Event cooking questionsપ્રસંગના સવાલ
At a prasang the mistakes are usually in the measuring, not the cooking. The figures below are the ones the event calculator on this site works with, all in raw weight. Alongside them is the logistics that trips people up more than the arithmetic does: burners, vessels, hands and timing.
Event quantity calculatorUse the tool for thisWhy do per-person quantities fall as the headcount rises?
Per-person quantities fall as the headcount rises, which sounds backwards the first time you hear it. The calculator on this site takes 5% off above 100 guests and 10% off above 300. The reason is arithmetic, not smaller appetites. At a small number, every dish reaches every person in full and there is room for seconds; at a big number the thali already carries six or seven items, so each person takes a little of each. On top of that, a large function never eats all at once, latecomers eat and leave, and the number who actually turn up is always below the number invited. So where 50 guests need 100 g a head, 300 guests are covered by about 90 g. The mistake is taking the figure for 50 and multiplying it straight up, which cooks roughly ten per cent too much. The exception runs the other way: for a buffet, add 10%, because people serve themselves more generously and leave more on the plate.
How much dal, rice and rotli per person?
These are the working figures for an ordinary Gujarati meal, all in raw weight: 90 g of wheat flour a head for rotli, which is about three rotli; 70 g of raw rice; and 30 g of raw tuvar dal. If you are making puri instead, count 70 g of flour a head, which gives four or five puri. For kadhi, count 60 g of curd per person, with the gram flour counted separately on top. Raw weights are what matter, because that is how groceries are bought — cooked rice weighs roughly two and a half to three times the dry rice. For 100 guests that works out to 9 kg of flour, 7 kg of rice and 3 kg of dal. The rotli figure is where people get caught: three a head is an average, and a wedding party or a young crowd will eat four, so add 10 to 15% to the flour for those. Remember too that rotli are a last-minute job, so extra flour is no use without enough hands rolling.
How much shaak, sweet and farsan per person?
Count 150 g of vegetables a head for shaak, and if you are serving two shaak, halve each so the total stays 150. Undhiyu is heavier at 200 g of vegetables a head, with the muthiya counted separately. Sweet is 60 g, whether that is ladu, mohanthal or sheero. Farsan is 50 g, so ganthiya, bhajiya or samosa. Curd or chaas is 100 g, kachumber 60 g, and papad about one and a quarter per person. For khaman count 45 g of gram flour a head, for handvo 60 g of batter flour. Ghee is 12 g, sugar or jaggery 25 g, and oil 25 g — but that oil figure does not cover deep frying, because what the kadhai itself has to hold is a separate and much larger number. For tea, allow 80 g of milk per tea drinker. One summer adjustment is worth making: overall consumption drops, but keep the chaas and the salad half again as generous.
What can be cooked the day before and what has to be same-day?
The day before is for the dry, keeping things: mohanthal, ladu, magas, dry farsan, pickles, chhundo and papad. The same day is for anything watery or milky — dal, kadhi, gravy shaak, rice, raita and milk sweets. In between sits the early-morning work: chopping the vegetables, soaking the pulses, setting the curd, kneading the dough, grinding the masala. And the last-minute list is rotli, puri, bhajiya and kachumber, which have to go out hot or fresh. The reason is safety: cooked wet food is not going to stand on a counter all night, and dal for a hundred or two hundred people will not fit in a fridge either. So put the shaak, dal, kadhi and rice on two or three hours before the meal, and covered, they hold their heat until then. The mistake is cooking the shaak the day before to save time. Chop it the day before instead, because that is where half the time goes anyway.
How do I keep food hot for that many people?
The best way to hold a large quantity hot is to leave it alone: covered, unstirred, in the vessel it was cooked in. A twenty- or twenty-five-litre pot, full and lidded, stays hot for two or three hours, because the bigger the mass the slower the heat leaves it. That is exactly why cooking two or three hours ahead works. Do not keep lifting the lid, since each time costs you steam and heat. Rice has one extra rule — do not stir it, or the grains break and clump. When serving, rather than reheating the whole pot, ladle a working amount into a smaller pan kept over a low flame and top it up as it empties. Rotli and puri go wrapped in cloth inside a large box, and that part should be the last thing cooked. Most important of all, do not let food sit merely warm for hours. Keep it properly hot, or cool the surplus quickly and set it aside; the middle state is the wrong one.
