The Art of TakeOut.

A relative brought home some take out the other night. It was some grilled meat with some rice.

By the time we got to eat it, the meat and rice were dried out. No amount of sauce was gonna bring back those dishes to life. So this got me thinking. What would constitute a good takeout dish. You have to take certain things into consideration.

1) Time. You have to go get it, bring it home, and plus you may not eat it right away. So will the dish be cold or hot. Do you need to reheat it? How much time is actually pretty essential. Say a salad not eaten right away will be mushy and stale. Sauces will become dried out. Meat will dry out. I suggest you get dishes that will not be affected by time that much. Stews for example can be easily reheated and be just as good. Some noodle dishes that is already soaked with sauces can stand up to time. Just don't get crunchy noodles, they will always fail.

2) Moisture. Pipping hot dishes will give out lots of steam. When trapped in a confine space like take out boxes, this will causes the dish to become soggy. You can alleviate this problem by ensuring that proper ventilation, in the packaging. However, be careful, too much ventilation will dry out the dish and makes it cold faster.

3) Temperature. What if you do not have the time to reheat or can not reheat at where you are at. Will that affected the dish? Some dish taste terrible cold, for example most fish dishes taste fishy after time. If you are getting a salad, you just have to worry about soggy vegetables. Keep the salad dressing separate can take care of that problem.

4) Reheating. Will the dish stand up to reheating? Some dishes cannot be reheated. I've tried some that make the sauce separate and was quite unappealing.

Then you may ask, what examples are there for a good takeout dish?

Well, I'll give you two. The first is Chili's ribs. They are not temperature sensitive, but when you reheat just don't reheat too long, that will dry time out. They are usually quite moist so you don't have to worry about moisture.

The second dish is what I consider an artful takeout. Lobster Noodles from the New Sam Kee Restaurant by my house. Most of their Chinese dishes is okay, but they have a Lobster Noodle dish that is perfect for take out. When you get it it is wrap in saran wrap to retain the moisture. This always retains the heat as well. Now, the noodle is given time to actually soak up that great sauce. So in a way the dish actually taste better than it would be at the restaurant. They give you plenty of lobsters and it is quite filling for a single person. I usually have to share this with my wife. It isn't cheap, but we not talking about simple chow mien here are we?

So just take some of these points as consideration and you'll have some decent takeout, and not that cold dried out mess you are use to.