How much to cook ..

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I often feel that I am not able to measure how much food I should cook for a dawat :frowning:

I always end up cooking more , good enough to do another small dawat with the leftovers :slight_smile:

Recently I have strictly started observing , what the eating trend is with various families that we invite often … so that I will cook as much as to finish majority stuff at the dawat with minimum left overs ..

Do you guys keep track of this ? or would you cook with a khula haat?

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What mom sometimes does is that, if some food is leftover after a daawat, she packs it for the family to take away :hmmm: Some people have done the same to us, especially this sikh family that we know… they make awesome homemade mithayi so whenever we go to their house on a daawat, we usually come back home with laddoos etc :phati: works pretty well

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Re: How much to cook ..

BBQ , I know what you mean … but I dunno i dont feel comfortable packing stuff away .. in the past i used to do that and then it became expectation from me … and a few incidents happened which put me off .. so now i invite everyone but dont go to the length of giving food packs or gifts etc :no:

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grrrrrrrr :smack: desi people and their issues! WHY did they have to make an issue out of you packing leftovers for them? But yeah I know where ur coming from…

I guess its something that comes with experience… Mom doesn’t measure a thing, doesn’t keep count of how much people eat, she just needs to know how many people (including children) are coming and she cooks just about the right amount… I guess its just a matter of getting used to… Hopefully others will have better advice for you :phati:

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Re: How much to cook ..

Same here....i had a dinner few days back n had a lot of left overs....gave away the nihari to the guest....but the rest of the food we had for the next 2 days :p

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Re: How much to cook ..

Angel , you just had it for two days , me and hubby kept having it for a week :frowning: … I cooked so much :vivo:

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Re: How much to cook ..

Why dont you freeze leftovers to have at a later date? It has happened to us a few times and i have frozen the extra salans so we are not eating the same thing for a week (my husband wants a different salan each day). And they reheat just fine. Slowly over time you will figure out how much to cook. Just make sure never to make less. I did that once and was soooooooo embarassed, i cannot even begin to tell you!

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Why don’t you try doubling what you cook normally for yourself, if your inviting 2 people, and then increase it by 1 cup for every 2 people. I do something like that and it works!! :slight_smile:

When I normally make rice, I use a glass to measure it… (I know it’s very desified, but hey, it works) 1 glass is normally enough for my husband and I…So if he invites 6 of his friends over… I usually make 4 ‘glasses’ of chawal…

I rarely have leftovers, and if I do, I eat it after :cb:

My mom always used to cook with a khula haat, so I got the habit from her…I only measure how much rice, maida etc. I’m going to use.. but when I start cooking, I just put everything andazey se.

When I initially got married (age 18, last year) I used to make extra and give everyone food… but no one would return my containers and glass cooking sets… :frowning: and I felt to shy asking them… Finally, when my hubby told me it’s okay to ask, I got told off for it and was called ‘kanjoos’… :crying:

After that I didn’t feel like giving food out to desi ppl…Some ppl are really mean… :emmy: They eat the food, enjoy it, but at the end make it sound like they did you a favour for eating your food!! :naraz:

Now that I’m 19, I know a little bit better how to deal with the ppl… :snooty:
but magically, they have answers to EVERYTHING!! :bummer:

We’re in the same boat CB… :hugz:

But yeah… so try the glass thing! :smiley:

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Re: How much to cook ..

Some dishes like qorma and pulao,I don't mind cooking extra 'cos it freezes well and rice always gets eaten the next day.Others like veg or cutlets or kebabs I don't make so much of...but you are right CB,I don't know what quantity to cook either,Ammi always cooks enough to feed an army (and then some)...but that doesn't matter 'cos all the more for us to bring home.But I think you will always have leftovers to some extent...I don't offer any,any more,'cos it gets to the point where guests start to expect it.And they always want the most hardest to cook dish...:)

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Re: How much to cook ..

I never give guests food to take home with them out of principle more than anything. My feeling is that I was generous enough to invite them and cook for them in the first place. Plus I had a couple of instances of someone giving a particular dish an autopsy when back at home.

And I hate giving out my food containers never to see them again.

Cooking the right amount is kinda hard with desi dawats and I've only managed to get the right amount after a few years of getting it wrong. Usually I would cook so much that even after freezing I'd have far too many leftovers (which doesn't help when your husband won't eat leftovers)

I've only had one instance of not cooking enough and I was mortified.

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Re: How much to cook ..

^^ you didn't give food in your containers but empty yogurt containers or disposable plates. If we have too much left over, we give something to everyone. We don't do it everytime that it becomes an expectation.

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Re: How much to cook ..

same with me , cooks too much. last week we had 2 couples and i tried to cook less so not so much leftover afterwards .people were eating and rice were almost finished. i did not eat myself as i realized that soon . and i was praying oh GOD no one ask for rice anymore , eat roti. but for sure i will cook more but not less in future.

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Re: How much to cook ..

This saturday I had my in-laws over for dinner, and had enough food for another dawaat, so invited my parents and one of my mum's friend that was visiting from Pakistan over on Sunday. I have some food leftover tonight, but am glad as I didn't get to eat properly on either day :)

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lol for 2 weeks…i think you must had cook too much..how many dishes did you cook?

well my mom always cook alot of food for dawat…for the left over, she pack it for my sister, sister in laws to take home and sometimes send some to neighbours or pack it for the guests…

well for your case…how about dont cook so many dishes for dawat or send me some when you have your next dawat..:wink:

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****I saw lots of ppl who packs food in these aluminium ‘dishes’. It’s cheap and you don’t have to hassle to ask back with those set dishes.

Looks like that :


**

But my mom has never done that :s
**

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Re: How much to cook ..

Am I the only one who actually ‘wants’ to have left overs…so that I wont have to cook for a week or even more than that…:bummer:…!!!

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This was the exact problem with us (me and my wife)

We always used to cook so much just for the fear of "kaheen kum na parh jayee" that we used to send 2-3 containers with each family as "take home".

My wife learned to estimate properly from my sister once we moved to Toronto from USA and she totally appreciate my sister for this. In turn, my sister learned it from her MIL.

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Re: How much to cook ..

This is the problem with everyone. But its good to be on the safer side.

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Re: How much to cook ..

Ermmm whenever we used to go for davats or invite people, everything was in disposable containers, like the leftover yogurt containers, or wrapped in foil etc.

Actual dishes I guess were given only to close family members or friends that you could trust would return it (with something in it).

I haven't had a davat yet :( but usually if I make something and give it to someone, I'll make sure its in a container that I dont want back....

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Re: How much to cook ..

Sometimes I think to myself that in restaurants the managers are trained to control supply chain … so they know exactly how much to cook per hour even :hinna:

If they can do it , there must be a technique to calculate how much to cook … My mom says the devil is in the calculation .. and I never do that … I do everything andazay sai .. and thats why my andaza always kicks me in the butt :no: