- Shabbat and Holidays
- Cooking and Heating
Question
I request a Sephardi Rav (or someone familar with the Yalkut Yosef) to answer. Thanks
I am very confused about something I read in Siman 253, 14.
Very often on Shabbat (night and day), we add hot water to the dish of chicken in order to make more gravy. I often add a bit of water to other dishes if they seem to have dried out on the Platta, but it seems from what I read in the Yalkut Yosef that it is forbidden on Shabbat:
Did I understand correctly?
My children love gravy on their food.
Thanks
Answer
ב"ה
Shalom
You indeed understood correctly. In the Yalkut Yoseph 253:12 , Rabbi Yitzchak Yoseph shlit”a, rules clearly that you may not take hot water already on the “platta”= food warmer and pour it into another dish on the platta even if it’s drying up.
This follows the opinion of Rabbenu Yonah, the reasoning being, that when you pour water from a vessel on the flame (Kli Rishon) to another vessel , the water being poured out (although momentarily) looses its original heat and when the water returns to a vessel on the flame you are recooking it on Shabbat. This ruling is codified in the Shulchan Aruch 253:4 and by Rav Ovadya Yoseph zt”l (יחווה דעת ד:כב). Furthermore, Yalkut Yoseph states that even people who follow the Moroccan custom to be lenient in this matter, in Eretz Yisrael, they should follow the ruling on the Shulchan Aruch to be stringent. On the other hand, if mistakenly, someone already poured water into the drying dish, it does not render the food forbidden to be eaten.
However, even according to this stringent opinion, there is still a solution for your gravy. You can leave a cooking bag with liquid in the food you anticipate to dry out, this way the liquid never leaves the pot and maintains its temperature and puncture it when you need the liquid for your gravy.
However, the Ashkenazi custom is that as long as the liquid is still warm even though it’s not as it was hot originally, but hasn’t totally cooled off, you may pour on to a dish which is drying up. ( See Mishna B’rura 253:54).
However, even some Sephardi Rabbis are lenient and say one should not express disapproval to one who allows pouring water which is on the platta into another dish on the platta. (מנוחת אהבה חלק א' ג:טו)
Rav Ben Tzion Abba Shaul zt”l, says to act as written above in the Yalkut Yoseph. On the other hand, he writes there are those who are lenient and allow pouring water which is on the platta into another dish on the platta and they have who to rely upon.
אול"צ ח"ב, יז, ח
To sum up,
1. A Sephardi person who follows the Yalkut Yoseph , should not take hot water already on the platta and pour it into another dish on the platta even if it’s drying up. If it was done, it does not make the food forbidden to eat.
2. Even according to the above opinion there is a solution by leaving a cooking bag with fluid in the pot from before Shabbat and puncturing it for the fluid when needed.
3. There are Sephardi opinions which are lenient and allow pouring water which is on the platta into another dish on the platta.
4. The Ashkenazi custom allows pouring water which is on the platta into another dish on the platta.
May your kids enjoy their gravy.and have a nice Shabbat
All the best

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