FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - Cooking a Large Quantity of Rice...Correctly

Sheldon

wrote:
> I have been asked to cook a large Gumbo for an event by my brother. 80
> quarts to be exact. After much deliberation it is apparent that the
> challenge is really in preparing the rice. My best estimate right now
> is somewhere around 15 lbs of rice. I would appreciate some
> suggestions on doing this the rigtht way. How should i cook it? Can i
> cook it ahead of time and if so, how do i reheat it? Any help is
> greatly appreciated.

Eighty quarts of gumbo is gonna need a pot like a bit more than, um 80
quarts... cooked exactly the same as if it were say four quarts....
what's to figure out???... except that if all you have is a
residential stove you would want to have like three 30 quart pots. And
one 30 quart pot oughta handle 15lbs of rice nicely. That takes care
of your four burners and about all the weight your stove can safely
handle. No reason you can't cook the gumbo the day before, store in a
big walk in cooler, and then reheat the next day, SLOWLY so as not to
burn it. Honestly, I don't think you will be able to do this ahead of
time in a typical home kitchen... you're not going to have the fridge
facilities for so much volume, because in order to cool so much gumbo
in a safe manner you will need to pour it into many shallow pans...
even if you could borrow fridge space at a bunch of neighbors the gumbo
won't be fully cooled over night and then you'll be reheating. Me, I'd
resign myself to pulling an all nighter cooking odyssey. And I
wouldn't want any help... just tune in to the oldies and have a gallon
of dago red.

Sheldon