Help me plan a dinner for 120 people with $200~300

[NorCal]

Man, I wish you all the best, but cooking for 120 is a BEAR!! It does not sound like you're a pro, so I would advise getting all the help I possibly could. EVERYTHING will take time, chopping, arranging, shopping, serving, you will need a **** load of help just to serve 120 meals before they get cold. If you have anyone that you can hit up for help particularly if they have experience with food prep, do so now.

 

[Master-Classter]

CDFS - thanks for the Roux correction there... Is that why mine's always lumpy? lol Croustade - you can easily do both amouse with Tapanade and one in the soup with cheese, they'll be quite different. The soup is nice but a little "crunch" adds another dimension. For the Tapanade, I agree it needs another element. Crunchy/chewy bread, salty olive spread, maybe a little cube of goat's cheese? Buy big long roll, freeze, cut into cubes. For the Salad - remember, it's like a woman, always better slightly underdressed Consider - calling up some small local caterer and just basically saying you're throwing a party for 120 for the first time, tell them your menu and ask if they have any pointers/advice

 

[willpower]

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[philosophe]

Beautify the pasta and chickpeas as needed with a shower of chopped green herbs and a drizzle of olive oil.

For color, you could also add tomatoes to the dish.

 

[indesertum]

I'm not going to do the onion soup. I need 40, 50 lbs of onions and that's like $25. I can't afford them.

 

[bBoy JEe]

You can't toast the bread in the morning. By the time 6 pm rolls around, you'll either have hard, read stale, bread, or soft bread because you had to cover it.

You can fit a lot of baguettes into one oven. Slice it on the spot, and put it into baskets and cover with a nice cloth. Put the tapenade out in nice bowls

Isntead of tapenade, (olives can be expensive and not everyone likes them), maybe have some flavoured butters. Here are some ideas.

GARLIC AND PARSLEY
100g butter
2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
1 crushed garlic clove

BASIL, PARMESAN & TOMATO
100g butter
4 tbsp freshly grated parmesan
8-10 shredded basil leaves
1 tbsp finely chopped sundried tomatoes

CHILLI, CORIANDER & LIME
zest 1 lime
½ a 400g can red chilli , deseeded and finely chopped
2 tbsp chopped coriander

HORSERADISH & CHIVE
2 tbsp horseradish cream
6 coarsely crushed peppercorns
roughly chopped chives.

 

[bBoy JEe]

Originally Posted by indesertum

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/re...ipe_id=1011294

I found this, but I need some pictures of plating ideas. Should I partially cook the tomatoes or just add them in raw?


Alright so right now I'm thinking

Crostini - Tapenade
Fennel Salad with Radish
French Onion Soup
Bouef Bourguignon or Chickpea and Tomato Pasta
Stewed Pears or Cheesecake

Dinner at 6 pm
Baguettes will be toasted in the morning
Bouef Bourguignon will unfortunately have to be made in the morning as the order of beef wont' come in until saturday. carrots blanched separately added later.
Fennel will be cut and sliced in the morning, dunked in water with vinegar, spun dry, stored in fridge. Same with Radish
Onion Soup, Pears, tapenade, cheesecakes will be made a day or two in advance. Soup and pears will be reheated an hour in advance

For the pasta to look pretty, a nice trick is to use a pair of tongs, or chopsticks, or even a fork, and twirl some pasta around it so it looks to be a roll of pasta about the shape and size of a toilet paper roll. Then gently slide the roll off onto the middle of the plate.

For the tomatoes, I would poach them in olive oil with garlic and rosemary. Poach them under low heat until the skin just bursts.

Top the pasta with the poached tomatoes.

Drizzle around the outside of the food with olive oil.

I have serious reservations about your ability to cook Boeuf Bourgignon in that amount of time for 200 people. What kind of oven space and stove space do you have? Also, do you have enough cookware?

Browning 30 pounds of beef is not going to be a quick process. I'm not aware of what recipe you are going to be using, but if you're going to be using Julia Childs, all I can say is wow... bacon, browning veggies, making sauce, poaching pearl onions, sauteeing mushrooms etc...

 

[nahneun]

where are you holding this dinner? am i invited

?

 

[dragon8]

Get pizza at costco. Its $10 each and you can get 30 of them.

 

[dragon8]

Originally Posted by nahneun

where are you holding this dinner? am i invited

?

He's cooking for 200 and that's all he's got food for not 201

 

[vinouspleasure]

I would make antipasta, salad, garlic bread, lasagna and bread pudding with caramel sauce. The lasagna and bread pudding can be made in advance, the garlic bread buttered and wrapped in advance. Another inexpensive meal is cheese fondue followed by chocolate fondue for dessert. You'd have to borrow fondue pots I guess...

 

[IndianBoyz]

tomato soup
potato chicken curries and turmeric rice
cinnamon pancakes

 

[InsBrokerTX]

Not going to read throught the entire thread. Drive through Taco Bell and order off the dollar menu or don't invite half of the people.

 

[impolyt_one]

Did this go down already? Success? I thought you were still in Korea? I was thinking '... ****, $200 in Korean food is enough to feed like 20 people properly, max'

 

[indesertum]

Originally Posted by impolyt_one

Did this go down already? Success? I thought you were still in Korea? I was thinking '... ****, $200 in Korean food is enough to feed like 20 people properly, max'

I was in Korea for a semester and now I'm back at school.

Alright. I slept 1.5 hours for the past two days but it went down. Fun but not doing this anytime soon.

The salad and the bourguignon I think got really rave reviews. The pasta kinda meh imo but ppl told me they liked it. The tapenade was an excellent rec and I added Gremolate to it for garnish. I feel that ppl got too little food as I kept getting requests for 2nds.

I think we hit 310 with tax and maybe 90, 95 ppl came

Yes bourguignon was a ***** but I'm glad we made it as it was pretty good

Too busy to take own pics but ill be stealing them as ppl upload. Ills sleep now and post on egullet later

again thanks a lot guys for everything. Really appreciated the help