first chop the onion and grate the garlic. Then heat the oil and drop in the curry powder in a pot (or large frying pan). Once the powder begins to darken, and before it burns (about 40 seconds), stir in the onions and garlic 16

so that they are evenly coated with the oil and curry. Cook on a low flame for ten minutes until they soften and brown slightly. While the mixture is cooking, chop the meat into cubes. Add the meat to the mixture once the onions have browned. Add salt and pepper. When the meat has cooked, add water and bring to a boil. Chop the potatoes and add to the pot once the water is boiling. Cook for roughly 20-25 minutes, until the water boils down to a thickened sauce. The preparation changes for larger portions.

Begin by bringing the water to a boil, and add the potatoes. While the water is coming to a boil, in a large pan, pour enough olive oil to cover the bottom. Heat the oil, drop in the curry powder, stir in the onions and garlic and let cook for 8 to 10 minutes. When the onions begin to look cooked, add in the meat and stir. Add salt and pepper (note: it may be best to under-salt at the beginning, and then to add more salt to taste at the end, because the saltiness intensifies as the water reduces and the sauce thickens). Once the meat has been thoroughly browned, you may add it to the boiling potatoes. Cook further until the water reduces and the potatoes begin to disintegrate, which will cause the sauce to thicken up (this may take 20-40 minutes depending on how much is being cooked).

Salad with Capsicums and Verjus-Olive Oil Dressing For 40 For 4 4 cos large lettuce 1 small cos lettuce 4 red capsicums 1 small red capsicum 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil Verjus In Australia, Verjus has regained popularity thanks to Maggie Beer. None of us had ever used Verjus, which is the sweet but tart juice that comes from the first pressing of not so fully ripened grapes. This salad dressing actually came about by accident, after someone found it in the vinegar section of the supermarket and picked it up, thinking it was Verjus vinegar. The taste of the verjus olive oil dressing goes well with the sweetness of the red capsicums. To prepare the salad, simple cut the salad into edible-sized pieces and place in a glass or plastic bowl to be covered and chilled at a temperature below 5 ⁰C. Cut the red capsicums into small pieces, add to the salad and return to the refrigerator. Make a half-half mixture of Verjus and extra virgin olive oil. Just before serving, pour the dressing onto the salad and toss.

Apple and Pear Fruit Tart For 40 8 cups of flour 4 tsp. sugar 1 tsp. salt 48 tbsp. butter 28 tbsp water 4 kg’s of seasonal fruit (Tasmanian Snow Apples and Red D’anjou Pears) Optional: Cinnamon powder Brown sugar 17

For 4 1 cup of flour ½ teaspoon of sugar 1/8 teaspoon of salt 6 tbsp of butter 3 ½ teaspoons of water 500 grams/1 lb. of seasonal fruit (Tasmanian Snow Apples and Red D’anjou Pears)

8 litres Bullas Vanilla ice cream This fruit tart is made with a dough inspired by Alice Waters’ Apple tart. The tart is easy to make. First start with the dough. Mix flour, sugar, salt, and add 1/3 of the butter until you get something that resembles corn meal. Next add in the remaining butter. Dribble in the water until you can make a ball. Add more flour if the dough is too sticky, or more a little more water if it does not come together as a ball. Flatten out the dough on a baking sheet and place this in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Next cut the fruit into nice slices. Once the dough is sufficiently chilled, arrange the fruit into appealing patterns on the dough. Finally, you may sprinkle cinnamon powder and brown sugar on top. Bake for 45 minutes at about 190 ⠰C. Total Cost Estimated number of diners: 40. The total cost for this menu was 186.95 AUD (which at the May 23th, 2008 exchange rate of 1.05 AUD/USD comes to 178.05 USD).

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Saturday 7, June 2008 On this Saturday, we were aiming for simplicity. Dessert came first. Initially, it was supposed to be chocolate chip biscuits, but at the market it became banana chocolate chip biscuits when we saw ripened bananas at the market. What else can be simple?

Pizza. At least this pizza dough, which we got off the internet, is really simple; you don’t even need to let the dough rise. In the past, we have had some out of the ordinary toppings, including minced venison, but on this day, we used sausages, red capsicum and ham.

Pizza for 60 Tomato Sauce For 60 Garlic (1 head) 8 tins of tomatoes Olive oil

For 4 3 large cloves of garlic 1 tin of tomatoes

You can prepare the pizza sauce just as you might a Napoli sauce. First grate the garlic on a plate against the tip of a fork. Next open the tins of tomatoes. Then heat oil in the sauce pan, and then add the garlic. Let it cook about 30-45 seconds, and then add in the tomatoes. Cook this on a medium flame for about 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid cooks off and you are left with a fairly thick, but not dry or burned, sauce. Set the sauce aside.

