200 offsite highend Kosher

well, I got a call today asking for me to bid on a Kiddish (Brunch adn a Kosher offsite dinner....same day. Big bucks.

Brunch: Salmon pasta salad with asparagus, capers, cucumbers and buttermilk dressing

Green salad

Fruit salad

bagels, rolls, cream cheese, butter

Desserts....assorted bars, cookies and dipped pretzels.
Tea and lemonade

200 folks (50 kids, 150 adults)

Dinner cooked at the synagog then taken over to a building without a kitchen.....so Stations relating to dance.....
*Israeli-Falafel
pitas, set up
Hummos
Baba ganoush
pita chips
Tabbouli

Ballet_ Blini station with sour cream, salmon eggs and salmon
Crepe station with fruit
Pavlovas

Salsa_ Quesadilla wiht 3 salsas, med hot, corn/blackbean, mild
Chips
Cheese dip
Guacamole

Hula_ Tropical Green salad with hearts of palm, roasted pineapple, red pepper and Mango Dressing
Krab Rangoon with dip
Tropical fruit in pineapple boats

Belly Dancing....jelly bellys and desserts (not sure on cake)

Smoothy station

***So this is a big one for me, offsite and moving of food and cooking Kosher too.....for large quantities of people.

Equipment suggestions?

Shroom, Super!!!!

hey let me think on this for a moment,But!!! take the butter out from the brunch (not kosher ;))
cc

Butter is too Kosher....dairy CC....salmon is considered parve.
Both meals are Dairy.
A friend suggested buying new microwaves to reheat falfels and rangoons...the rest are on propane or induction burners. I don't have a microwave (as of the last 5 years) how do they do in reheating fried shtuff? Remember Kosher offsite equipment, microwaves are $50 new.

Shroom, My apoligies....You are right.

When I saw Butter I reacted before reading the whole post.
Sorry
cc

Congrats! Sounds like a great gig! I only worked two Kosher events and they were both glatt kosher, so we had to have the rabbi there - had to cover surfaces of the cooking kitchen with butcher paper, and buy new equipment and utensils - what a nightmare!

Microwaves are yucky for reheating fried food - they won't stay crispy, and turn to mush. Instead of crab rangoon, what about a 'crab rangoon salad' or something on a pita chip? I think the falafels would reheat okay, they just wouldn't be as crispy.

At the catering company I work at now, we reheat in in tall "hot boxes with sterno. I have found that this is the best way to reheat fried foods (not great but acceptable). I lay them out on a sheet tray, single layer, then take 6 sternos and put them about 4 notches down from this. The sternos really heat up the sheet tray (do not put paper down under the fried foods or it will ignite). I do not know if this way is completely kosher or not, though. It is tricky to do frying onsite as many pieces of portable equipment can't heat the oil fast enough on recovery.

I don't want to fry in the new building, I do want to reheat to a crisp. What about heat lamps, or a portable confection oven?
This one is bringing in enough income for me to buy new equipment, within reason....$1500 or so.
No Kosher equipment rentals....I'm stepping out of the box on this one. I cook in the woods, I cook at a girl scout camp, I cook in the street....but white linen with no kitchen is definately a new venture. Staffing is coming along nicely.

I think you'll get a lot more future use out of a portable convection, plus, as marmalady mentioned, fried foods don't fare well in microwaves.

The menu sounds like a lot of fun, and a lot of prep!!

I have a lot of experience with kosher (dairy and non), so please ask if you have any questions.

Also, I did a bellydance cake a couple of years ago. I gave the cake a border of fondant gold coins, attached by a gold royal icing chain. It was funky and fun, and easy to do.

Fogive my ignorrance but what is parve??

I'd go for the portable convection oven if you can afford one - it will do the job, and I think in the long run you'd get more bang for the buck with it. It's a quite dandy little piece of equipment! I've used them at several jobs. Just be sure you get one big enough to handle larger items.

Isa - To my knowledge, parve is a term used to denote that a food has been prepared in accordance with the Jewish dietary laws; however, there are different 'degrees' of parve, and that's where it gets totally confusing! At one of the glatt Kosher events I worked, my boss had gotten butter that had the 'parve' stamp on it, but the rabbi who was supervising said it wasn't the right one - she had to make a drive 25 miles the day before the event to get the right kind of butter!

Maybe some of our Jewish friends on-site can clarify this a little better!

Parve simply means that it is neutral; neither dairy nor meat.

Butter would never fall into this category, but margarine may, depending on how it's made.

Other things that are parve, for instance, would be starches, vegetables, and fish (surprisingly).

Glatt kosher only refers to a degree of supervision with meat. So you couldn't call a dairy meal glatt kosher.

