By popular demand, I just posted the noodle recipe from last night.
My only regret is that I didn't make more. People came back looking for seconds on a number of things, but noodles seemed to be the winner of "we want more." I'm sure I looked like hell towards the end there, but I'd hit stride and could have done another box. We served a little over four pounds of dry noodles, which is over eight pounds cooked, to ten tables. So about a pound a table.
For future cooks, twice that would have been good. Though, if a table had someone like me, you could probable double that again. I love noodles. I particularly enjoy the recipe I served. I've eaten variants it for most of the past week and I'm still not tired of it. ( Even though some variants turned out terrible. )
Post event observations. Double burner with non stick pan, good. Giant flaming wok of doom, bad. Yes, I made the big fire. Olive oil, even the refined stuff, didn't give me enough of a window between empty and full. The result was a grease fire that actually seemed to be able survive in the absence of oxygen. Jaji was quicker on the uptake than I and handled my pyrotechnic proclivities with such panache that some people thought it was part of the show.
In the aftermath was a smell. I heard people talking about it, some didn't know what it was. Someone said propane smells awful. Those poor people. I didn't know whether to be happy or sad that they didn't recognize the distinctive smell of truly torched olive oil, broken irreparably into a kind of polymerized mustard gas. Then again, I know people who think that's what Italian kitchens are supposed to smell like...
I'll try to post info on the chick pea flat bread we made. I really don't think it was great, but I thought it was pleasant enough. I could have made it better, but I was leery of adding in anything that might put off our audience. To be honest, that one was dropped on me with zero test kitchen time; I didn't know I'd be doing it. ( I was focused on noodles. ) If it comes up again, they should be much better.
My only regret is that I didn't make more. People came back looking for seconds on a number of things, but noodles seemed to be the winner of "we want more." I'm sure I looked like hell towards the end there, but I'd hit stride and could have done another box. We served a little over four pounds of dry noodles, which is over eight pounds cooked, to ten tables. So about a pound a table.
For future cooks, twice that would have been good. Though, if a table had someone like me, you could probable double that again. I love noodles. I particularly enjoy the recipe I served. I've eaten variants it for most of the past week and I'm still not tired of it. ( Even though some variants turned out terrible. )
Post event observations. Double burner with non stick pan, good. Giant flaming wok of doom, bad. Yes, I made the big fire. Olive oil, even the refined stuff, didn't give me enough of a window between empty and full. The result was a grease fire that actually seemed to be able survive in the absence of oxygen. Jaji was quicker on the uptake than I and handled my pyrotechnic proclivities with such panache that some people thought it was part of the show.
In the aftermath was a smell. I heard people talking about it, some didn't know what it was. Someone said propane smells awful. Those poor people. I didn't know whether to be happy or sad that they didn't recognize the distinctive smell of truly torched olive oil, broken irreparably into a kind of polymerized mustard gas. Then again, I know people who think that's what Italian kitchens are supposed to smell like...
I'll try to post info on the chick pea flat bread we made. I really don't think it was great, but I thought it was pleasant enough. I could have made it better, but I was leery of adding in anything that might put off our audience. To be honest, that one was dropped on me with zero test kitchen time; I didn't know I'd be doing it. ( I was focused on noodles. ) If it comes up again, they should be much better.