Dough For 60 42 cups of flour (about 6.1 kg’s) 14 packets of yeast 1 ¾ cups of olive oil ¼ cup + 2 teaspoons salt ¾ cup + 2 tablespoons sugar 14 cups of warm water

For 4 3 cups of flour 1 packet of yeast 2 tbsp of oil 1 tsp of salt 1 tbsp of sugar 1 cup of warm water

This is a great pizza dough because it tastes good and because you don’t have to wait for the dough to rise. To make the dough, we used dry yeast, and stirred it into warm water. You may mix the remaining ingredients together, and then slowly pour in the yeast mixture. Form a dough ball that does not feel too sticky (if it feels too sticky then add a little flour). Take part of the dough and lay it down on a baking sheet, no more than about ¾ cm thick (it will rise, so if you want it thinner, maybe flatten it to about ½ to ¾ cm). You can do this by hand; you may also use a rolling pin at the end if you’d like to smooth things out, especially if you are running short of time. Preheat the oven to 190 ⁰C. Topping and Baking the Pizza For 60 3-3.5 kg’s of mozzarella Tomato sauce

For 4 500 grams of mozzarella Tomato sauce

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First ladle out the tomato sauce on the dough, then generously sprinkle the mozzarella on top of that. Then add toppings listed below. Bake the pizza in the oven at 190 ⁰C for 20 to 25 minutes.

Meat Pizza For 60 3 kg’s of sausages 200 grams of shaved ham

For 4 3 large sausages a few slices of shaved ham

We made 1.5 large pizzas using the sausages. The first time we tried this out, we used minced venison as a topping; no one seemed to have a problem with that. This time we just got a nice lamb sausage. Another small pizza was made from the 200 grams of shaved ham, which was added to the pizza after 15 minutes of cooking time, so that it does not dry out.

Hawaiian Pizza 50 grams of shaved ham 1 tin of pineapple rings We made a Hawaiian pizza with these ingredients. Lay out the pineapple rings and bake. After roughly 15 minutes, you may add the ham on top, so that it does not dry out.

Red Capsicum Pizza For 60 2.5 red capsicums

For 4 1 large capsicum

We made 2 large pizzas using the red capsicums. Simply lay them out on top of the cheese.

TIP: How to Fix up a Mistake with the Dough Unlike running a restaurant where you throw out any mistakes and start over, we tend to try to capitalize on the mistakes, simply because we try to buy enough food for that evening without leftovers, at least not leftovers with a short shelf-life. We were a bit short of baking sheets, and we made a mistake with the last two pizzas because the dough was too thick and the pans we used were too small. However, we had already laid the tomato sauce on top. In attempting to transfer the pizza dough to a larger baking sheet, it began to rip apart, as it was getting soggy. To correct this mistake, we just made a new ball of dough by mixing it all up together, not knowing if it would work, and added more flour until it had the same feel as the earlier dough. This gave us a tomato-infused crust. It was brilliant. The lesson learned from this experience is that when you don’t have the luxury of being able to throw out your mistakes, have an open mind to fix up your home cooking.

Salad with Capsicums and Balsamic-Olive Oil Dressing For 60 For 4 4 cos large lettuce 1 small cos lettuce 2.5 large red capsicums 1 small red capsicum 20

Extra virgin olive oil balsamic vinegar cracked pepper 1 tablespoon of raw sugar To prepare the salad, simple cut the salad into edible-sized pieces and place in a glass or plastic bowl to be covered and chilled at a temperature below 5 ⁰C. Cut the red capsicums into small pieces, add to the salad and return to the refrigerator. Make a half-half mixture of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. We added some pepper cracked in a pepper mill, and some sugar to cut the acidity of the vinegar (an alternative to this dressing is to add sugar and some mustard). Just before serving, pour the dressing onto the salad and toss.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin Tops with Vanilla Ice Cream This recipe is a derivative of the Jessica B. Harris’s (1991) banana bread recipe that is reported below.

Banana Chocolate Chip muffin tops For 60 18 ripe bananas 360 ml’s of butter 6 cups (1100 grams) of brown sugar 6 eggs 12 cups (1800 grams) of flour 6 tsp. baking powder 3 tsp. baking soda 6 tbsp. vanilla extract 400 grams chocolate chips

For 4 (with leftovers) 3 ripe bananas 60 ml’s of butter 1 cup of brown sugar 1 egg 2 cups of flour 1 tsp. of baking powder ½ tsp. of baking soda 1 tbsp of vanilla extract large handful of chocolate chips

While prepared just like cookies, they are called muffin tops because they are soft and rise to form what looks like the top of a muffin. Begin by lining baking sheets with baking paper. When preparing this for 60, line as many large baking sheets as you can find (we had 8) because you will be producing at least 120 (depending on the size pieces), and with only 12 per tray, you will need to rotate the trays.

