I made cheung fun (again) today, which reminded me of the few times I’ve made fresh pasta at home, and thought - this is DELICIOUS, but I’ll never make it for more than 2/a few!
So - for me, so far, homemade / handmade noodles across a few cultures are only for myself, haha!
What would be on that list for you - turns out wonderfully, but fussy or intensive or time consuming and you’d never want to do that for a big group.
Anyone else have these (selfish?) thoughts?
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Then there’s the inverse - things that are only worth making for a crowd, or are a pain to convert for 1-2.
Recent example for me is cupcakes - I had to make a single vanilla and single chocolate, and it was one of the most annoying things I’ve done in a while.
I was looking up eriste (a Turkish pasta) recipes because I’m hooked on a dish at a neighborhood place, and all the articles had stories about groups of women making these things together. Makes so much sense!
There are so many indian dishes that were traditionally made in groups and/or massive batches, only a few times a year (still are in some cases) because of the effort, monotony, length of prep, seasonality, or what have you.
I have thought about having a dinner party and having guests participate making enough for the group. (Notice I didn’t specify ladies since I don’t want to be sexist…)
eta, one afternoon my grand daughters arrived unannounced while I was starting to make this pasta. I gave each a splat of dough and they each made enough for a bowl. They wolfed it and were particularly excited to have made their own “spaghetti”. They were 7 and 5 at the time.
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Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot, cooking and eating in northwest England)
5
Only for a family gathering - pesto rice salad. This often gets requested for gatherings in other family homes.
I’m always just cooking for myself, and I often cook to “feed the freezer” for quick defrostable meals when I haven’t taken anything else out - so a pot roast, beef stew, chicken corn chowder, etc. are made in full quantities and then frozen in individual portions.
For gatherings, I usually make something like a Make Ahead Thai Pasta Salad for the group (always requested at our holiday potluck at work). I got it in an Email recipe exchange LONG ago on AOL, so I don’t have a link (other than when posted on CH).
Make-Ahead Thai Pasta Salad
Serving Size : 6-8
8 oz spaghetti, uncooked – broken in 3" pieces
4 cups assorted chopped vegetables – such as red bell pepper, sugar snap peas, mushrooms, and broccoli
3 green onions – sliced
Dressing
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 Tablespoons sesame oil
4 teaspoons brown sugar – packed
1-1/2 Tablespoons fresh ginger root – grated
2 Tablespoons hot water – or more as needed
2 cloves garlic – minced
1/2 tsp chili paste or hot sauce (sriracha) – up to 1 tsp.
1/3 cup cilantro – chopped (or 1T. dry) (I OMIT, because I despise cilantro but you could use some chopped parsley)
Cook and drain the pasta. Rinse well with cold water. Once cooled and fully drained, combine the pasta, veggies and green onion.
Carefully whisk the dressing ingredients together and pour over the pasta and veggies, toss well to coat.
Chill for up to 24 hours before serving.
NOTES : LLW Notes: This recipe has the dressing ingredients doubled, as the original one didn’t seem to have enough to fully coat the pasta and veggies (quantities already adjusted to double amounts in the recipe above so don’t do it again!).
Oh - and if it seems a bit “solidified” when you take it out of the fridge, you can add a bit of very hot water to it after it’s been sitting out for about 15 minutes, and toss it again. The hot water will help loosen the chilled dressing.
I like making tempura, and I love eating tempura. But for reasons, I would only make tempura for a (small) crowd. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
When I make tempura, I like to have a variety of vegetables, maybe four or five different kinds, with three or four pieces of each vegetable per person. Some veggies work well in small quantities, like mushrooms. It’s easy enough to buy exactly the number of mushrooms I’d need. Broccoli also isn’t much of a problem, because I can just cut off however many florets I need from the larger head, and save the rest for later. Carrots are fine, too, because if one carrot is too much, I can cut the remainder into sticks, put the sticks in a glass of water in the fridge, and keep them for snacking later. But zucchini, eggplant, and sweet potato are a little harder to deal with, portion-wise. They all tend to be too big, even the smallest specimens, for just two people, and the unused portions don’t store well. Mrs. ricepad loves sweet potato tempura to the point that if I DON’T include sweet potatoes in a tempura meal, I’ll hear about it. Hence, I’ll typically only make tempura if there will be at least 4 peeps.
