Catering for many

karadekoolaid

karadekoolaid

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Next Saturday, the little fella (ie. my youngest grandson, 1½ yrs old) is getting baptised. 2 of my son's best friends decided to join in the fun, so there are going to be 3 littluns baptised.
I knew before I'd even arrived that the food was going to be my responsibility, so no big deal; I was more concerned about the logisitics, especially as I had no idea how many people might turn up. Once I arrived, it was "about 30", but that figure has now increased to about 50, including kids.
I worked out the menu in the first week and then set about preparing. The menu is:

Appetizers/Pasapalos:
  • Mini sausage rolls
  • Cheddar cheese sticks
  • Shortbreads with blue cheese topping
  • Gol gappas/pani puri, filled with chickpeas, yoghurt, tamarind chutney, and mint/cilantro chutney
  • Samosas with tamarind chutney
  • Vadas ( think mini-falafel) and mango chutney
Main course:
  • Chicken Tikka Masala
  • Basmati rice
  • Hyderabadi aubergines/eggplant ( Baingan ka salaan)
  • Chole ( Punjabi chickpeas with tomato)
All the appetizers are ready; just need to be heated up in the oven. The main courses will be done on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, then refrigerated. Heated up in the (disposable) chafing dishes; self-service. Planning and thinking ahead for the event ( I've done a little bit every day for the past week or so) is absolutely vital. My DIL is a marketing exec in a big company, and my son is a project manager for a construction firm. Me? I graduated in classical music. What could possibly go wrong?
:hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper:
So my questions are, firstly, do you cater for big family reunions, and how do you do it? Secondly, how do you plan for it? Finally, are you cool, calm and collected, or do you enter into frenzied panic 3 weeks before?
NB: on the day (next Saturday) I WILL BE IN Gordon Ramsay mode.:eek::eek::hyper::hyper::hyper::hyper:
 
karadekoolaid said:
Next Saturday, the little fella (ie. my youngest grandson, 1½ yrs old) is getting baptised. 2 of my son's best friends decided to join in the fun, so there are going to be 3 littluns baptised.
I knew before I'd even arrived that the food was going to be my responsibility, so no big deal; I was more concerned about the logisitics, especially as I had no idea how many people might turn up. Once I arrived, it was "about 30", but that figure has now increased to about 50, including kids.
I worked out the menu in the first week and then set about preparing. The menu is:

Appetizers/Pasapalos:
  • Mini sausage rolls
  • Cheddar cheese sticks
  • Shortbreads with blue cheese topping
  • Gol gappas/pani puri, filled with chickpeas, yoghurt, tamarind chutney, and mint/cilantro chutney
  • Samosas with tamarind chutney
  • Vadas ( think mini-falafel) and mango chutney
Main course:
  • Chicken Tikka Masala
  • Basmati rice
  • Hyderabadi aubergines/eggplant ( Baingan ka salaan)
  • Chole ( Punjabi chickpeas with tomato)
All the appetizers are ready; just need to be heated up in the oven. The main courses will be done on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, then refrigerated. Heated up in the (disposable) chafing dishes; self-service. Planning and thinking ahead for the event ( I've done a little bit every day for the past week or so) is absolutely vital. My DIL is a marketing exec in a big company, and my son is a project manager for a construction firm. Me? I graduated in classical music. What could possibly go wrong?
:hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper:
So my questions are, firstly, do you cater for big family reunions, and how do you do it? Secondly, how do you plan for it? Finally, are you cool, calm and collected, or do you enter into frenzied panic 3 weeks before?
NB: on the day (next Saturday) I WILL BE IN Gordon Ramsay mode.:eek::eek::hyper::hyper::hyper::hyper:
Click to expand...
The big gatherings, everyone brings something usually (like family Christmas parties for 100 people). But I did some graduation parties for our kids and nephew, and baby showers for 2 of my daughters. We rented out the Italian American Club and I made large batches of pasta sauce (about 7 gallons) and bought dried pasta, bagged salad mix, bottled salad dressing, bread from a local Italian bakery, individually wrapped butter packets, parmesan cheese shakers, and a cousin who is a pastry chef made the cakes (we paid her). We just got up early and shopped for most of the purchased items the morning of the parties (had to order bread in advance). The IAC has a good sized kitchen to boil the pasta and warm up the sauce. My husband made big meat and cheese platters with crackers. Pretty much everyone is Italian American or married to one so everyone is happy eating pasta. If I'm in charge of all the food for a big party I keep it simple like that. I will spend a painstaking amount of time and spend money on high quality ingredients to get the sauce just right and just buy everything else.
 
