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In NL student culture its a custom to invite friends for a fancy dinner to celebrate your 21st birthday. I'm expecting about 20 friends to come to this dinner. The struggle is that it's really hard to efficiently serve 20+ people with just a simple kitchen, especially with regards to the main course. Given that esoc is a top tier way of crowd sourcing I was wondering if you guys have any ideas for appropriate starters, main courses and desserts that I could serve.

beer

[EDIT]

Cold ones with the boys

It's supposed to be fancy enough to serve wine. I will take wine tips though.

What type of beer is "wine"?

pizza "rolls"
some cold buffet
a barbecoue
littel pies
if you need some ideas and recipes just pm me

Okey, let me teach you some stuff or two as a pro host. If you want to have 20 ppl, you need room for them to eat. An easy solution is to make some rice or pasta as a side and maybe some meatballs, (note: you need to know about special diets, i.e. vegetarian, vegan, etc) or you could do a bbq in a backyard and also ask for friends to help a bit with preparations, like bringing some drinks or salads. As for starters you can put some bread slices in the oven and have various sauces to dip or spread upon or just some oil and oregano. (maybe with tomato and/or garlic). For dessert, you can have 20 glasses where you break biscuits for a base and whipped cream and sprinkle some chocolate and/or summer fruits. Or even simpler a big fruit salad.
EDIT: In supermarkets, there are sometimes frozen small pies, which you can bake in 20min.

a BBQ is indeed a consideration but I am looking at even more fancy. Thats kinda the tradition, to pretend you're actually rich and fancy.

Shrimps, toscanian wine, and some good steak with potatoes and salad maybe add some of those greek cheese filled olives and cheese filled peppers.

Start with some fine cheese section with wine and then proceed to some grilled fish plate with a side and more wine. The fish won't matter if the wine and cheese is a success because everyone will be drunk.

n0el wrote:Start with some fine cheese section with wine and then proceed to some grilled fish plate with a side and more wine. The fish won't matter if the wine and cheese is a success because everyone will be drunk.

Cheese section is after main course either before dessert or after. That's at least whats common.

Googol wrote:Shrimps, toscanian wine, and some good steak with potatoes and salad maybe add some of those greek cheese filled olives and cheese filled peppers.

While great, the complication is how do you efficiently serve 20 men a steak if you're running a home kitchen.

Yeah, that might be the problem, my father used to serve similar types to food to the guests but it was max to 5 people..

Sorry, i got no idea how you could serve 20 people like that.

Sounds like your fucked

GG no re. I guess if the meat dish can be prepared using the oven then it's fine though. That would probably be the solution.

Have a Basement themed event, order Domino's and pair it with gin

juts make cold buffet with some tomato mozzarella some cold schintzel and meat balls some nice salad ant bread zing

add some smoked salom and cheese
or a taco salad is op or do some burritos or a self made barcbecue with spyces and everything can do there self or selfmade pizza or or or or

I think the consensus is a small cold-meat buffet. Have stuff like salami. You can even buy a smoked ham and slice a bit of it on a plate. Just lots of small things. My favourite wine depends on the day. Nothing can beat a cold rosé on a hot day. On a colder day I like white wine.

A large hors-d'œuvre table seems very suitable. The issue with having 20 guests is that the food gets cold, so warm dishes are practically impossible. Grilling is perhaps possible if you have a large grill to have everything done within a few minutes, but I think cold food is the way to go - either an hors-d'œuvre table or something like sushi.

you have salad(s) and cold cuts as starter, such as good smoked hams or smoked fish, as well as quality sausages or grilled veggies (eggplant or zuchini are easy and delicious, but you can also put some carrots or pumpkin in the oven.) For the main course, pasta or mashed sweet potato is a good and easy dish, as you it fills you up quite fast, and its pretty darn good when prepared properly. Rice is also something which can be prepared in huge quantities, and rice can be eaten cold actually, it's not bad at all. Overall, I suppose you should kinda pick a cuisine, and go for ingredients common to that. As for dessert, fresh fruit with icecream, or something like tiramisu, can again be made in large quantities and its always nice

are you gonna make it all by your lonesome, or will you have plenty of help preparing it - what are a "simple" kitchen exactly @momuuu?? do you have a dining room so 20 ppl can sit around a table? or is it like you sit everywhere its suited (or not)??

If it is that fancy you might as well just go to the restaurant.

Starters: Root beet carpaccio, http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vege ... carpaccio/
Main course: Beef Wellington http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyle ... e2-1952280
Dessert: Mousse au chocolat, served with some fresh fruit purees.

The carpaccio can be prepared easily beforehand (which is good, you don't want to have so much when the guests actually arrive), for main course you should avoid steaks as it is a pain to prepare 20 steaks at the same time (almost impossible with normal equipment). You need something that is in the oven or a big pot (I suggessted beef Wellington as you wanted it fancy, but you can also go for paella, chilli con carne served in bread bowls etc.

You will definitely need a good BO to make it work

Lots of baguette + lots of cheese + lots of charcuterie/wurst/whatever you call it in english (those uk losers probs don't even have a word for that) + lots of red wine. viri viri fancy.

Or do a big "fondue" it's easy

Probably what you want is first off as people start to come in you want to have some trays laying around with like nice cheese and crackers, some shrimps and various other finger food along with a light beverage. If you really want to be fancy when you actually start the meal you'll start by serving some sort of light soup with a savory broth and not too many things floating in it. Than you'll serve a salad, probably lettuce with tomato, cheese pepper croutons etc since Europeans seem to think fruit is more of a dessert. Next serve a mild fish, like tilapia, than a much heavier meat like lamb or steak, followed by dessert of strawberry cake or tiramisu or something like that. However I'm confident that this is too much work for someone who is a student and isn't an actual chef so probably just serve like chicken parm with salad.