Twenty minutes before company comes over, you enter the “I’m so nervous I don’t even want to eat my own food” stage. You’ve got everything prepped and plated: Table’s set, food’s prepared… Oh no! How am I supposed to get this mashed potato onto the plate? It looks like it will slide down my fork or fall off side of stove. Even at a relaxed family dinner, that doesn’t seem very professional.
More than most home chefs is aware, serving spoons has different dimensions, and there’s a reason for each size. When we just pick up whatever long handle we can find, hoping for the best, what should be a straightforward plating become a clumsy tug-of-war between our forks and gravity. But often it begins right there, at the buffet table.
Why You Need the Right Serving Spoon
When more than four guest are present, you’re going to upgrade beyond the run-of-the-mill tablespoon. As the infograph above demonstrates so vividly, increasing handle length result in an exponential growth in capacity. No longer do you need to make three trips; nope, now you’re talking. One good swipe of that twelve-inch-long buffet spoon can holds approximately forty teaspoons-worth of whatever’s on offer. That’s a ratio that completely changes how often you serve. Rather than repeatedly poking around inside the dish to get smaller bits out and squishing delicate foods (such as soufflé) or compacting fluffier grains (like rice), you grab, sweep, plate, repeat.
The amount is also key, you want spoon shape to match the food’s texture. Sticky grains and liquids behave very differently than solid foods. Even though two spoons might be the exact same length, one may be slotted and the other not; these can’t be used interchangeably. We all have an instinctive sense of what works, though few people actualy get it right; this chart breaks those instincts down by pairing.
Why use a slotted spoon? It drains off excess water, such as when you serve something like steamed veggies. A slotted spoon allow the liquid to drain off without leaving solids behind. If you attempted to scoop up broccoli florets using a deep solid bowl spoon, you’ll ended up drowning everyone else’s plate in boiling cooking water. Seems like a small thing, but it kills the dish.
And then there’s rice. That stuff sticks like crazy and requires a special tool to get it off any surface in one piece. A wide flat paddle design doesn’t crush the sticky little bastards into a brick of mush, but rather let it slide easy away from itself. Round bowls are too inefficient; Rice goes up and around the curve, making you turn to shaking it like a mad scientist or scraping it back into bowl with some other instrument. No sir. It has a special shape for a purpose. It is geometry at dinnertime.
And if you want a sauce, well, that should of had its own dish as well. You need something nice and shallow, with a lip on it so you can pour just what you need right where it needs to go. No more gravy sliding down your arm and over onto the edge of plate.
Don’t neglect material selection until it’s too late. Stainless steel lasts forever and scratches non stick coatings in weeks; wood is kind on pans but needs oiling periodically and handwashing only (as it cracks otherwise); silicone gives you the best of both worlds (it’s flexible and heat resistant) but stains after a while. Save yourself some heartache by knowing what type of material is right for your cookware.
Knowing my tools also makes portion control simple. If I know how much one scoop holds, then each guest has their fair share, whether that’s the best piece of chicken in the pot or the most crispy edge of the casserole. No more mountains for the first person and scraps for the last person. Knowing what scoop goes with which task also takes the guesswork out and makes serving less dangerous and more hospitable. Food looks and feels better arriving at table warm and intact and just the way we meant it.