03 Dec KASHRUS QUESTIONS & ANSWERS WITH RABBI MOSHE ELEFANT

Can one bake
an open pan of
chicken/ meat
in a hot oven
immediately
after fish was baked in an open
pan? What about the opposite,
fish after meat, if both are
open?
A: The gemara teaches us that mixing fish
and meat is a sakana (danger). We know of
course that according to Halacha, one may not
mix meat and dairy, but the gemara also says
chamira sakanta me’isuro. This means, that as
much as we need to be careful about Jewish
law, we need to be careful about being safe and
healthy. So, if Chazal taught us that mixing
meat and milk is dangerous, we certainly need
to be very careful about mixing meat and fish
in the same recipe as well. We also need to
be careful about using the same utensils for
meat and fish. For example, if someone has a
fryer that they fried chicken in, they should
not be using the same oil to fry fish. For that
reason, many people have a separate pot that
they cook fish in and don’t cook any meat in.

That is also why people have the custom to
drink schnapps after eating fish before eating
meat; so that there should be a little separation
between them.
Cooking meat and fish in the same oven is
the same concern. If you are cooking fish
uncovered in the oven, you should not be
cooking meat uncovered in that oven at the
same time. If you have one oven that you cook
fish and meat in, you should either cook one
of them covered or, if that’s not an option,
between the cooking of the fish and meat you
should clean the oven and put it on the highest
setting for an hour. If you can, you should
wait 24 hours but if you cannot, put it on the
highest temperature for an hour.
Some communities, particularly sefardic, and

some chassidish communities won’t eat fish
and dairy together. Dairy obviously is also the
product of an animal and they are concerned
that it would be the same issue of mixing a
product from an animal with fish. This really
depends on what your custom is.

Is there a way I can use the
toaster oven at work to heat up
food?
A: If you double wrap your food in silver foil,
you may use your toaster oven at work. If
using a microwave, make sure to double wrap
it in saran wrap or wax paper. That is the way
a kosher meal is served on a plane as well. It
is double wrapped so it can be heated in the
non-kosher oven.

I am staying in a hotel for a few
days and it has a Keurig coffee
machine. Can I use it (with a
kosher K-Cup pod) or is there a
concern of it not being kosher?
A: I cannot recommend that you’d be able
to use a coffee machine in the room unless
you kasher it. The proper way of kashering
something is to clean it and wait 24 hours. In
this case that is impossible, because you are
not going to wait 24 hours if you want to use
the coffee machine. What you need to do is
let it run through a clean cycle and make sure
there’s some kind of soap present, then run it
again and you’re good to go.