I also won’t bake a cake unless I know there will be several people around to eat it. Mrs. ricepad and I don’t eat enough cake to finish even a small one before it dries out or becomes a science experiment. The one exception would be individual mug cakes, although it’s been a while since I made any of those.
The only other thing that comes to mind is Chinese-style roast pork belly (siu yuk). Mrs. ricepad will only eat a two or three pieces of siu yuk, leaving probably 2 lbs or more for me. If my doctor found out I ate two pounds of pork belly, he’d kick me in the 'nads so hard my great-grandkids would feel it, so it’s typically a once a year thing (at Chinese New Year or Oshogatsu, most likely) and only if we’re having company.
BarneyGrubble
(Aficionado of Beethoven, and Latina singers)
13
One thing I would make for my wife and I and only two more, but not just any two more would be lobster ravioli with a lobster bisque sauce (using the shells for the sauce) for an appetizer. This is because it’s very time-consuming to make, and is consumed in a flash!
I would be choosy about whom I made it for as I have a friend who thinks nothing of asking for Tabasco, which would destroy my carefully-balanced flavors. He once told me that all he looks for is heat.
My uncle is like this. He doesn’t care about subtlety. I don’t take it personally.
When he visits, I take him to restaurants where he can order what he likes. It can be really frustrating choosing meals with him. He’s so critical and his criteria are not the same as my criteria.
We like the same cuisines but which dishes we choose and why we choose them are not the same!
What’s hilarious is when I visited his house, and he was cooking.
I remember him serving Tiropitas (Filo pies filled with feta and sometimes cut with mizithra or ricotta), Cheese Fondue, Caesar Salad, and Cheesecake. No other veg in the house. Not spicy but full of cheese. I started bringing fiber-rich snacks in my suitcase when I travelled after that menu plan.
Crowd: anything that requires a ‘major’ production, i.e. dolma, caponata, deviled eggs, MS roast / smoked pork butt*, deviled eggs.
For my boo and me:
most anything that requires multiple things to be done at the same time. He’s the only one who can deal with my stressing out over it.
very spicy foods we know some of our friends can’t handle, like Thai or Indian curries.
nigvziani badrijani — out of pure selfishness. It’s one of my favorite appetizers, a massive PITA to make, and the one time I made it for a party it disappeared in under 2 minutes.
Fresh pasta.
For myself: calf / turkey / chicken livers & hearts. My boo doesn’t care for these, and I love them.
*I’ve made both for us, but it’s usually a dinner party / potluck / crowd food.
Funny, because bhajiya – ie the Indian equivalent of tempura – is something that I’d much rather deal with only for a couple of people. Also other fried stuff, like pakodas and puris. However, they are often made in large batches, likely because of economies of scale – and oil. If you’re going to use that much oil, might as well make the most of it, I guess!
I have become good at dividing some recipes down to a mini loaf pan or a tiny cake pan for the same reasons. Some other things that are better baked large, I only bake when I can take them somewhere, and partake of a slice or two through that. You might like the site “Dessert for Two” that someone on the baking thread referred me to a long time ago (maybe @Nannybakes ?). There are other sites that do small batch recipes too, but they’re not as prolific.
This was my point!
And what a special treat for anyone who makes it to your list of “two more”!
Blargh. Give him a green chilli on the side.
Many people who are so focused on “spicy!” don’t / can’t taste nuanced flavors (and probably don’t even realize that they’re there to be tasted). Bhut jolokia / naga chilli is most famous for “heat” – but its beautiful, fruity flavor can only be detected if you didn’t burn your palate by overdoing the heat first, though.
My “feed the freezer” go-to. Zatarain’s jambalya mix to which I add ground beef, tomatoes, onion, prolly some anchovy paste and Worcestershire sauce, garlic, and spice cabinet sweepings. I eat it happily; I’d never serve it to guests. It’s my very own frozen tv dinner. Portioned out in small containers. Because my appetite still hasn’t fully recovered, and sometimes I have to remind myself to eat.
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