To prepare the batter, in a bowl, take ¼ cup of butter and cut into pieces, pour in the light brown or natural sugar and the dark brown sugar, and mash together with a fork until it feels like wet sand (until there are no lumpy pieces of butter). Doing this task with a fork for 60 will take a long time, and an effective substitute is to use your hands (wearing disposable, dust-free, latex, food-handling gloves will be very helpful). Smash the three bananas with a fork (or by hand if preparing the version for 60) until the lumps are gone and add to the sugar-butter mixture and mix together.

Drop in the egg and mix (tip from America’s Test Kitchen: time permitting, remove the Chalazae, the small white wrinkled membrane that hangs from the yolk by hand, because in its raw state, the Chalazae keeps its form and will not blend into the batter). Sift in the flour, the teaspoon of baking powder and the baking soda, and mix.

Add the vanilla extract (to taste) and any remaining dry ingredients (blueberries, or chocolate chips, or other things) and mix. When preparing to cook for 60, consider

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that you may need to refrigerate the batter along the way as it may take a while to cook over 100 pieces.

Once the batter is prepared, lay out heaping tablespoons of the batter in alternating rows of two and three, roughly 5 or 6 for a normal sized sheet or 10-12 for a large baking sheet, to prevent the cookies from overlapping. Bake 16-18 minutes, until you can lightly press into the center of the cake and it springs back. Leave the muffin tops to cool. When ready to prepare dessert, simply spoon one or two scoops of vanilla ice cream over one cookie and lay a second muffin top next to it.

Total Cost Estimated number of diners: 60. The total cost for this menu was 218.35 AUD (which at the June 6th, 2008 exchange rate of 1.04 AUD/USD comes to 209.95 USD).

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Saturday 21, June 2008 Once again, there was little time to plan out the dinner, so we aimed for something simple. It started with a mango upside-down cake, which we hadn’t done in a while, and which is generally popular. So then it came down to thinking about what else might go with that. At the market, the butcher had some sweet chili mango sausages, which as a main should be nicely complemented by the mango upside-down cake for dessert, so then we just had to decide on the side-dishes. As it’s winter, we decided to make a ratatouille-like dish, we’ll call “patatouille.” Ratatouille has eggplant but on this day we bought purple potatoes, and since “patate” is French slang for potato, it seems an appropriate name.

Sausages and “Patatouille” Having purchased 10 kilos of rather large sausages, and as we had to serve about 50 people, the sausages were grilled and then cut diagonally in three pieces.

The ratatouille is rather simple, and the ingredients are listed below For 50 3.5 kg’s of tomatoes 3.5 kg’s of purple potatoes 4 kg’s of zucchini 1 large head of garlic Olive oil

For 4 4 large tomatoes (600 grams) 3 medium purple potatoes (400 grams) 4 zucchini (400 grams) 2 large cloves of garlic

To prepare, first cut the purple potatoes into small pieces. Then cut the zucchini into small pieces. Roughly chop the tomatoes as they will be cooked down. Grate the garlic against the tip of a fork. Heat a pan and pour in enough olive to cover the bottom of the pan. Shortly after, once the oil is hot, drop in the garlic and let it cook for 30 to 40 seconds. Then add the tomatoes, and them until they begin to break down. Then add the zucchini and potatoes. Cook on medium heat, stirring often until the tomato sauce thickens and potatoes are cooked (it will take about 45-50 minutes).

Salad with Tomatoes and Verjus-Olive Oil Dressing For 50 For 4 4 cos large lettuce 1 small cos lettuce 1 kg of tomatoes 1 large tomato 2 butter lettuces a few leaves of a butter lettuce Extra virgin olive oil Verjus Here again, the verjus-olive oil dressing goes well with the well with the lettuce and tomatoes. To prepare the salad, simple cut the salad into edible-sized pieces and place in a glass or plastic bowl to be covered and chilled at a temperature below 5 ⁰C. Slice the tomatoes and add to the salad and return to the refrigerator. Make a half-half mixture of Verjus and extra virgin olive oil. Just before serving, pour the dressing onto the salad and toss.

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Mango Upside-Down Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream For 50 3 large tins of mango slices in juice (815 g) 1350 grams (6 cups) of butter 1800 grams (7 cups) of raw sugar 18 eggs 2025 grams (9 cups) of organic self-rising flour ground cardamom (optional)

For 4 (with leftovers) 1 tin (400g) of mango slices 1350 grams (1 cup) of butter 1 1/3 cups of raw sugar 3 eggs 1 ½ cups of self-rising flour ground cardamom (optional)

This recipe is from the Book of Caribbean Cooking, McGraw Hill, and it is reported here just to demonstrate that by substituting one ingredient, (mangos for the pears used in the earlier recipe) you can get a different, more caramel-like dessert. First, preheat the oven to 180 ⁰C (350 F). Next pour out the contents of the mango tins.

