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How to pre-cook/transport hot cheesy artichoke dip?
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Anonymous
| I need to make a hot cheese and artichoke dip for a Christmas gathering. Normally when I make this dip, I bake it at home until right before we need to leave, and then I transport it right in its baking dish and it gets served if not hot then at least warm. In this instance, the hosts live about an hour away, and they want us to come over around noon but the dip will not be served until 3 or 4 in the afternoon. The easiest solution is that I should assemble the dip at home, and then bake it at the hosts' house, although this dip takes an hour to cook, and I know the hosts will be using their oven to cook many other foods they are serving, so I'd like to not burden them with a request to use the oven for an hour. Do you think I could assemble and bake the dip at home, but bake it for only about 45 min (15 min less than usual), and then finish cooking/reheat it at the hosts' house for about 20 min in the oven - if I do this, should I leave it at room temperature b/w my initial baking at home and when I finish it off at the hosts' house - there is a lot of mayonaise and cheese in this dip, and there will be a lag of about 3 hours b/w when the dip would come out of my oven and go back into the hosts' oven. Thanks a lot for any advice you can give. |
Anonymous
| Personally, I would cook it fully at your house and put in one of those hot packs to transport. If its not warm at all when you're ready to eat, I'd microwave it a bit to heat it up a little before serving. |
Anonymous
| OP here - thanks for your answer! So you think it is okay to leave the cooked artichoke/cheese/mayo dip not refrigerated for 3 hours before serving? Just making sure I understand, b/c as you can probably tell I'm a bit paranoid I'm going to turn the dish "bad" by leaving it out so long! Thanks again! |
Anonymous
| PP here. I tend to not worry about food safety that much lol. Perhaps with the mayo, it would be best to cook it at your house the night before, and then refrigerate it. Transport it cold, and then put it in the over there for 20-30 minutes to re-heat. I would call your host and ask if its ok with their cooking schedule, especially if she has two ovens I would think it would be fine. If you cook it right when you arrive, it would only be out 2 hours, which I think is fine. And you would probably be done with the oven before they really need it for intense cooking. |
Anonymous
|
OP, I think I've seen this dish made in a crock pot. I would make it the night before, refrigerate it in the crock, and bring the whole thing thing -- heating it up in the crock pot when you get there. This assumes you have a crock pot of about the right size.
Using the crock pot means it stays warm longer, and you don't need to heat in a microwave (leaving it for other items.) |
Anonymous
| OP here - thanks for the suggestions! |
Anonymous
On second thought -- I didn't read a lot of good reviews for the crock pot version of this dish -- it might be that baked is better. |
Anonymous
| You could make it the day before and refrigerate, then take to their house and plug in the crockpot to warm it up. |