Warming food for Shabbat that gets slightly overdone.

rachelli66

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 12:51 am

I am an ok cook. Not amazing but ok. My big problem is warming up certain foods Friday night and Shabbat Day. The food is wrapped well, but I feel with the amount of time in the oven it overbakes the chicken, or meat, or salmon. Also for daytime on the platta. How do you manage warming food without overdoing it. My oven is usually on 180 C. (355 F.) If I do it lower I'm scared it won't be warm enough. Food is usually in oven 1.5 hrs. till we are ready to eat.

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 12:57 am

I wouldn't set the oven so high
An electric hot plate is usually a good temperature

rowo

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 2:27 am

I leave my oven on 100°C for Friday night.
It’s just to keep warm, not cook it.
180° is cooking the food

Newcastle

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 2:46 am

My oven doesn’t even go lower than 170.
And my current hot plate seems hotter than that, it really cooks.

OP, you can slightly undercook the food before Shabbos; that helps keep it from drying out, it will just finish cooking.
You can also lower the temp to 165 or so instead, if you’re able to.

Perly1

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 3:04 am

You can turn the oven off just before Shabbos. The food stays warm for a while.

Newcastle

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 3:06 am

Perly1 wrote:

You can turn the oven off just before Shabbos. The food stays warm for a while.

If doing that, I think you need to warm it to a much higher temp before shutting it, don’t you? Maybe 350-400? I’m not sure.

rachelli66

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 3:06 am

OP here. Thanks for your advice. I think I did try once on a lower number but maybe was too low. (food was chilled). Our Platta also can get really hot. My problem is also, I don't want to babysit the food. I don't want to check it every half hour or so. But maybe that's what needs to be done.

Perly1

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 3:15 am

Newcastle wrote:

If doing that, I think you need to warm it to a much higher temp before shutting it, don’t you? Maybe 350-400? I’m not sure.

Depends for how long you have it on for, I guess.

We warm up the food for half an hr or longer at 180 and then turn it off and it's fine.

However that's on our own. With guests I put the food on an old-fashioned blech or a hot plate cos it takes longer to get to main course.

OP if your platter is too hot you could put things on containers of hot water.

ez-pass

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 3:29 am

Your oven is way too high. 200-250 f is what I do and it's always perfect. 350 is high.

wtvr

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 4:35 am

180/350 for 1.5 hours is too high.
That's what most things cook on the first time around, and you're doubling the cooking time!

100c/200f should keep it warm, without over cooking for most things.
1.5 hrs is not enough, than put it in half hr earlier. Or, take it out of the fridge an hour before to bring it too room temperature before putting it in the over.

For the plata, put a pan upside down on it and then put your food on top of that.

lkwdlady

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 4:49 am

Of course your Friday night food is getting dried out. Your oven is much too high.
I always leave my oven on 225 for Fri night. That’s for cold food to be warm for the meal.
If the food is already hot I would make the oven even lower.

eduardo

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 5:03 am

355F is cooking not warming

I put a whole chicken roast cold and raw and 1.5 hrs later on 350 it’s fully cooked.

For Shabbos I keep food in the oven at 200F and it keeps everything very hot without cooking. I put it in around 30 min before Shabbos

sarah14

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 5:27 am

[quote="erm"]Put a pan of water in the oven. It keeps the food moist[/quite]
This! Keeps the food moist.

lkwdlady

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 5:34 am

[quote="sarah14"]

erm wrote:

Put a pan of water in the oven. It keeps the food moist[/quite]
This! Keeps the food moist.

Food would still be dried out if the oven is so high for so long

bargainlover

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 6:10 am

I put my food in room temp, 200 degrees Fahrenheit, for an hour and half and it gets hot and not dried out

rachelli66

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 11:45 am

OP here. Thank you again for your comments. Will change the temp. on the oven to lower.

tichellady

Sun, Nov 05 2023, 1:03 pm

I don’t warm fish or veggies because they don’t taste great that way. I put stuff on a cookie rack on a hot plate if I’m nervous it will get too hot

You do need to babysit food somewhat if you are using a hotplate