Marmalady, you're not totally off the mark: What you are describing is kosher supervision in general. Kosher has many different organizations that supervise. Some are more strict than others. So if a rabbi doesn't approve of the organization that supervised, he may demand that it have a different mark on the package. Some kosher symbols you may be familiar with are the O-U (with the U inside the O), and O-K. There are others as well.

Can't you keep the food hot in a warmer? Fried foods do quite well uncovered in a warmer. If you can, you might be able to rent a food warmer and have it delivered to the synagogue with enough time for you and the rabbi to make sure it's kosher for the event. You can do this in conjunction with the party planner.

If you decide to go with other pieces of rental equipment, I think the same applies.

Kuan

Remember it takes place SAT....so no cooking pre party, it will have to be heated either after dark at the Synagog or at the party location a few miles away....again in a new building that has no kitchen!!!
So all cooking takes place prior to Sat, then gets reheated Sat night....or cooked in the case of blinis, crepes. Alot of logistics involved.
I've been teaching a kosher student privately for about 3 years....3 sets of pots and pans/2 dish washers.....parve, dairy and meat. I don't find it confusing at all, just ground rules for creating....though the extreme low-fat drives me around the bend.

Thanks Momo & Marmalady, I think I understand.

I ran it by a buddy that used to cook on the road for the Grateful Dead umpteen years ago. ....boy does he have stories. anyway he said make the rangoon out of fillo and put black and plain sesame seeds between the layers.....this sounds like a much better winner to me than frying and fussing with reheated wrappers. I still have not heard back on the bid, so cross your fingers for me.

Shroomgirl I did crab ragoon (wontons of all sorts, very popular) ALL the time catering, not a problem. We always deep fried at base kitchen, for obvious reasons. We had sucess holding them days in the cooler then re-heating. They also freeze well. BUT the trick with ragoon when your not fresh frying is using less cream cheese and more crab (imiation to supliment works well to).

We always brought our own table top convection ovens. Found that nothing compared when it came to crisping up and cooking quickly h.d.'s. Plus they vent well and don't over heat.

As far as using a warming cave. You can make your own like Pete suggested. We did that often holding entree's, using the caves we owned and used to transport our trayed food in the van. BUT no matter what you do caves build steam and that doesn't work with crisp items! Plus you can't go in and out with-out too much heat loss.

What we did....I had a girl that heated our h.d.s on the other side of the kitchen or the other side of the building (depending upon what was needed). Using 2 small convections you can handle 500 people if she knows what she's doing. That frees me (you in this case) to cook the entree, etc...carefree from the h.d.s

As far as doing the h.d.'s in the convection....they won't hold a reg. 1/2 sheet pan. You need to buy homemaker sized jelly roll pans. But these ovens and trays work GREAT and will be used on ALL your parties in the future. When it comes to reheating, you don't go from a cold state to a hot one in one step. Unforunately your re-heating a couple time (BUT done right, you actually don't loose the quality of a fried item)....warm them a bit, then place them in foil pans ontop of your convections to keep them warm. Then full temp. heat and pass. Hope I made sense....?

P.S. Your menu sounds great! Also phyllo is really popular...but keep your fillings moist...we still prebaked and kept warm until final cook and pass. You won't have the time to cook them start to end with a three trayed convection in a one shot cooking method and pump out the volume you'll need.

Thanks Wendy!! Just the info I needed. There are big logistical challenges with cooking on Sat for a Kosher party. I figured I'd use convection ovens a bunch.

CRAB? Oh, no!

Just one note to add: CRAB IS NOT KOSHER, so you will have to use all "imitation crab" for the Rangoon.

Only fish with scales can be considered kosher, and no scavengers. And no crustaceans or shellfish, so no crab, shrimp, lobster, clams, oysters, etc.

Schroom called them Krab cakes (I think) and I knew what she meant... Sorry it was me who blurred the lines. Of course, no shell fish....the imitation crab ragoons actually turn out better than fresh in this application.

I knew that :) No actually I didn't. I was wondering myself. Thanks W for clearing that up.

Kuan

POOOOOOP! some other caterer they had previously used for offsite got it....this would have been a REALLY B$$G one for me.
Sooooo the next that is mine is Feb 20th 300 people (legislators, I guess they count) 120 miles away in a bldg with a kitchen, donated farmer foods and very limited funds. A challenge but also
not the kind of work I wanna propogate....does not pay my bills for the amount of energy expended... I'll post when I find out what the donated foods are....Mo farm foods of course.

***Oh yeah, for those of you that are newbies, I've taught Kosher cooking for 3 1/2 years to different orthodox groups....and weekly to a 3 sets of pots and pans student. Pretty good for a gentile.