Arrange the mangoes in the bottom of a clean cake pan. Mix 1kg of butter cut into pieces along with the raw sugar. Mix them up with a fork (or by hand; again, we use gloves) so that you get a wet sand-like mixture. Melt the remaining butter and sugar in a saucepan and pour around the mangoes in the cake pan. Beat the 18 eggs into a bowl, and you can try to remove the colozae, the little white membrane that attaches itself to the egg yolk; removing it makes it easier to mix the batter, because they do not break apart. Sift the 9 cups of flour into a bowl, and take a pinch of the flour and drop and stir into the beaten eggs. Then pour the eggs into the bowl with the buttersugar mixture and begin to stir. Once that’s done, pour in flour, a little at a time, and stir. The batter should be a little stiff at this point, so add about 18 tablespoons of the pear juice. We added ground cardamom to the final batter, which gives the cake a lemony taste. You may cook this for about 55-60 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when you lightly press into the center of the cake and it springs back. Once it’s done, you can separate the cake from the sides (if necessary) and let it sit for five minutes.

Then place a flat tray or plate over the top of the cake and flip it over, and remove the cake from the pan.

8 litres Bullas Vanilla ice cream Total Cost Estimated number of diners: 50. The total cost for this menu was 243.55 AUD (which at the June 20th, 2008 exchange rate of 1.05 AUD/USD comes to 231.95 USD).

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Saturday 5, July 2008 Having looked at the recent menus we decided to have roast beef, and the menu proceeded from here. Gnocchi are a great accompaniment to roast, and on this evening we faced our biggest challenge, as we replaced potato with Japanese pumpkin, which has more water content than potato, so the gnocchi were a bit more firm than they should be. The original fail-safe recipe from Maggie Beer’s Maggie’s Table is what is reported instead. Along with this would be salad. For dessert, ice cream sandwiches. The original plan was to make chocolate chip cookies to make the sandwiches, however, at the market one merchant had ripe blueberries, so we made a last minute change: blueberry cookies.

Rosemary Roast Beef For 50 10 kg’s of yearling beef small bunch of rosemary salt pepper Olive oil

For 4 800 grams of yearling beef 2 sprigs of rosemary

This is a really simple recipe for roast meat. You may substitute pork or lamb in this recipe. First, heat the oven to 230 ⁰C (450 F). Next, make a half-half mixture of cracked pepper and salt. Then remove rosemary leaves from two 6 cm long sprigs.

Finally, pour olive oil over the meat, enough to lightly coat it, pour the rosemary and salt pepper mixture on top, and lightly rub into the meat. Place the meat in the oven and after five minutes turn the oven down to about 180 ⁰C (350 F) so that you cook it about 30 minutes per kilo.

Salad with Cucumber and Balsamic and Olive Oil Dressing For 50 4 cos large lettuces 1.5 kg of cucumbers 2 mignonette lettuces Extra virgin olive oil balsamic vinegar 2 tablespoons of dijon mustard (optional) 2 tablespoons of raw sugar (option)

For 4 1 small cos lettuce 1 medium sized cucumber a few leaves of mignonette lettuce

1 teaspoon of dijon mustard 1 teaspoon of raw sugar

The salad dressing, described below will go well with roast meat. To prepare the salad, cut the lettuce into edible-sized pieces and place in a glass or plastic bowl to be covered and chilled at a temperature below 5 ⁰C. Slice the cucumbers and add to the salad and return to the refrigerator. To go along with the salad, the plan was originally to make a balsamic-mustard-sugar dressing, which was popularized by Martha Stewart. However, we forgot to get mustard, so we simplified the dressing to just balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Simply combine the oil and vinegar (roughly a half-half mixture), then add the mustard and sugar, and stir to get a light brown dressing.

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Gnocchi in Tomato Salsa For 50 7.5 kg’s of potatoes 3 kg’s flour Olive oil salt

For 4 1 large potato (500 grams) 200 grams of flour Olive oil

This recipe is a simplification of Maggie Beer’s from Maggie’s Table (the missing ingredient is the basil, and we replace the butter with olive oil). The key to the recipe is to have a 500g:200g ratio of potato (or other similarly waxy starch) to flour. First, boil the potatoes. Meanwhile, pour out the flour on a space large enough to do the work. One the potatoes are cooked, crush the potatoes over the flour, using a ricer, or other similar instrument that will remove the lumps. Pour a little olive oil, and a little salt to taste, onto the potato. Then begin to mix the ingredients to get a soft, unsticky dough (if it’s too sticky, add more flour, and if it’s too dry, add a little more oil).

Finally, roll out the dough to get a “sausage” 1 cm in diameter, and then using a fork, or pastry scraper, cut the sausage into 2 cm long bits of dough. Bring water to a boil, and drop in the gnocchi. After 1 to 2 minutes, the gnocchi should begin to rise to the surface of the pot, at which point you can spoon them out.

