Catering for large numbers

Ken Natton

Ken Natton

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Okay, here’s another one in which I have a real interest in what people might have to suggest. Suppose you are hosting for significant numbers. I don’t mean the kind of numbers that would mean you needed to hire a hall, few enough to be realistic to host at home, but too many to think about a formal sit down dinner party. I don’t know, I’m maybe talking a dozen or fifteen, maybe even a few more. The classic solution to this situation is buffet, sausage rolls, pork pies, vol-au-vents, chicken drumsticks. But I want to think not just more original but something that actually shows a bit more thought and ability. Something you can put a pile of in the middle of the table and let people take a few of, and is then likely to draw a lot of ‘Oh their nice! Did you make them yourself? You’ll have to give me the recipe.’ type comments. So certainly, lamb koftas with tzatziki, as recently mentioned on this site, would be a good one. I recall seeing Rick Stein (sorry I’m back on him again) doing something – he did it with salted cod but it does work with ordinary cod, I’ve done it before. Basically, you cook the cod and flake it then mix it with a bit of mashed potato, with flour and seasoning and make little patties that you deep fry (we shallow fried them successfully) and serve them with aeoli. Not exactly fish cakes but similar I suppose. Anyway, another good example of the kind of thing I have in mind.


But a key part of this is issues of practicality. You have to get a lot of stuff ready for the actual event. The two examples I have cited are also good in that respect. You can make the lamb mince mix even the night before, but certainly some hours before the event, and maybe even form it into koftas, then just grill them in the last hour before serving. And the fish dish really needs to be done not too far ahead, but again, you can make a big bowl of the mix and then just form it into patties and fry them not exactly last minute, but not too far ahead. Anyway, it requires a lot of planning usually to pull something like this off, but the point is that there are some dishes that, yeah they are perfectly lovely, but they are just not practical in this kind of situation.


So come on, what thoughts and suggestions have you got?
 
This is where I start to unravel! The very word 'catering' fills me with doom and apprehension. I would have to make something completely ahead of time so that all that needs to be done is re-heat it. Curries are an obvious choice for me, because they can only get better if cooked ahead of time and left to let the flavours develop.

So I'd make several large pans of different curried 'main' dishes. Say, one chicken based, one lamb based, one vegetarian, plus several different vegetable 'sides' say one aubergine, one aloo gobi, plus lots of naan breads and/or chapatis (again these can be made ahead of time and re-heated). Also I'd serve a tray of raita, pickles and chutneys (some home-made if possible). This sort of thing:

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Easy: My roasted chickens, mashed potatoes, dressing (if a holiday), and a couple of simple sides.
Transports easily.
Note 1 chicken per 4 people. 1 kg of potatoes per person.
 
Used Scout Stew more than once.

Varying the amount made, and what it was made in according to the numbers.
 
morning glory said:
The very word 'catering' fills me with doom and apprehension.
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I hear you Morning Glory, sometimes ‘catering’ is synonymous with low quality churn-it-out food. But I suppose that’s part of my point about the numbers I’m talking about, not just so many that churn-it-out is the only solution. Actually, having just said that, I can think of the solution I have seen which is actually the best in the situations when you’re talking more like 50 to 100 but still self-catered. And that is that everybody brings something. Yeah, sometimes that doesn’t work so well, but I have been to a couple of such events where it worked out quite well. There was plenty of variety and pretty much everyone could find some things they liked.

And I think that is part of the point in these situations. Even with sort of fifteen or twenty it’s pretty inevitable that there are going to be some who don’t like this or don’t like that. So you need quite a bit of variety to hope that there is enough of what they do like for everyone.
 
Sort of like Cin mentioned, we do a traditional American Thanksgiving every year for about 12 to 15 people. Roast turkey (get one of those nuclear giant ones like Elawin's, or do a whole one, and a second breast), sausage stuffing/dressing, mashed spuds, gravy, cranberry sauce, haricot verts with slivered almonds, mashed rutabegas, baked sweet potatoes, cole slaw, and rye bread.

