Heating a Dish with Sauce
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Question
Hello, A person wants to heat a dish of chicken with vegetables on Shabbat on the hotplate and plans to do it as follows: 1. Take a glass dish, 2. Put chicken and a few vegetables in the dish, 3. Place it on an inverted pan on the hotplate. 4. At this stage, the person realizes that there is sauce in the glass dish that can be collected with a spoon and is concerned about the prohibition of cooking. What should he do? If he decides to strain the liquid that is with the chicken by turning the dish over and blocking the contents with a lid to remove the liquids - has he violated the prohibition of selecting?
Answer
Hello
If the sauce is only in an amount that "moistens" the dish and does not collect on its own - it is permissible to heat it in this way.
If there is a larger amount of sauce, it should not be heated this way, but it is also not permissible to remove the excess sauce, as it would be selecting "waste" [-the part not wanted] from "food" [-the part wanted].
Therefore, the correct way is to take from the dish only the chicken and vegetables, without the amount of sauce.
Source
Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim, Siman 318 and Siman 319.