White Rice or Jollof Rice, Choosing the Base of a Catering Spread

White Rice is $40 a full pan. Pan Jollof Rice is $85. Both come from the same kitchen at 1172 Park Place, and the choice between them is the single decision that shapes the rest of a catering order more than any protein does.

Here is why. Rice is the base of the plate. Everything else lands on it or beside it. A neutral base lets each protein taste like itself and gives every guest a way to build a plate they already understand. A seasoned base sets the tone before anyone has picked a protein at all, and the rest of the table then has to sit in that key. Neither is the right answer. But picking one without noticing you picked it is how a spread ends up slightly out of tune.

Which rice should you order for a Brooklyn catering spread?

Start from the table, not the price.

If the spread is Southern, fried and baked chicken, turkey wings, greens, mac and cheese, then white rice at $40 is the natural base. It stays out of the way, it stretches the table further than anything else on the list, and it gives the sides room to be the flavor.

If the spread is West African, or if you want the table to have a center of gravity that is not a protein, jollof at $85 is the base. It arrives seasoned. It doesn't need anything on top of it to be worth eating, which changes what people put on their plates and how much of everything else you need.

If the spread is both, which is the interesting case and the one this kitchen was built for, you are probably ordering both trays. More on that below.

What does a $40 white rice tray do for a table?

Three things, and it's the least expensive way to do any of them.

• It stretches. At forty dollars it's the cheapest pan on an eighteen item list, and it's the tray that makes the difference between a table that looks adequate and one that looks full. If the budget is tight, this is the first tray in, not the last.
• It absorbs. Anything with juices on the plate has somewhere to go. That's a real function, and it's why a heavy protein spread without a plain starch always feels like it's missing something.
• It includes. There's always someone in the room, a small child, an older guest, somebody who's careful about what they eat, who wants the plainest thing on the table. White rice is that thing, and nobody has to ask about it.

The case against white rice is that it doesn't do anything on its own. That's the point of it, but if the rest of your table is also fairly plain, a $40 pan of neutral rice won't rescue it. A base only works when there is something to sit on top.

The low end of this price list is more interesting than it sounds, and the least expensive catering trays on a Brooklyn menu makes the case that the cheapest pans are the ones a table needs most.

What does the $85 jollof tray do that white rice does not?

It carries the table by itself.

Jollof is a seasoned rice, and an $85 pan of it is not a background item. It has color, it has flavor built in, and it's the tray people go back to. On a spread where the proteins are simple, jollof is often what guests remember. That's a good outcome for eighty five dollars, and it's a very different kind of value from the $40 pan.

It also announces something. A jollof tray on a Brooklyn table tells a room what kind of food this is before anyone has tasted anything, and for a lot of hosts that is the reason to order it. If you want the local picture of who is buying it and what the pan costs, jollof rice in Crown Heights and what it costs by the pan covers that ground.

The trade is that it doesn't step aside. A base with its own strong character means the proteins beside it are sharing a plate rather than owning it. That's fine, and often better. It just means you should choose the rest of the order knowing it, instead of discovering it when the trays are open.

Can you order both rice trays for one Crown Heights spread?

Yes, and for a mixed room it is the better order.

Forty five dollars separates them, so both together is one hundred and twenty five dollars of rice. On a large spread that isn't a lot, and what you get for it is a table that works for two different kinds of guest at once. The person who wants a plain plate has one. The person who came for the jollof has that. Nobody is being asked to compromise, and neither tray has to do a job it isn't built for.

This is where the two halves of this menu meet, and it's worth saying plainly what that means. A single order from one kitchen can put jollof rice and a soul food spread on the same table, with one phone call and one total. Most catering orders in this part of Brooklyn make you pick a lane. Here the lane is the point.

Practically, if you're ordering both, put the white rice earlier in the buffet line and the jollof later. Plain first means people take it as a base and then build. Jollof first means some guests fill the plate with it and treat it as the meal, which it can be, but then the proteins you spent the most on go slower than they should.

How does the rice choice change the rest of the order?

More than most hosts expect, and mostly through the sides.

With white rice at $40 as the base, the rest of the table has to bring the flavor. That usually means a stronger side, and Mac and Cheese at $90 is the one most hosts reach for first. There's a good argument that on a plain rice spread the mac tray isn't optional, and ordering a full tray of mac and cheese for a Brooklyn party explains why it's the tray people under-order.

With jollof at $85 as the base, the sides can be simpler because the rice is already doing that work. A green, a soft starch, and you're set. Spending the difference on the protein instead often makes a better table.

The protein choice moves too. A seasoned rice under a simply prepared premium tray is a strong plate, and it is one reason people pair jollof with the top of the meat list. If that's where you're heading, the steak and lamb catering trays at the top of this price list is the companion read, because a $165 pan on a $40 base and the same pan on an $85 base are two different meals.

For the Southern side of the order and what each of those pans costs, soul food catering in Brooklyn by the pan has the full list.

The two answers that live in the kitchen

Both of these belong on the phone, and neither belongs here.

How many people one full pan holds is the question everybody wants answered before they order, and we don't publish a number for it. We won't estimate one either. A rice tray goes further when it is the base of a plate and far less far when it is the thing people are eating most of, so the same pan behaves differently at two different events. Call 718-799-7160, tell us the occasion and roughly how many are coming, and we'll work the tray count out with you.

How the jollof is seasoned and how hot it is prepared is the other one. That's a kitchen question with a kitchen answer, and it belongs to the people cooking, not to a page written weeks earlier. Ask when you call.

The rest is simple arithmetic you can do on the bus. White rice is $40. Jollof is $85. Both is one hundred and twenty five dollars, and on a table that has soul food on one side and West African food on the other, both is usually the order that makes the whole spread make sense.