Or, Italian American is easy and feeds many. Sausage lasagna, Sunday gravy (slowly simmered meatballs, sweet sausages, beef or pork brasciole, and pork sirloin end cuts in tomato sauce), pasta primavera, chicken piccata or francese, insalata mista with balsamic dressing, caprese salad, ceasar salad, and garlic bread or toasted baguettes.

I used to make the latter for my dept.'s holiday party every year for about 125 people. I'd start it at home the evening before, finish up in the morning, and transport it about 18 miles into the city just before the party started. A few serving trays with sterno underneath kept everything warm enough.

Another idea is American bbq: pulled pork, brisket, smoked turkey, cole slaw, corn and bean salad, garlic mashed potatoes, black beans and rice, corn bread with whipped pecan butter. While you need some bbq and smoking equipment to do this one in an authentic way, a lot of it can just be done on a gas grill, oven, and slow cooker.
 
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buckytom said:
Another idea is American bbq:
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Yes, it had occurred to me that one obvious solution for those sort of numbers is barbecue. But, while hesitating a little to harp on that subject we Brits are famous for, in this country, weather variability is always the concern when planning well in advance. Certainly, here in the UK, every time we have an unexpected warm spell in summer, you can guarantee the supermarkets will all sell out of sausages, burgers, chops and steaks – anything you might do on the barbecue – because everyone knows, if you miss this chance to have a barbecue, there might not be another one this summer. But if you’re planning an event, counting on having a barbecue is setting yourself up for a big disappointment.
 
Spicy potatoes, curries including veggie, chilli, chicken legs, decent sausages, rice, decent fresh bread, various simple salads, dips/sauces/dressings, cheese tart, desserts of fresh fruit, cake, chocolate. The most I've ever cooked for at a sit-down meal was 8. I also cooked for a smallish wedding buffet, about 30 people.
 
morning glory said:
Respect! The very thought fills me with horror. :ohmy:
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Thanks.

2 days before the party, I'd get to leave work at midday to go food shopping (I was working 8A to 4P back then). The day before the party I'd leave at midday again, and get the entire downstairs kitchen scrubbed and sanitized, and my mise en place ready. The last thing I needed was someone saying they got sick from my food.

Around 6 PM, I'd being to make the tomato sauce, about 12 liters, then make and brown the meatballs (4 kg), sausages(4 kg), brasciole (2 kg), and pork ends (2 kg). After browning, they would simmer for a few hours while I worked on the lasagnas (one sausage, one veggie). I used some of the sauce from the meats for the lasagnas, although, come to think of it, people probably thought the veggie lasagna was vegetarian. I might have neglected to mention the sauce. :headshake:

While all of this was going on, I was smoking a few pork shoulders (4 x 4 kg) outside - often in the snow - to be made into pulled pork.

By this time it was getting pretty late, so I'd just clean up and refrigerate what I'd already made. Sometimes there was no room left in the fridge, so the lasagnas were put in coolers outside in the snow.

Early the next morning, the chicken for the piccata/francese was breaded and fried, and the sauce made separately. That was so it could be heated and poured over the warmed chicken just before serving so as not to make it all soggy. Then the pasta primavera was made, the pork pulled and sauced, and the salads and garlic bread was made while the Sunday gravy and lasagnas were reheated.

Everything was wrapped in towels while still hot (or cold, respectively) and quickly loaded into my truck to be hauled into the city as quickly as possible. A few of my coworkers would meet me at the loading dock having set up for the party and gotten the serving trays heated up awaiting the food. It surprisingly stayed hot enough to be safely served by around 1 PM.

You know, it seems like a lot but I really enjoyed cranking out that much food, and seeing people enjoy it. Although, doing that just once or twice a year was quite enough for me.

At the last party I cooked for, the VP on engineering and his entourage came over to me to give me their compliments and bust my chops a bit. The VP said that if I ever happened to my position there, I had a bright future in cooking.

I replied that there was no way I would give up such an easy job as I had with the company; that cooking was way too much work. There was dead silence for a few seconds, then he burst out laughing, followed by his entourage. :smug:
 
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