Psari Plaki for about 100

Every year at Palm Sunday the church hosts a fish dinner for the parish. Last year, the family (us) single handed put the dinner on which consists of portions of cod baked in a red sauce over spaghetti. A Greek standard.  Making the sauce for 100 portions in a church that doesn't have a pot to cook in (literally) proved too much so this year we decided to let someone else do the cooking. I really missed the Palm Sunday service the last two years anyway. Well...I had to at least make the sauce this year, again.


My kitchen is a disaster area after:

15 pounds of sliced onions
6 pounds of celery
3 gallons of tomato products (1 gallon of tomato puree, 1 gallon of crushed tomatoes and 1 gallon of Ragu, don't judge me)
1 cup of garlic, minced
1/2 c oregano
1/2 c basil
1 bottle good red wine
8 bay leaves
1/2 c sugar
about 1/2 q. of olive oil
lemons, about 3 juiced, into the sauce
Salt and pepper as needed about 1/2 c salt but taste as you add.

Just cooking the onions took 6 fry pans mounded full. The big fry pans.  It's all about logisitics and being able to combine all the batches for one cohesive sauce. I have every stock pot in the house full of plaki sauce and thank God I bought another boiler plate for the stove so the cheaper pots would not scorch the sauce. Its all now simmering away, stirring frequently to prevent it from sticking. Now, how do I get it all to church? It made about 5 gallons.

Editors note:

Since I purchased the big pot (6 gallon), I simply cook all the onions and celery at once. There is a lot of liquid produced as these cook and I use that as part of the sauce, simply adding the tomato products as part of the mix.  I simmer for a bit with the boiler plate as it tends to stick on the bottom and burning is a deal breaker. Now, its a one pot deal and the sauce is pretty good.