Chow for a Crowd

May 13, 2009 4:25 PM

Recipes and tips on cooking for a horde (~200 people).

Next month I'll be managing the kitchen for a four-day event for about 200 people. Right now, I need to come up with menus and a food order for simple, delicious meals for a horde.

Emphasis is on fresh, local, organic food (Pacific NW). All menus must include a vegan, gluten-free, nut-free alternative. Budget is reasonable, not tightly constrained.

Diners range from mainstream meat-and-potato types, to adventurous foodies, to whole-food purists. The kitchen is rustic, with propane stove, ovens, and griddle. Refrigeration is limited, as are industrial prep machines (a kitchen-sized food processor is about it, but lots of hands for chopping).

I'm looking for menu suggestions (breakfast/lunch/dinners), as well as general tips on cooking for a large crowd.

What rules of thumb do you use to estimate quantities and simplify/ scale recipes for a crowd? What are some tips for making a rustic all-volunteer kitchen run smoothly? Can you recommend a cookbook with massively scalable recipes, especially for baking? What extra treats and extras can we offer to make our diners extra-happy?

Thanks everybody!

posted by ottereroticist to food & drink (9 comments total)

It would be helpful to know how much experience you've had dealing with cooking for large crowds. What's the largest crowd that you have cooked for? Like do you know how to large scale prep?
posted by bigmusic at 5:01 PM on May 13

I have managed the kitchen for other gatherings and cooked for groups this large before, but am looking to improve my knowledge and skills. Tips on large-scale prep would be great.
posted by ottereroticist at 5:02 PM on May 13

The kitchen is rustic, with propane stove, ovens, and griddle. Refrigeration is limited, as are industrial prep machines (a kitchen-sized food processor is about it, but lots of hands for chopping).

If you're at or near a university campus, see if you can get in touch with the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism. They often hold large banquets, and in some circumstances, they have to cook under pretty rustic conditions, too.
posted by maudlin at 5:35 PM on May 13

You mileage may vary. I'd go for static menus for breakfast and lunch. I'd consider fruit, granola, oatmeal along with juice and coffee. Your challenge sounds like cook space, gear and refrigeration. So, the simpler the menus, most of the time, the better. Lunch could be salad with a protein topper (chicken, steak, tofu) that could be seasoned, cooked and prepared in advance. This will allow you more adequate time for dinners.

The dinners are where I would offer more adventuresome fare. I would caution how long it will take to prep, plate and present. You could do something like a jambalaya (one with pork and another made without chicken stock or meat). You could do a roast vegetable quiche (which would allow you to work a day in advance). A cold soup would be good during the summer. Pad Thai would be a nice dish.

My concerns would be logistics: how much cooler/freezer space is there? How quickly can you wash the dishes? How often can/will you shop?
posted by zerobyproxy at 6:22 PM on May 13

Notes on Serving Meals to Large Crowds
posted by gum at 6:34 PM on May 13

For quantity information, I like slightly more demographic information. I always found it helpful to count my effective population. For a plated affair: 200 covers means 200 covers. For a buffett: 200 covers means adequately providing variety for 160-180 covers; however with a buffett, every item is portioned at a higher quantity.

Rules of thumb that I use
6-8 oz protien per person
4-6 oz main starch/side per person
3-4 oz secondary veg/side per person
2-3 oz passed apps per person
1-2 oz cheese/fruit plates per person.
If you're doing a cold soup like a gaspacho, remember: if its a hot day, 4oz per person is probably a lowball. However, on a cold day...4 oz may be too much.

If I've got an exact count for a plated affair, I run 6-8oz portions for my protien for everyone. If I've got n different protien choices for a buffett (where n<4>n/2) ounces per person. I'll alter this as I see fit (fish, for instance, may be weighted lower because I know the group isn't a fish crowd). But, my basic steak (as one of 3 different choices) would wind up as 6.5oz allocated per person. 6.5x200 = 1300 oz or 81.25 lbs of steak. Fish might be 3.5x200=700 oz or 43.75lbs of fish. Remember though: you are measuring usable portion, so if you get a whole pig and you need 60 lbs of useful meat, you'll need a 110lb pig. If you get it in whole, ask your vendor what the yield is - you may or may not get an answer (or laughed at).

Remember: 75 lbs of potato salad does not mean 75 lbs of potatoes, it means 60 lbs of potatoes, peeled to 55 lbs, and then 20 lbs of onion, garlic, pickle, mustard, and mayonaise added to it.

Finger sandwiches/baguette sandwiches as appetizers: split the bread, add sandwich stuff, and wrap sandwiches in saran wrap to form fit and compress the sandwich for a minimum of 20 minutes. Then cut the saran wrap and toothpick the sandwich (while still mostly wrapped). Slice each sandwich and remove the remainder of the wrap. In this manner, every sandwich is compressed evenly (which means they look fuller if done right) and they slice very predictably.

I'm lost with vegan cuisine for 200, but if you can give me a better estimation on the vegan count I may have some menu options for you. Send me a mefi mail and I'll try to give you a few recipes for that number of people who eat meat, dairy, fish, chicken etc...

I'd need to know targeted price points per head per meal to really comment on a menu, as well as capabilities of the staff, and how much preparation time you actually have, and how much of this is just an open the box and tear into it sort of afair...

The last time I did a catering gig, I started a four days out with marinades, sauces and incrimental activities. Day 3 was my deli meat preparation (I cooked it) and cold salad bases, and garlic roasting. Day 2 was cheese cutting, aplication of marinades, creation of stable sauces, deli meat slicing. Day 1 was herb and green washing, cold salad mixing (asides from herbs), making gaspacho. Day 0 was meat cook, herb cutting and application, salad cutting, tomato cutting, assembly of sandwhiches, pig roasting, fruit cutting, cheese and fruit plate assembly, and mixing the salad... and then service.

Go into this with a timeline: From CLEANUP backwards to first day of prep.
posted by Nanukthedog at 7:23 PM on May 13 [3 favorites has favorites]

in my experience cooking for a co-op of about 200 college students, the soup-salad-quick bread (cornbread, biscuits or savory muffins) combination is easy to pull off while being satisfying and allowing for a good deal of variation. there are a lot of meatless soups that are tasty and could be pretty impressive, or you could do meat and a vegan soup.
the fritatta/strada/crustless quiche type of thing would be good for the non-vegans- these are super easy to scale up, are good for any meal, eaten hot or cold, and again leave a lot of room for variation and creativity. also, homemade pizza is pretty doable if you've got a big mixer- just make the dough the night before and leave it in a realllly big container to let it rise. the beauty of pizza is that making vegan, veggie and meat options is super easy (err...gluten free not so much)
posted by genmonster at 7:30 PM on May 13

baked ziti is my fallback when i have to make a meal for a lot of people. cooked ziti + lots of marinara + lots of mozzarella, all in one of those big foil baking pans, in the oven at 350 until its bubbly and delicious. so easy, reheatable, you can make it ahead of time, and most importantly, really hard to screw up.
posted by Mach5 at 8:20 PM on May 13

Nixing the soup. Soup in large pots is easy to scorch (except for pure broths), unless frequently stirred.

Seconding the suggestion to contact the SCA. Some local members of my group freelance as caterers; the more experienced SCA cooks have Seen It All in large dinner catering.

(Example: my home group once arrived on a site the day-of, to discover the entire kitchen had been removed for renovation back to the bare gas/water/sewer pipes coming out of the walls - the site owners had forgotten that we had rented the kitchen when timing the renovation. Dinner for 50 was served on time.)
posted by IAmBroom at 9:54 PM on May 13