Salsa For 50 3 kg’s of tomatoes 1 head of garlic Salt cracked pepper olive oil

For 4 3 large tomatoes (750 grams) 2 cloves of garlic

Grate the garlic on a plate against the tip of a fork. Heat olive oil in a pan, and drop in the garlic. Cut the tomatoes in two pieces (as the will disintegrate while cooking).

Blueberry Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches The batter for these cookies is also derived from Jessica B. Harris’s Banana Bread recipe. In this case, we take out the bananas, and triple the egg quantity.

For 50 (with leftovers) 360 ml’s of butter 6 cups (1100 grams) of brown sugar 18 eggs 12 cups (1800 grams) of self-rising flour 6 tbsp. vanilla extract 4 punnets of blueberries, rinsed

For 4 (with leftovers) 60 ml’s of butter 1 cup of brown sugar 3 eggs 2 cups of self-rising flour 1 tbsp vanilla extract 1 generous handful of blueberries

To prepare these cookies simply follow the recipe for the chocolate chip muffin tops.

Finally, just before baking, add in the blueberries, to minimize crushing. Take soup spoons, or tablespoons of batter and lay them out on a baking sheet, lined with baking paper, with sufficient space, roughly 5 or 6 for a normal sized sheet or 10-12 for a large baking sheet, to prevent the cookies from overlapping. Bake 16-18 minutes, 26

until you can lightly press into the center of the cake and it springs back. Leave the cookies to the side. When ready to prepare dessert, simply spoon to scoops of vanilla ice cream over one cookie and cover with the second.

8 litres Bullas Vanilla ice cream Total Cost Estimated number of diners: 50. The total cost for this menu was 235.40 AUD (which at the July 4th, 2008 exchange rate of 1.04 AUD/USD comes to 226.35 USD).

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Saturday 19, July 2008 The challenge we faced this evening was that another group was also using the kitchen at the same time, and with considerable time and space constraints, we adjusted the menu accordingly. The menu began earlier in the week with an inspiration to do chocolate covered dried apricots, which can be prepared in five minutes. For the mains, the next challenge was to find something quickly done. The butcher we were going to has sliced goat top-side, and with that we would make a penne dish, and salad.

Sliced Goat Topside Our numbers had been up, two weeks in a row, so this time we increased our meet purchase to 11 kilos.

For 55 11 kg’s of sliced goat top-side Salt Pepper Olive oil

For 4 800 grams of sliced goat top-side

Because the meat is already sliced, this is fast and easy. First, heat the oven to 230 ⁰C (450 F). Next, make a half-half mixture of cracked pepper and salt. Pour the salt and pepper mixture over the meat and then pour the olive oil over that. Place the meat in the oven and after five minutes turn the oven down to about 180 ⁰C (350 F) so that you cook it about 25 to 30 minutes.

Salad with Grapes and Verjus and Olive Oil Dressing For 55 For 4 4 cos large lettuces 1 small cos lettuce 2 mignonette lettuces a few leaves of mignonette lettuce 3 kg’s of black grapes 400 grams of black grapes Extra virgin olive oil verjuice To prepare the salad, cut the lettuce into edible-sized pieces and place in a glass or plastic bowl to be covered and chilled at a temperature below 5 ⁰C. Pull the grapes off of the vine, rinse in cold water, and add to the lettuce. Make a half-half mixture of Verjus and extra virgin olive oil. Just before serving, pour the dressing onto the salad and toss.

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Penne with Brocollini For 55 5 kg’s of dried penne 5 bunches of broccolini 1 head of Garlic olive oil salt pepper

For 4 500 grams of dried penne 4-5 stalks of broccolini 2 cloves of garlic

This recipe was actually inspired by a photo of “Penne with Rapini, Almonds and Currants” (see page 196 of Maggie’s Table). In this case, we use broccolini instead of rapini and omit most of the other ingredients. First, boil water for pasta. Next, grate the garlic against the tip of a fork. Rinse the broccolini in cold water and cut in pieces about the same length as the penne; keep the tops of the broccolini as well. In a pan, quickly heat the garlic in olive oil (not more than 1 minute) and stir to avoid having it harden. Then drop in the broccolini and continue stirring. When the water has boiled add salt to raise the boiling temperature of the water and stir before adding the pasta.

Remove the pasta about 1 minute before you normally would, drain in a colander and then pour it into the broccolini-garlic mixture. Add more olive oil if the pasta is not coated, and stir until it has a cooked texture.

Chocolate-covered and Plain Dried Apricots with Ice Cream For 55 250 grams of cooking chocolate 70-80 dried [Turkish] apricots

For 4 50 grams of cooking chocolate 15 dried apricots

Strike the chocolate while it is still in the package with the dull edge of a cleaver to break it so that it takes less time to melt. Once melted, simply add in the dried apricots, and stir to make sure each one is completely coated. Once done, transfer to a pan or baking sheet and place in the freezer for 20-25 minutes, so that the chocolate hardens again. Serve with uncoated apricots and ice cream.

