Anything Butt Comp.

I am entering my first competition in a few weeks. There is an anything but contest Friday. The only rule I saw was no desserts and we have to make enough for 200 people to sample. What kind of food do people typically turn in? I would love to do wings or shrimp, but I don't think I have enough grill space. Do I stand a chance with a dip, slaw or something along those lines? Thanks for any ideas or tips from the experienced.

Samples for 200 I think will be a major deciding factor. That's a lot.

You could do Moink balls. There are bunches of recipes for those. Plus you could do all the prep work at home and just do the actual cooking at the comp. Maybe do a knock 'em dead sauce or glaze to go with it.

ABT's might be a possiblity if you tone it down. Maybe use an ancho chile instead of japs. Again, you could prep at home and cook at the comp.

Stuffed button mushrooms could be interesting. Maybe even do an ABT type filling in the mushroom instead of a pepper. Throw them on the smoker with some oak wood and maybe even a butter based basting sauce.

I saw a guy do a fruit compote in a frying pan on top of the fire box of an offset cooker while cornish game hens were IN the cooker. He plated it with the compote in the bottom of a big platter and the sliced up hens around the sides. He let me taste it and it was wonderful. He took first in 'anything but'.

Possiblities are almost endless.

Russ

Make a big ole pot of chili. Cheap to make and easy to quickly server to 200 people. All you need is a ladle and a stack of Styrofoam cups or little bowls.

This a great http://www.betterthanhot.com/Chip's_Competition_Chili.htm recipe

Hey Bob, is this a four meat event or a chicken and rib type cookoff? If it's your first contest and you're doing all four categories, I would suggest not doing the "anything butt" contest. Especially for 200 ppl!!! It's easy to get wound up and want to do it all, but honestly AB and People's Choice are nothing but time consuming and a hassle. Ask the top ranked teams if they do the ancilliary categories and most will tell you they don't.
That's not to say I don't understand why the organizers need these extra events at their contests. I know it helps brings in the general public and usually helps out with the bottom line finacially. But they also need to consider what us cooks have to go through to pull off these extra catagories. JMHO

Bob, welcome to the gang. I gotta agree with Rick. 200 portions of anything is A LOT. I have done 100 ABTs for a wedding and it is very time consumming. Concentrate on the comp and when you get it under your belt then look to the other meats and PC's. Some of the teams around here do PC's big time for the profitt, but they only enter the comp part just to do the PC. They don't even try to cook winning comp meat. Our team, rookie year, had the same discussion and we decided to concentrate on the comp side at least for the first few, maybe even the 1st year.

Hope you do well and let us know how it turns out.

Mark