Time to fire up the sternos before serving?

Drez

Is it 2 hours? I think the deli told me two hours but I cannot recall.

Also, if that's true, is it 2 hours for all foods - lasagna and veggies alike? Or what?

DrAllecon

Two hours seems awfully long. A few minutes is usually all that's needed to keep food that's already been cooked warm for serving. At least whenever my folks set up, they only light the sterno a few minutes prior to placing the food in the trays, and then let them run until after dinner service is completed. And that goes for all food that's being presented.

It's different of course if you're cooking the food from frozen or chilled, then each food length would likely vary in length of time needed.

Cymril

Damn, and here I was thinking this was going to be a thread about fondue pots.

But yeah, pre cooked food only needs a few minutes to heat up the tray, as for cooking food with sterno, I'm not to sure, but sterno lamps are pretty good at transferring heat, so it should be a similar amount of time to what you do to cook it in an oven.

dacount97

The sternos I have here only last for 2 hours. I usually just fill the pans with water, and then fire them up about 15 mins before I'm going to put the hot food in the tray. If you need to actually heat up the food (eg, it's in the fridge or the freezer) I would heat it to serving in an oven and then put it in the steam trays to serve / keep warm.

Drez

Yeah I did this wrong. Kept them in the fridge and then put them directly in the sternos.