Total Cost Estimated number of diners: 55. The total cost for this menu was 265.55 AUD (which at the July 18th, 2008 exchange rate of 1.03 AUD/USD comes to 257.82 USD).

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Saturday 2, August 2008 On this particular Saturday, we were a bit under-staffed, but with great teamwork, we managed to serve on time. The main dish will be roast veal and potatoes, along with a salad.

Roast Veal For 55 Veal Fillet 11kg Red Wine vinegar (half a bottle) Salt & Pepper Olive Oil

For 4 800 grams of veal fillet

Preheat the oven to 230 ⁰C (450 F), as the meat will be seared in the oven at this temperature for the first five minutes. Second, place the meat on an oven rack and lightly coat the surface of the meat with vinegar. Third, coat the meat with salt and pepper (we used about 1 cup of a half & half mixture of salt and pepper). Finally, pour and rub olive oil over the surface of the meat so that you get a light coating that hardly drips oil. Once the meat has been prepared, it can go into the oven for five minutes at 230 ⁰C (450 F); then turn the oven down to about 180 ⁰C (350 F) so that you cook it about 30 minutes per kilo (the cuts of meat we had were cut roughly into 1.5 kg pieces). Note, if you’re overstuffing your oven, it helps to add an additional 20 ⁰C to the cooking temperature.

Roasted Potatoes For 55 Potatoes (15kg) Olive Oil

For 4 Potatoes (1 kg)

Peel and halve the potatoes. Preheat oven to 180. Cook for roughly 1½ hours.

Salad with Blood Oranges and Celery and Sesame Oil For 55 For 4 10 blood oranges 1 blood orange 3 cos lettuces 1 small cos lettuce 2 large celery 2 large celery stalks Small bottle of sesame oil This salad was inspired by the “Sicilian Fennel and Orange Salad” recipe (see p. 265) from the cookbook called Easy Italian by Ursula Ferrigno. Cut the salad into ediblesized pieces and place in a glass or plastic bowl to be covered and chilled at a temperature below 5 ⁰C. Cut the oranges in slices and then pull wedges apart. Slice the celery at 1cm intervals. Finally, add sesame oil and mix together.

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Pear and Cherry Fruit Tart For 55 8 cups of flour 4 tsp. sugar 1 tsp. salt 48 tbsp. butter 28 tbsp water 12 Bosc pears 800 grams of cherries

For 4 1 cup of flour ½ teaspoon of sugar 1/8 teaspoon of salt 6 tbsp of butter 3 ½ teaspoons of water 1.5 Bosc pears 2 handfuls of cherries

8 litres Bullas Vanilla ice cream This is prepared just as with the apple pear tart.

Total Cost Estimated number of diners: 55. The total cost for this menu was 215.95 AUD (which at the August 1st, 2008 exchange rate of 1.07 AUD/USD comes to 201.82 USD).

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Saturday 16, August 2008 On this particular Saturday, we were a bit under-staffed, but with great teamwork, we managed to serve on time.

Pasta with a Lamb Mince & Mushroom Sauce For 55 Minced lamb 6kg 6 kg’s of mushrooms Salt & Pepper Olive Oil

For 4 500 grams of minced lamb 500 grams of mushrooms

This lamb-based pasta sauce differs from the sausage-based sauce.

Turkish Style Zucchini There is a recipe for green beans that is often served in Turkish cuisine. So you can try this recipe with green beans, but here we replaced the green beans with zucchini and added some basil.

For 55 3 kg’s of tomatoes 6 kg’s of zucchini 1 large head of garlic Olive oil

For 4 3 large tomatoes 500 grams of zucchini (about 3) 2 cloves of garlic

To prepare, first cut the tomatoes into small pieces. Then cut the zucchini into small pieces. Roughly chop the tomatoes as they will be cooked down. Grate the garlic against the tip of a fork. Heat a pan and pour in enough olive to cover the bottom of the pan. Shortly after, once the oil is hot, drop in the garlic and let it cook for 30 to 40 seconds. Then add the zucchini and potatoes. Cook on medium heat, stirring often until the tomato sauce thickens and potatoes are cooked (it will take more than 30 minutes).

Banana Bread with Ice Cream For 55 (with leftovers) 18 ripe bananas 360 ml’s of butter 6 cups (1100 grams) of brown sugar 6 eggs 12 cups (1800 grams) of flour 6 tsp. baking powder 3 tsp. baking soda 6 tbsp. vanilla extract

For 4 (with leftovers) 3 ripe bananas 60 ml’s of butter 1 cup of brown sugar 1 egg 2 cups of flour 1 tsp. of baking powder ½ tsp. of baking soda 1 tbsp of vanilla extract

Coat a cake pan with butter (perhaps from what’s left on the foil), and lay some wax paper inside the pan (when preparing for 4, choose a 9 in. x 9 in. pan, for 60 choose a deep dish food pan approximately 20-3/4" long x 12-3/4" wide x 2-1/2" deep).

