Just got put in charge of a wedding


 
A

Andrew Martin

New member
So my brother's wedding is this Saturday, and he just let me know that I'm cooking the food. Probably 40-50 people give or take. He wants BBQ and lots of it. Also sea food. I'm curious of how much of what I need to make. So far the request list is:

Brisket
Baby back ribs
Chicken
Tuna steaks
Crawfish
Crab
Frog legs
Buffalo style wings

Also I need a plan of attack. I have an old barrel type grill and a newer smaller thing to work with. My plan is to start the brisket the night before around midnight. Low and slow until noon. Foil, blanket and into a cooler. Start the ribs at noon with my guess at 4.5-1-.5. Start the chicken fairly low and indirect about 3. Take it out about 6. Chicken ribs and brisket all go out on the table at 6, and then fire up the little grill to highest heat and just go to town on the sea food as fast as I can get it and have runners getting it to the serving table. Everything should be done for 6:30 dinner time.

What do you all think?
 
Seriously, 50 ppl? THIS Saturday? All that?

What do I think?

Dial 1-800-CATERERS and give them your brother's credit card number!


Or tell him he can have "BBQ" or "Seafood" but not both. Hope he picks BBQ and then do Pulled Pork, Pulled Beef, Pulled Chicken.
 
Lol man, that's a bulls*** menu. Tell him to pick three proteins from that list, and some sides.

WAY too much work on this short of notice.
 
Frog legs, tuna steaks, wings, and crawfish especially are very labor intensive, and crawfish require an entirely separate cook setup, unless you're making a roux-based crawfish dish like Etouffe or gumbo from frozen tails.
 
Personally, I'd ditch a couple things. Either way, do you have access to another cooker or a kitchen oven?
 
He must have been real hungry when he made the request list.
I'd take him out to dinner to some place he really likes, feed him everything you can, then have a discussion about some brisket, butt and chicken.
 
Well, you know. He's my bro, and I'm intrigued by the challenge. Plus, i want to see what a spread like that looks like have to admit it sounds pretty epic.

I do have access to a full kitchen, double oven, range etc.

I was thinking for the crabs and crawfish I could kill them in boiling water and just finish them on the grill. Do I have to clean them that way, or should I just plan on doing a big boil?
 
Andrew, good luck with the big cook, if it is possable, maybe some pics. I would like to see how you managed, how it worked out for you. Again, good luck.
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I would cook the brisket and the ribs ahead of time and reheat them. If you can vacuum bag them even better as you can heat them on the stove top in boiling water to save some grill space. Try to save yourself a few steps if you can. Remember, you will want to have some fun with your family as well and not be stuck at the cooker all day/night.

Line up some helpers to set up and more importantly clean up afterwards too !
 
Andrew, I've cooked for large groups and I don't think you have the grill space to cook that many items for that many people. I would cut down the selection to 2-3 things. You still may have to borrow a smoker or 2. Good luck and post pics!
 
Tell me what you mean by old barrel and smaller thing - in terms of space - and I'll tell you what I'd do for a workflow.
 
Hi K Kruger, the barrel is literally a 55 gallon oil drum split in half and put on stilts. It has a grilling surface of 24"x18". The smaller grill is 24"x17" with a warming rack that is 24"x8". Like I said, I have a full (and spacious) kitchen to work with.

Right now I'm looking at the biggest brisket I can find, maybe 15 lbs. or bigger. 9 racks of ribs, 6 chickens cut up into 8 pieces each. 30 lbs of crawfish, 25 lbs blue crab, 10 lbs frog legs and probably 15-20 tuna steaks. The wings aren't my problem. My half-sister is handling appetizers and munchies, my mother is taking care of all the sides, and a friend of mine is making the cake.
 
Stick with briskets in the 12-15-pound range if you can. Do one or two. It is not necessary to have full servings of each item for every guest. They won't eat it and the cook becomes unnecessarily laborious. (I do big multi-entrée cooks quite often.) Cut where you can. (Frankly, I'd do one brisket; 5 chickens (cut); 20 lbs each of the crab and craws; 5- 7 lbs of frog legs (get the mediums, not the large); 15, 6-8-ounce tuna steaks; 8 racks bbacks.

I see no reason to low/slow the brisket but if you'd prefer, go ahead. If you do, time it to be done in the morning. If you high heat, do it first thing then do the bbacks - or do them on the larger grill in the morning as well. (I do them at ~325-350; done in < 3 hours.) When the brisket is done remove and allow to cool; same for the ribs. (I never sauce ribs during cooking. If you prefer them that way, fine, but don't sauce at this point - pull them when tender and let cool.) Fridge the brisket and ribs.

When both grills are available smoke the chicken pieces till they take on some smoke but are only just done. Move them to a sauce bath and let them sit. Cool; chill.

Meanwhile, marinate the frog legs in, say, 3 beers, a good dash of hot sauce, plenty of crushed garlic, 1/2 a beer can's worth of ketchup, and a few tablespoons of ground chile.

