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How To: Plan A Shabbat Dinner |
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| Easier than you think... | |
 by Tamar Fox, February 13, 2008 |
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Shabbat Dinner: jew can do it!My favorite part of any week is Shabbat dinner. Good food, good friends, and usually a somewhat inappropriate conversation always means a good time. Hosting a Shabbat dinner can seem like a formidable task, especially if you’re not big on entertaining in general, but it doesn’t have to be a stressful experience. Here’s a handy little schedule for planning your next Shabbat dinner.
Sunday-Tuesday: Invite guests. Eight is the ideal number for one raucous conversation, and ideally you want to keep the ratio of guys to girls fairly even, but there’s no hard and fast rules here. Remember to ask your guests if they have any food allergies.
Tuesday: Plan menu. You know your own limitations in the kitchen, but a nice baseline standard is challah, a soup or appetizer, a main course, a vegetable, a starch and a dessert.
Wednesday: Make a shopping list based on the menu you’ve planned.
Thursday: Shop. Don’t forget Shabbat candles and a bottle of wine. On Thursday night prepare at least two of the items on your menu so that Friday isn’t so crazy. If you buy challah and make a soup that can just be thrown in the crock pot and/or buy dessert, you’re not looking at much cooking at all.
Friday: Finish cooking. Make sure you’ve got candlesticks and a challah cover. You also probably want a siddur to consult for Kiddush, hand washing and motzi. And possibly those little booklets (bentchers) with grace after the meal in them. If you plan wisely, you can cook for as little as an hour and a half on Friday and still have a plenty elaborate meal for your friends. If people bring a dish, you’re down even more work.
Here's a checklist of essential items to make sure you have ahead of time:
Challah and Challah Cover
Candles and Candlesticks
Wine and Kiddush Cup
Siddur and bentchers
It’s really not that hard, and a good Shabbat dinner can pretty much carry you through until next week, especially if the leftovers are good.
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naftali
Bake your own challah. Storebought wins no friends, wins no Shekinah. But it takes about three hours. So if you have the time....
Meredith Jacobs
So true! Homemade challah is def the way to go. And, although it takes 3 hours, you don't have to stand there and watch it rise. Only 15 minutes to make the dough, then go do whatever it is you have to do while it's rising!
Here's a great recipe (I put honey on the top of my dough before baking--really amazing this way!)
http://www.modernjewishmom.com/recipes.htm#challah
Meredith Jacobs
Anonymous
You could get the retired lady down the hall to home-bake the challahs, and pay her for them. It's traditional to have TWO uncut breads on Friday night, because we were given TWO days' worth of mannah. Use a white table cloth. White reflects light up into the faces. If that scares you, put plastic on it. People should be given to understand in a very friendly way that they shouldn't come with empty hands - they can bring wine, big bags of fresh fruit, Entenman's kosher pound cake, Sharon's kosher parve Sorbet by the bushel, boxes of dates and raisins. Get a box of candles, and you will never run out. Kedem grape juice is halachically proper for kiddush, if some people don't want to drink alchohol. Have it around in general. If you put a red cabbage through the shredding blade, with oil and vinegar, and little tomatoes, you have a quick salad. There are kosher places that DELIVER already-cooked chickens!
Anonymous
Guests: don't leave right after Havdalah. Stick around and help clean up. It is useful to have a few yarmulkes (kipppot) in a drawer, if a guest suddenly wants to put one on, and doesn't have one.
Anonymous
How about an electric rice cooker?
Cavanaugh
Any advice for a Shabbat dinner with someone allergic to gluten?
sharonmgg
It's easy! The word here is potatoes! Personally, I love them roasted with some of the shmaltz from the chicken. Or you can serve a basmati rice, cooked in a pilaf or with some sautee onions, spices and raisins. If you wish to use powered broth, check the ingredients. Any ingredient with the word "modified" in front of it may have gluten.
As for dessert, you can just get a pareve fruit sorbet, fancy dark parve chocolates, or, if your guest can eat nuts, a passover nut cake.
Claudia Roden's "The Book of Jewish Food" has some nice nut-flour based cakes in the Sephardic section.
naftali
When the only question is--how crispy/crunchy do you want the crust? Even on the potatoes, it's all about the crust.
Cavanaugh
I wonder if there's a good potato-based (or other non-wheat, gluten-free) substitute for challah available?
Anonymous
Soy bread? Rice cakes?
Maya Wainhaus
Maayan