Excluding the chocolate chips (though they can be included here too), the banana bread batter is prepared just as for the banana chocolate chip muffin tops. Pour the 32

mixture into the pan and bake for 45-50 minutes at 180 Celsius/350 Fahrenheit. Near the end of the baking time, insert a knife into the center and if no batter sticks to it.

When scaling up the portions for 60, the center is often not be sufficiently baked after 50 minutes, so place a loose sheet of baking paper or aluminum foil on top of the bread (without tucking it in) and continue cooking, until the center is sufficiently cooked (this can sometimes take 20-40 minutes, depending on how much the bread has risen).

8 litres Bullas Vanilla ice cream Total Cost Estimated number of diners: 55. The total cost for this menu was 252.10 AUD (which at the August 15th, 2008 exchange rate of 1.15 AUD/USD comes to 219.22 USD).

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Saturday 30, August 2008 On this particular Saturday, we were a bit under-staffed, but with great teamwork, we managed to serve on time.

Chicken Soup For 55 2 kg’s of chicken drumsticks 1 kg of boneless chicken thighs 1 bunch of spring onion/scallion 300 grams of shitake mushrooms 2kg’s of potatoes 1 kg of Thai noodles Salt & Pepper

For 4 2 chicken drumsticks 1 boneless thigh 1 spring onion 2 shitake mushrooms 2 potatoes 1 packet of Thai noodles

Boil a pot of water. Slice the spring onion into small pieces. When the water boils, add salt. Then add the spring onions and the potatoes. Next break the chicken drumstick bones and add them to the soup (this will give more flavor to the soup).

Slice shitake mushrooms and the chicken thighs and keep them refrigerated until the end.

Yearling Roast Steaks For 55 11kg’s of yearling roast Salt & Pepper Olive Oil

For 4 800 grams of year roast

Roasting meats can be tough if cooked like a steak. One trick to prevent that from happening is to keep the meat at room temperature for a before cooking (but well before the two hour window, perhaps 40 minutes). Turn on the grill to high and cook about six minutes on each side.

Roast Potatoes and Spinach For 55 3.5 kg’s of spinach 10 kg’s of potatoes Salt Pepper Olive oil

For 4 1 bunch of fresh spinach 1 kg of potatoes

To prepare, first fill the sink enough water to soak the spinach to remove any excess dirt and sand. Remove the ends of the stem and any damaged leaves. Rinse the potatoes and cut them into small pieces. Heat a pan and pour in enough olive to cover the bottom of the pan. After the oil is hot, drop in the potatoes. Add pepper, and stir frequently at the start, then turn down the flame and cover. Cook for about 70 minutes (40 minutes for a small portion). Just before the potatoes finish cooking, in a separate pan heat some olive oil and drop in the spinach leaves, just long enough to heat them with letting them wilt.

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Pear Chocolate Chip Muffins with Ice Cream For 55 3 tins of pear halves in juice (815grams) 1350 grams (6 cups) of butter 450grams (2 cups) of dark brown sugar 1350 grams (6 cups) of light brown sugar 18 eggs 2025 grams (9 cups) of organic self-rising flour 250 grams of chocolate chips chips

For 4 1 tin of pear halves (400 grams) 1 cup of butter 1/3 cup of dark brown sugar 1 cup of light brown sugar 3 eggs 1 ½ cups of self-rising flour generous handful of chocolate

8 litres Bullas Vanilla ice cream The base for the batter used to make the muffins is identical to the Tazziberry-Pear Upside Down cake, except that Tazziberries are replaced with chocolate chips. First, preheat the oven to 180 ⁰C (350 F). Next pour out the tins of pears into a bowl (a little juice will be reserved to moisten the batter at the end). Then arrange the pears in the bottom of a clean cake pan. After that, take about 1kg of butter and break it into pieces and pour into a large bowl along with the light brown sugar. Mix them up with a fork (or by hand; yes we use gloves) so that you get something that looks and feels like wet sand. In a saucepan, melt the remaining butter and dark brown sugar (an equal amount of light brown sugar will work), and then pour this over the pears into the cake pan. Next break open 18 eggs, and you can try to remove the colozae, the little white membrane that attaches itself to the egg yolk; removing it makes it easier to mix the batter, because they do not break apart. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.

Sift the 9 cups of flour into a bowl, and take a pinch of the flour and drop and stir into the beaten eggs. Then pour the eggs into the bowl with the butter-sugar mixture and begin to stir. Once that’s done, pour in flour, a little at a time, and stir. The batter should be a little stiff at this point, so add about 18 tablespoons of the pear juice. You may add the chocolate chips at this point. Pour the batter into greased muffin trays.

