Choosing a Madurai wedding hall with the kitchen in mind
Gas lines, wood-fire space, water and the distance to the dining hall: what a caterer looks at on a hall visit.
How we make sambar for 1,500 guests
Two hundred litres, eight vessels and a wood fire: the quantities and timing behind one dish at a large wedding.
Sambar is the dish guests judge a wedding by, and it is also the one that is hardest to keep consistent at scale. For a lunch of 1,500 guests we make about 200 litres, which works out to roughly 130 ml per person over two servings, with a margin for second helpings.
Preparation starts the evening before. Our team soaks 28 kg of toor dal, cleans and cuts 60 kg of vegetables, mainly drumstick, brinjal, small onions, pumpkin and tomato, and grinds the sambar powder fresh from coriander seed, red chillies, chana dal, fenugreek and pepper. We roast and grind our own powder for each wedding; the smell fills the kitchen on the Melur Road.
On the day, the dal is cooked in large copper-bottomed vessels over a wood fire from about 4 am. The vegetables go in separately so they hold their shape, then tamarind water, powder, salt and a little jaggery. The tempering of mustard, curry leaves, asafoetida and dried chillies in gingelly oil goes in last. Head cook Pandi tastes every vessel and adjusts it so the eighth vessel tastes the same as the first.
The sambar is kept on a low fire in the hall kitchen and carried to the dining hall in steel buckets, a little at a time, so what reaches the leaf is always hot. If there is any left at the end, we offer it to the family in sealed containers before we pack up. Nothing goes back to our kitchen.
