Open Day Catering: 120 Portions, One Domestic Kitchen
Two Transition Year students have agreed to cater the school open day. They must serve 90 portions of vegetable lasagne and 30 portions of chicken goujons at 12:30. They have one domestic kitchen: a fan oven with two shelves, a four-ring hob, a single fridge running at 4 °C, and one small chest freezer. They have three hours, from 9:30 to 12:30, and one adult helper who is 20 weeks pregnant. The budget is €75 and the ingredients are already bought. One invited guest has coeliac disease and has asked for a gluten-free portion. The school has no food warmer and no probe thermometer, though the science lab next door does. The students plan to cook everything in the morning, stack the hot trays on the counter until service, and put the leftovers in the fridge at 13:30.
1. Construct a work schedule for 9:30–12:30 that gets both dishes to service hot and safe. Justify the order of work with reference to oven capacity and food safety.
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The oven is the bottleneck: four trays (three lasagne, one goujons) and two shelves mean at least two baking cycles, so the schedule is built around that.
- 9:30–9:45 Wash hands, aprons, set up separate raw/cooked boards, preheat oven to 180 °C fan, borrow the lab probe. Give the pregnant helper the non-raw jobs (salad, bread, drinks, serving) and no lifting.
- 9:45–10:20 Hob work: make the vegetable filling and white sauce, cook the chicken. Assemble three lasagne trays; chill two, load one.
- 10:20–11:05 Bake trays 1 and 2 on the two shelves, rotating at 20 minutes.
- 11:05–11:50 Bake tray 3 and the goujons. Assemble the gluten-free portion first in a small foil tray, cover, bake on the top shelf.
- 11:50–12:15 Reheat trays 1 and 2 to a core of 70 °C for 2 minutes (or 75 °C instant) and hold in the oven at 63 °C or above.
- 12:15 Probe-check and record every tray, then serve at 12:30.
Reasoning: lasagne tolerates being assembled, chilled and reheated, so it is batched; goujons go in last because they are best fresh and cook fast; reheating must reach 70 °C for 2 minutes because the trays will have passed through the danger zone (5–63 °C).
2. Evaluate the students' plan to hold the cooked trays on the counter until 12:30 and to refrigerate leftovers at 13:30. Give specific temperatures and times, and state what you would do instead.
Read the worked answer
Their plan is unsafe. Stacked hot trays on a worktop sit in the danger zone (5–63 °C) for two hours, which is the maximum cumulative time cooked food should spend there; lasagne is dense, so the centre of a stacked tray cools slowly while the outside still feels warm - ideal conditions for bacterial growth.
Instead: hold cooked trays in an oven at 63 °C or above, or reheat each batch to 70 °C for 2 minutes immediately before service. If cooling is necessary, do it fast - decant into shallow containers no more than 5 cm deep, stand them in a sink of cold water, stir, and bring them below 8 °C within 90 minutes, then refrigerate at 5 °C or colder. Putting warm trays into the fridge as planned warms the whole cabinet and puts other food at risk.
Leftovers should be refrigerated within 90 minutes of cooking, labelled with the date, kept no more than two days, and reheated only once, to 75 °C. Anything that has been out for more than two hours in total should be discarded, not chilled. Record the probe readings - they are the evidence that the process was safe.
3. Identify three cross-contamination risks for the coeliac guest and give a specific control for each.
Read the worked answer
Coeliac disease is an autoimmune reaction to gluten, so trace amounts matter - 'a bit of pasta water' is not acceptable.
- Airborne flour dust. Wheat flour for the pasta or sauce thickener settles on surfaces, the hob and the gluten-free tray. Control: make the gluten-free portion first or in a separate clean area, keep it covered with foil, and use a separate sieve and flour scoop.
- Shared pasta equipment. A colander, pasta spoon or pot used for wheat pasta carries gluten. Control: use a separate small pot and a clean colander, or drain the gluten-free portion first in a freshly washed colander.
- Boards, knives, tongs and serving surfaces. Control: a colour-coded board, clean knife, separate tongs and a labelled tray kept on a top shelf away from the other trays; serve the gluten-free portion first with clean hands.
- Hidden gluten. Stock cubes, soy sauce, some grated cheese blends and breadcrumbs contain wheat. Control: read every label and keep the guest's portion plain, with a sauce made from listed ingredients.
Finally, tell the guest exactly what was done and keep the portion identifiable right up to service.