You may cook this for about 20 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when you press into the center of the muffin and it springs back. Once it’s done, you can let it sit for five minutes. Then place a flat tray or plate over the top of the cake and flip it over, and remove the cake from the pan.

Total Cost Estimated number of diners: 55. The total cost for this menu was 223.75 AUD (which at the August 29th, 2008 exchange rate of 1.17 AUD/USD comes to 191.24 USD).

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Other Recipes We have tried a number of other recipes, and a few of them are reported here.

Sweet Potato Soup This recipe is a slight adaptation of one that appears in Mackley’s (2000) the Book of Caribbean Cooking (see page 14). While that recipe recommends pureeing the soup before serving, it can also be served without, which is good to know if you do not have a food processor.

For 55 6 tablespoons of olive oil 16 onions 2 large bunches of celery 2 kg’s of sweet potato 4 kg’s of tomatoes 10 blood oranges 8 litres of water Bush spice mix

For 4 1 tablespoon of olive oil 2 onions 2 celery stalks 1 small sweet potato 3 large tomatoes 1 blood orange 750 ml/3.75 cups water

Dice the onions, and cut the celery in thin slices, then cover them and leave in the cold until ready to begin. Cut the sweet potatoes in small cubes, and roughly chop the tomatoes. Finally, juice the oranges, and you may use a little of the rind to enhance the flavor. When ready, in a large pot heat the oil and drop in the onions along and celery for about ten minutes. When the onions have browned Minestrone Soup This is a simple soup suggested by Mark Bittman.

For 55 2 litre’s of vegetable stock 2 kg’s of tomatoes, chopped 2 large bunches of celery, sliced 2 kg’s of soup pasta 8 litres of water Fresh thyme Fresh rosemary salt pepper

For 4 250/ml’s of vegetable stock 2 medium tomatoes 2 celery stalks 250 grams of soup pasta 750ml’s/3.75 cups of water

Heat the vegetable stock in a large pot, and add the chopped tomatoes. Add four litres of boiling water. While the stock is coming to a boil, cut the celery in thin slices, and add them to the stock.

Roast Vegetables There’s a really simple way to roast vegetables that Mark Bittman has written about, and yes, it is really simple. Bittman’s recipe has more eggplant, and includes garlic, 36

but the recipe here reflects the fact that the proportions can be easily changed to taste and in response to available produce.

For 55 20 tomatoes (3 kg’s) 8 large capsicums (3 kg’s) 20 zucchini (3 kg’s) 5 small eggplants (2 kg’s) 10 red onions 10 white onions Fresh rosemary Olive oil

For 4 1 large tomato 1 small capsicum 1 large zucchini 1 large eggplant 1 red onion

The first step is to preheat the oven to 200. Then coat the roasting pan with olive oil.

Dice the onions and keep in a glass bowl. Cut the zucchini into pieces about the length and width of penne, cover and keep refrigerated until ready to serve. Slice the eggplant at one centimeter thick intervals. Chop the tomatoes and store in a glass bowl. Cut the capsicums in one centimeter wide strips. When all the ingredients are prepared, begin to layer them in the pan; the order doesn’t matter. Pour a little more olive oil over the vegetables and add salt and pepper to taste as well as the fresh rosemary. Cook for about one hour, occasionally pressing down on the vegetables with a spatula. When the vegetables are tender you may remove them from the oven and serve.

Strawberries and Mint This is a really simple recipe that goes well with ice cream. Cut the strawberries, dice the mint and mix into the strawberries.

For 50 12 punnets of strawberries 1 bunch of mint

For 4 1 punnet of strawberries handful of mint

Poached Pears This recipe came about because our initial intention was to serve fruit salad, and while the pears seemed ripe, after testing them, they were quite hard. So, on this occasion we poached the pears. Fill the pot with enough water to cover the bottom 2.5 inches (roughly 2 inches for the smaller portion). Simply bring water to a boil, add sugar, stir and add pears.

For 55 pears (3 kg’s) 1 cup of raw sugar Water

For 4 4 pears 2 tablespoons of raw sugar

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References Beer, Maggie (2005) Maggie’s Table. Camberwell, Victoria, Australia: Lantern.

Ferrigno, Ursula (2005) Easy Italian. London, UK: Quadrille Publishing Limited.

CFT. (2003) Food Safety Training, Level 1: Hospitality, Retail, Health & Food Processing. ____. Food Safety Training, Level 2.

Harris, Jessica, B. (1991) Sky Juice and Flying Fish: Traditional Caribbean Cooking. New York, NY: Fireside.

Hay, Donna. (2007) Simple Essentials: Chocolate. Sydney: Australia: Harper Collins Publishers.

Mackley, Lesley. (2000) The Book of Caribbean Cooking. New York, NY: HP Books.

McNamee, Thomas. (2007) Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution. New York, NY: The Penguin Press.

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