Question
I cooked some meat and then by accident put it from the cooking pot on to a milchig plate. The plate is earthenware and the food was hot The plate was cold. Is the food and the plate treifa and is there a method for kashering the plate? Thank you
Answer
Shalom,
If the meat was hot, ie. above "yad soledet bo" - too hot to hold in your hand - then, even though the plate was cold, there is a transfer of tastes from the meat to the plate, and from the plate to the meat (although it is only a minimal transfer [keday klipah] as we follow the rule that the cold plate, which was underneath the hot meat, would act as a deterrent to a full transfer of taste [this is called tatah gaver]).
This being so, the meat will have absorbed from the plate its milk taste. This is only so if the milk plate was definitely used for hot milk in the preceding 24 hours. If this was not the case - and in general it is unlikely that you know for sure that this particular plate was used for direct hot milk food in the 24 hours beforehand - then the meat is kosher. If not, then the meat has a small amount of milk taste and it needs to be "peeled" off. That means the outer surface of the meat needs to be cut away, and then the rest of the meat is kosher.
The plate, however, definitely absorbed a layer of milk taste. Because the plate is earthenware, it cannot be koshered - unlike metal, or even glassware (according to some opinions) which can be koshered.
[If the plate had never been used for hot milk foods, it is now kosher and meat.]
Blessings.
