Hello all,
I wanted to get everyone else's opinion.
I'm cooking for 250 people for a fishing tournament prize ceremony here in Costa Rica.
Expecting a hungry crowd.
Menu:
Pulled Pork
Pulled Chicken
St. Louis Ribs
Pork Sausage
Buns
Coleslaw
Mac & Cheese
Baked Beans
Steamed Yuca(root vegetable typical here)
My question is:
How much food would you serve? I'm aiming for a 2 good cups of combined meat and sides.
what do you think?
Thanks in advance
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When cooking for a large group, I usually do about 1/4 pound of cooked meat per person. That usually leaves me with leftovers. Now I have not yet figured out the proportions for sides.
To J-Melt's point, a 1/4 pound of cooked meat per person is 4oz. This is usually something like 1/2 pound (8 oz) per person of uncooked meat. For pulled pork I usually get 55-60% yield, for pulled chicken, around 50% - if you're doing whole chikkins and then pulling the meat and shredding it. This is time-consuming, though, with chicken. If you really work that carcass to get 95% of the meat or more. Now, you can get 80% of the meat from a chicken carcass in about 1/4 of the time. Up to you to decide if it is worth it to spend the extra time or not - how cheap is the chicken, and how many can you cook at once, etc.?
For 250 people, personally, I would start with at least 150 pounds of raw meat. So, to divide that all up, I'd say... 60 lbs of pork (6-8 pork butts), 45-50 lbs of chicken (here, 8-10 of our large birds from the local supermarket - dunno what ya'lls look like down there) and 30-40 lbs of sausage - this will go farther if you slice it, also much more labor intensive, but if you leave whole sausage links out, you'll go through a LOT more. If not slicing into coins, at least slice links into thirds. Also, having someone serve is going to save food costs and amount of meat as well. People will heap it up on their own plates, and maybe not eat it all. But if you have someone spooning it out for them, it'll go a lot farther. People can always get seconds, but they DO tend to shy away from piling a ton on at one time if someone is doling it out and they have to keep asking for more, more, more. There will be a few guys who still pile it up tall, but not nearly as many. Let them come back for seconds, and you'll see only about 10-20% of people actually doing that.
Also, in your serving line, put your side dishes first, with meat last in the line. To the point above, let them serve the side dishes themselves, just have someone serving the meat only. Keep this in covered chafing dishes or something, as an 'excuse' for serving it, someone has to cover/uncover, handle the tongs and such, etc. But for the sides, let them get their own and fill up a large portion of their plates first, and many just plain won't have the room for too much meat. The last thing you want to see is a gaggle of guys with giant plates heaped with meats and nothing else. That'll run down things pretty quick.
<edit> I forgot ribs from your list. These are tough to judge, as well, here we get some big, meat commodity ribs. I don't know what the ones you get down there look like. I remember when I lived in the Caribbean, we got ribs shipped in from off-island and they were MUCH smaller and thinner than the pumped-up commodity ribs we get here. If thinner, smaller racks than we get (St. Louis often run 3lbs per rack or more here) then you'll need more, obviously.
So my revised suggestion:
Pork butts - 50 pounds
Chickens - 40 pounds
St. Louis ribs - 30 pounds, which would be about 8-10 racks or so here
Sausage - 30 pounds
Honestly, in my experience, this will leave you in a really good place, with food left over. It all depends on the demographic and HOW hungry these people are. You could end up with 'a few' leftovers to send home (if it's all big heavy guys on vacation), or if these are light eaters (full families with wives and kids), you could end up with half of this to distribute for people to take home. Hard to say, really.
Hello all,
thank you all for the insight. Ended up serving 2.5oz per person of each item, except for pulled chicken and pork that I served 4 oz.
3 days of 18 hour shifts with 3 other people, we managed to set up an outdoor kitchen, prep and smoke for 250 people for the 10th Annual Flamingo Marina Fishing Tournament.
Very happy and well fed people.
Cheers
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