karadekoolaid said:
So my questions are, firstly, do you cater for big family reunions, and how do you do it? Secondly, how do you plan for it? Finally, are you cool, calm and collected, or do you enter into frenzied panic 3 weeks before?
Click to expand...
The answer to the first question is a no, so I get to skip the next two. :wink:
 
JAS_OH1 said:
I will spend a painstaking amount of time and spend money on high quality ingredients to get the sauce just right
Click to expand...
That, I think, is extremely important. It doesn't matter what you're cooking, but top class ingredients make all the difference.
 
karadekoolaid said:
Do you ever do 10-12
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I used to frequently. In a house of 6, cooking for 12 wasn't an issue. A family reunion or birthday was usually 20-30 people and cooking would start a day or two in advance and lunch never happened at lunchtime... it was usually a 4pm affair which gave extra cooking time earlier in the day.
 
karadekoolaid said:
That, I think, is extremely important. It doesn't matter what you're cooking, but top class ingredients make all the difference.
Click to expand...
It took me 15 years to get the sauce just right! My husband's cousins are all very discerning about Italian food and there are some great cooks in that group. My husband's grandfather and his 4 brothers (all deceased now) founded that club and 1 of them was a chef. I didn't know that years ago when uncle Pat first tasted my sauce and told me, "That’s really good pasta sauce." I told my husband what he said and then DH filled me in on what a huge compliment that was!

karadekoolaid said:
So I should have qualified that. Do you ever do 10-12?
Click to expand...

I can throw down a feast with 4-12 people in my home, making hors de oeuvres and all kinds of things from scratch. Seafood feasts are my specialty! It is hard to do on large scale, though. You already found out with refrigerator and freezer space being a huge necessity when preparing in advance.
 
Biggest I have done was over 100.
Big batches of curry, stews etc as they can be made in advance
I had a couple of people helping for this.

Normally, it's a smaller group.
I think the "secret" is to get as much done in advance as possible and to think properly about the menu and the set up (stoves, pots & pans, plates, cutlery etc)
Not too many things that need last minute attention. It's were Indian food is great, but also Indonesian & Italian.

And not being scared to ask for help
I've done nasi goreng with extra's, but had to ask people to fry the eggs for me.
 
karadekoolaid said:
So I should have qualified that. Do you ever do 10-12?
Click to expand...
Still no for me. I did that once and swore never again.

I’ll, of course, contribute to a larger party, if needed - that orange cake and corn salad I made the other day ended up at a party of about 150 people…I had no idea that many were going to be there. We were simply invited to a “backyard 4th of July party, bring your own drinks and something to share,” and that was it.

Growing up, Mom single-handedly cooked for 8-10 nearly every meal nearly every day, and every so often, a couple of times a year, all the family (on my dad’s side) would get together, so that’d be around 20-25 people, but it was just the women who did the cooking/serving.

badjak said:
I think the "secret" is to get as much done in advance as possible
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That’s a big part of my problem - while I understand there are some hot-temp dishes that benefit from a day or two of sitting, and room-temp/cold-temp stuff can be made ahead of time, I still want certain things to be served blistering hot straight from stove/oven right when it’s done…otherwise, I feel like I’m serving/eating reheated leftovers, so I sit and fuss and overthink about how I can get this dish that takes 45 minutes at 425F and that dish that takes 60 minutes at 350F popping out of the same oven at exactly the same time (and no, 53 minutes at 385F doesn’t work - tried that and failed! :laugh: ) and I just get frustrated with the whole thing.
 
JAS_OH1 said:
It's storing pre-made items that can be a problem.
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Can be if you store them for too long. Curries in general will last at least a week in the fridge (not the freezer) and improve with age.
My plan is to make the chickpeas tomorrow, the aubergines/eggplants on Wednesday and the chicken on Thursday. Friday, I'll fry all the samosas and just heat them up in the oven on Saturday. The shortbreads and cheese straws could also be done Thursday, then an airtight container. Rice gets done Saturday morning.
Got to avoid too much cooking on Friday because at least a dozen guests will be arriving, with kids.
 
karadekoolaid said:
Can be if you store them for too long. Curries in general will last at least a week in the fridge (not the freezer) and improve with age.
My plan is to make the chickpeas tomorrow, the aubergines/eggplants on Wednesday and the chicken on Thursday. Friday, I'll fry all the samosas and just heat them up in the oven on Saturday. The shortbreads and cheese straws could also be done Thursday, then an airtight container. Rice gets done Saturday morning.
Got to avoid too much cooking on Friday because at least a dozen guests will be arriving, with kids.
Click to expand...
I was basically just referring to finding a place to put a lot of the perishable party foods. My refrigerator stays pretty full (until I get my new one) so I would have to plan ahead for a party and make sure that I had enough room in there before cooking a bunch of stuff.
 
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