Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Make it easy for yourself

Cooking for the masses is never easy. (Here we're referring to meals for 80-100, not the 25-50 parties that I do often) I learned how to do this well when I volunteered with the GRX kitchen in San Francisco, where we would cook a mini-supper for the congregation (about 100-120) after the evening service. Typically there would be 3 or 4 of us, and we'd have about 3 hours to prep and cook, which was a feat in itself. However, the biggest challenge was that I only had a budget for about $80-$100, and most often, I stuck to it pretty well!

This time, I cooked for the Menlo Park Pres Choir Welcome Dinner, and my main priorities were efficiency & quality! When cooking for such a large crowd, you need to be able to minimize the cooking on the extra day itself. This means that most things should be done ahead of time! For example, if you're serving a pasta, the pasta sauce needs to have been made two days in advance, to cook, cool, and store properly. Then, if you were serving a meat, letting it sit in a marinade usually works well to tenderize and impart good flavor, since, quite often the luxury of quick searing or slow braising is not there to give the meat it's best shot.

The same guidelines apply when you're throwing a dinner party. I always ask myself these two questions: What can be done ahead, and how can I showcase the food at it's best given the constraints?

I ended up serving a pasta with the Romesco sauce that I'm so fond of - to stretch it, I used half and half, and also added a good amount of roasted tomatoes from the garden. Chicken is always welcome at large dinners, since it agrees with everyone, and I chose to do roasted chicken thighs, which I was sure would hold their juices quite well. The recipe I used was the same one that I previously published for the roasted veggie salad, and can be found here. You don't need too much for the marinade, about 1/3 cup per 2 large chicken thighs.

I love pairing meats with stuff that's farmer's fresh, and figs are in season right now. So, I threw together a fig compote that accompanied the chicken for that extra special touch. It's super simple to make, and you can serve this alongside chicken, pork, and even cheese! Here's the recipe

Easy Fig Compote

Makes 2 cups

1 pt Fresh Figs, stemmed & chopped
1 cup Chicken Stock
1/4 ea Red Onion, diced
2 Tbs Olive Oil

Salt & pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a sauce pan, and sweat red onion until translucent
Add the figs, and saute for 1 minute before adding chicken stock
Bring to a boil, and simmer until compote thickens and liquid has mostly evaporated
Keep stirring the pot to prevent browning
Puree the mixture and leave to cool before storing in the fridge

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