How much gas will I need, and how many burners?
Cooking for 100 usually gets through one full gas cylinder, so have a second standing ready — arranged the day before, not on the morning. You need at least two burners, because trying to run the rotli and the frying in turns on one burner puts the meal an hour and a half or two hours late. Above 100 guests make it three, and above 200 think about hiring a proper bhatthi or a two- or three-burner stand. Count your vessels too: rice for 100 needs at least a twenty-litre pot, and the pot should stand about half again as tall as the food inside it or it boils over. Do not forget drinking water, which is a litre a head and half as much again in summer. The mistake is trusting a half-full cylinder. Running out of gas mid-function is the worst moment of the day, and nobody is free to go and fetch a replacement at that point.
How many people do I need helping, and how do I divide the work?
The easiest way to divide the work is to give people stations rather than dishes: one on the burners, one on rolling and frying, one on chopping and washing, one on setting up the serving. For serving a seated meal the usual rule of thumb is one server for every 25 people, so four for 100 guests. Rotli need the most hands — 300 rotli for 100 guests takes an hour and a half to two hours even with two people rolling and one at the tava, so staff that part separately. Give one person no cooking at all and only the running about: fetching whatever has run out, changing the cylinder, filling water. At a function that person turns out to be the most useful one there. And one person, not three, decides about the cooking, because three people salting the same pot is the oldest mistake at any prasang. Keep about 10% more plates, glasses and spoons than heads, since people swap halfway through.
What always runs out at a prasang?
The list is short and it is the same list every time: rotli, farsan, papad, chaas and frying oil. Rotli run out because they are a last-minute item — the flour may be sufficient while the hands rolling are not, so the shortage shows up at the serving end. Farsan and papad run out because people pick at them before they even sit down, and children often eat nothing else at all. Chaas goes half again as fast in summer. Oil runs short because the 25 g a head figure is cooking oil, not the oil needed to fill a kadhai. The fix is to keep 10 to 15% extra of those five things, and to set aside one unopened tin of oil that nobody touches. One related point: sweets and undhiyu rarely run out, because they are portioned onto the thali and so get shared evenly. What runs out is whatever people help themselves to.
What always gets wasted at a prasang?
What gets wasted most is rice, kachumber, raita and whatever is left on plates. Rice is wasted because it is the cheapest thing on the menu, so it gets cooked generously, and because it arrives late in the meal when people have already slowed down. Kachumber and raita are made in one lot in the morning and have gone watery by lunchtime, so nobody takes them. And food left on the plate, which is worst at a buffet, cannot be used again at all. Three things help. Make the kachumber in two or three lots with the salt and lemon added at the end, not all at once. Cook the rice in two batches, the second only if it is needed. And aim for about 10% spare with a decided home for it: the people who cooked, the neighbours, or an organisation you already know. Arrange that before the day, because nobody thinks of it afterwards. Surplus that has stood out more than two hours in the heat is not worth giving away.
Should I hire a maharaj or cook at home?
The plain arithmetic is this: up to fifty or sixty people you can manage at home, above a hundred a maharaj is worth it, and above a hundred and fifty it is not worth attempting at home. The limit is hands and vessels, not skill. Rice for a hundred needs a twenty-litre pot, the meal needs three hundred rotli, two or three burners and eight to ten people helping, and none of that fits in a home kitchen. A maharaj arrives with the pots, the stoves and the people, and that is what you are really hiring. If you do hire one, settle it in detail: the menu, the per-head quantities, who buys the groceries, whether vessels and servers are inside the price, and the timings. The table on this site is useful for that conversation, because quantities in hand make a quote legible. If their experience differs from these figures, follow them — they know your guests. Cooking at home, order the sweets and farsan in; that removes half the load.