Vol. XXXIV · History and Projects Plate 10 of 13project, dinner party, meal planning, schedule, critical path, oven, burners, holding time, backward planning, roast chicken, timing, design brief, mise en placeT

Project: Dinner for Six.

Roast chicken, roast potatoes, roast vegetables and a baked crumble all want the one oven at once. Something has to give.

Timing a meal is a scheduling problem (XXIII.5): plan backwards from the moment of serving; find the critical path — here the chicken, which needs an hour in the oven and a rest; and check every resource — the oven, the burners and the cook's own hands — never carries more than it can (XXIII.6). When too many dishes need the same oven, some must be cooked early and wait, and food that waits past its holding time is no longer good: roast vegetables go limp in minutes, a crumble keeps half an hour, a chilled mousse keeps for hours (XXIII.5).

Your design: roast or mash the potatoes, roast or steam the vegetables, bake a crumble or make a chilled mousse. The scheduler places every task as late as it can, moves tasks earlier where the oven or burners are over-booked, and reports how many dishes wait past their holding time and how long the whole plan takes. The starting design — everything in the oven — fails.

Below: the plan for your choices as a timeline (course scheduler, serving at minute 150), each task coloured by what it uses, with the dishes that wait past their holding time and the length of the plan, and the brief.

What you will learn
Workshop
Course scheduler: tasks placed as late as possible, earlier where a resource is over-booked; one oven, two burners, one cook. Chicken: 60 min oven, 15 min rest (holds 20). Potatoes: roast 45 min oven (holds 10) or mash 25 min on a burner (holds 15). Vegetables: roast 25 min oven (holds 5) or steam 8 min on a burner (holds 3). Dessert: crumble 35 min oven (holds 30) or mousse 15 min hands (holds 300). Gravy 10 min burner. Brief: no dish past its holding time; plan 120 minutes or less.

Free the oven

With everything in the oven, the plan stretches to 185 minutes, and 2 dishes wait past their holding time, because the oven can hold only one thing at once in this model and the roasts queue behind the chicken. Moving the potatoes and the vegetables to the burners frees the oven for the chicken and the crumble; making the dessert ahead as a chilled mousse frees it further — mash, roast vegetables and mousse fit in 105 minutes. The lesson generalises: put the dish that cannot wait on the free resource, and make what keeps ahead.

At home: write the plan backwards on paper, from serving time; do all the chopping first (IV.9); start the chicken; make the dessert while it roasts; start the potatoes so they finish as the chicken rests; make the gravy in the roasting tin during the rest; steam the vegetables last, in the few minutes before serving. A real oven holds two trays — the model's single slot is the strictest case — but the order of thinking is the same.

At the stove

Write a backward plan for your next dinner with three dishes. Note the actual times and compare.

Restaurant kitchens solve the same problem with the brigade and the stations (XXXI.1): each station owns its burners and its oven space, and the expediter times the tickets so that every plate at a table arrives together.

Terms

Critical path
The longest chain of tasks; it sets the start time.
Holding time
How long a dish stays good after it is finished.
Backward planning
Scheduling from the serving time back to the start.
Resource
An oven, a burner or the cook's hands.
Plan backwards from serving, follow the critical path (the chicken), and free the oven: put fast dishes on the burners and make what keeps ahead. Here mash, steam and crumble — or a chilled mousse — meet the brief.

Sources

  1. A teaching value chosen for the course: the right order of magnitude and shape, not a measurement of a particular food.