How to ensure that all of your recipes finish at one time.
It is so disappointing to spend and hour or so cooking only to have one or more of your dishes cold when it is time to serve. Most of us don’t have warming drawers and even if we do, frankly, food tastes best just when it is freshly prepared. With a little bit of prep work and practice, you will have no problems serving fresh and hot food to your family and loved ones.
1.) The first thing that you have to do is select a menu that doesn’t have three things that must all be done in the last five minutes before serving. A perfect example of a difficult dish to serve piping hot to several people is Eggs Benedict. While no one component of this dish is difficult to create, it is difficult to time everything to finish at the exact moment. The four components are the 1.) The toasted English Muffin 2.) The browned Canadian Bacon 3.) The perfectly poached egg 4.) Silky smooth Hollandaise Sauce. If you try to reheat an English Muffin, it gets hard. Canadian bacon can be reheated with no problems. Reheating a poached egg will result in a yolk that is overcooked and hard and reheating Hollandaise Sauce will usually result in breaking your sauce (it will separate.)
2.) Read your recipes carefully making sure to note if the recipe calls for any of the ingredients to be prepared in advance. (chopped, diced, sliced, cooked and crumbled)
3.) Think about ways you can multitask on cooking ingredients. For example, if you are making twice baked potatoes, cook your bacon on a sheet pan at the same time that you are baking the potatoes. And if the chicken dish that you are preparing along side requires poached and diced chicken, go ahead and throw that on the stove at the same time.
4.) Print out a copy of the Cooking Prep Timetable and begin filling out each recipe time frame based on your recipes. It is best to fill in the names of the recipes so you don’t get confused during crunch time.
The main dish is an Asian inspired Chicken Satay with a delicious Peanut Dipping Sauce. This menu also serves up some simple jasmine rice that once you add to the steamer, cooks for 25 minutes. The last dish is simply sautéing up a bag of stir fried veggies and tossing with a little bit of Teriyaki sauce. Because you are using precut veggies, it only takes 20 minutes total to make this dish.
Let’s start with the chicken satay. Reading through the recipe, you can see that it is actually recipes, one for the chicken satay, which uses a marinade and another recipe for the peanut sauce.
Chicken Satay
Ingredients
- 1 cup plain yogurt
- teaspoon ginger freshly grated
- teaspoon garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon curry powder
- 1 1/2 pounds Chicken breast sliced into long thin strips
- 1 bunch cillantro
- 1 cup crunchy peanut butter
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 2 teaspoon red chili paste
- 2 tablespoon brown sugar
- 2 lime
- 1/2 cup hot water
- Vegetable oil, for grilling
- Butter lettuce leaves
- Fresh cilantro
- 1/4 peanuts chopped
Instructions
- Combine the yogurt, ginger, garlic, and curry powder in a shallow mixing bowl, stir to combine. Place the chicken strips in the yogurt marinade and gently toss until well coated. Cover and let the chicken marinate in the refrigerator for at up to 2 hours.Thread the chicken pieces onto the soaked skewers working the skewer in and out of the meat, down the middle of the piece, so that it stays in place during grilling. Place a grill pan over medium heat and brush it with oil to prevent the meat from sticking. Grill the chicken satays for 3 to 5 minutes on each side, until nicely seared and cooked through. Serve the satays on a platter lined with lettuce leaves and cilantro; accompanied by a small bowl of peanut sauce on the side.Peanut Sauce:Combine the peanut butter, soy sauce, red chili paste, brown sugar, and lime juice in a food processor or blender. Puree to combine. While the motor is running, drizzle in the hot water to thin out the sauce, you may not need all of it. Pour the sauce into a nice serving bowl and garnish with the chopped peanuts. Serve with chicken satay.
First, start with the chicken. It needs to be sliced into strips and then placed in a marinade for two hours. It would take me about 30 minutes to slice the chicken into thin strips and place it into the marinade. This needs to marinate for 2 hours. So, you need to do this at least 2 1/2 hours ahead of time. Write this in the Earlier column.
Because it looks like the most lengthy recipe is the chicken skewers, you will want to start your meal prep with soaking the bamboo skewers. since they need 15-20 minutes to soak, this is a great time to make the peanut sauce. Letting this sauce sit for a while will not compromise the taste or texture.
You will need to start putting your chicken on the skewers at this time. This step usually takes me about 15 minutes. you may need to interrupt the skewering process to start your rice.
By looking at your recipes you know that your rice will take about 25 minutes to cook, so at thirty minutes ahead of your finish time put your rice in the steamer and turn it on. Make sure that you get the rice cooking 25 minutes before serving time.
This is a great time to start the grill. When this is on, continue with your skewing process and put the chicken on the grill 15-20 minutes before serving time. (The lesser time if you have sliced your chicken pieces thinly. )
Once they are on the grill, come in a sauté/ stir-fry your veggies> I generally start mine on high heat in a little oil, then add about 1/2 cup of water and cover so that they can steam and get a little soft (about 5 minutes). Add your sauce of choice, I love teriyaki or soy-vay!
Grab your chicken off of the grill and put it directly onto the serving plate. Put your rice and veggies in serving bowls and you are ready! Remember to serve with the peanut sauce that you made at the beginning.