We're at early afternoon at this point. Take a break.

Plan to do a craw and crab boil on the stove. Prep as needed and get your boil pot ready.

For service: Preheat an oven to 175 and gently heat the chicken in their sauce bath. Put the brisket on a rack on a sheetpan or roasting pan, drizzle with stock and a little melted butter, cover with foil and stick in the oven with the chicken.

Heat the other oven to 175, put the ribs on a couple sheetpans, cover with foil, and stick in the oven.

Get your pot(s) for the crabs and crawfish going on the stove.

Get the grills going at moderate heat. Remove the frog legs from the marinade and drain, reserving the marinade. Place the marinade in a pot, bring to a simmer, and add a stick of unsalted butter. Whisk in well to incorporate then bring that pot out to one of the grills - with a basting brush. Season the tuna steaks.

Bring the now-well-warmed chicken out to the grills and remove each piece from the sauce bath, draining well. Finish on the grill(s), turning as needed, till hot; platter and tent with foil. Immediately bring out the well-warmed ribs, finish on the grill (glazing if desired)) for just a few minutes; platter and tent with foil. Grill the frog legs direct, brushing with the buttered marinade you brought out earlier and flipping as needed (they'll take 10-15). Put the crab and craws in the pot(s). Put the tuna steaks on the grill. Bring out the warmed brisket, slice, platter, and serve the brisket, ribs and chicken. Pull off the frog legs and serve directly. Get someone to grab the crab and craw pots while you platter the tuna. Serve the tuna, crab and craws. Done.
 
Thanks for that, Kevin! Something will almost certainly go wrong, but I will try to stick to that and for sure let you all know how it goes.

-andrew
 
There are built-in areas to accommodate the inevitable glitches: Doing the brisket and ribs early and cooling then fridging gets them out of the way. Ditto for the chicken. Take it to just done (safe internals) then stick in a foil pan with thinned sauce and allow to cool; then fridge. If not finished, it's technically done so at least that part of it is covered.

Early afternoon can be used to catch up if need be, or to do other stuff that comes up, or whatever.

Normally for service I do not reheat at low temps. There's no point to it really and reheating at 300 or so is faster. As long as one doesn't overdo it - food only needs to be reheated to serving temp, not to the point where it cooks again - it's fine. I'm choosing low oven temps for the reheat here because it will allow you to get things in the oven kind of early and allow them to hang while you do other stuff. (For the chicken in sauce, I'd reheat the pan(s) on the stovetop till the sauce is at a simmer, covered, then stick in the 175 oven.) If for some reason you can't get things in for the reheat sooner, just use a higher oven temp. The key issue is not to reheat to the point where the food cooks. (The chicken does need further cooking but that you'll do on the grill.)
 
Andrew,

That's a substantial request from your brother. I'm with Kevin; ditch a few items. If it were me, I'd get rid of the wings, crawfish and frog legs. 2 of those items tend to be a messy eat and this is a wedding. Weddings are charged with emotion and should be joyous celebrations. Avoid getting in over your head just for the sake of appeasing your brother.

Enlist another set of hands or 2 to help you.

Paul
 
Hey everyone,

Things went very well. I only got a few pictures of the cook, but I'm going to they to get some more from the leftovers.

I ended up with 2 12 lb briskets, about 25 lbs of ribs and 25 lbs of chicken to start with. Saturday night, I rubbed the briskets with mustard and put them in an ice chest, cut up the chickens and marinated those, and did a black pepper dry rub on the ribs.

At 7 am Saturday,I started the briskets on high heat. By 1 pm they had both reached 185 internal, so I foiled them and put them in a cooler to rest and started the ribs still on a fairly high heat.

At 3 pm, I started working the chicken pieces over the other grill at about 500 degrees (not hard to maintain in the middle of a hot Texas day). I did about had the chicken, then I put about 6 lbs of salmon on cedar planks and covered with a Thai sweet chili sauce.

People had started arriving, so I pulled out one brisket, carved and sauced (I made two gallons of my sauce in the morning while the brisket was on). By the time that was done, so was the salmon. So nice spread to open with.

Then I finished the other half of the chicken pieces. By that time, people had completely destroyed the first brisket. They loved it. We have some very serious smokers in the family, and they were amazed that I was able to get it that tender with a high heat. They were swearing up and down that I had smoked it low and slow for at least 12 hours. So I'm calling that a success.

More brisket out, and more chicken. It's about 6 pm now, and people are slowing down on the eating, so I put more coal on the little grill to get back up to searing temps, and start the tuna steaks, while I get the water going inside for the crawfish and crabs.

I coat the tuna in olive oil and crust it with a mixture of crushed black pepper and coffee. Sear for 30 seconds on each side at about 500 degrees and it's perfectly done, still quite raw on the inside. I did 15 of those in about 20 minutes and it was back inside to the water that just started to boil.

30 lbs of crawfish and 20 lbs of blue crab. Boiled as fast as I could get them in and out and done. People are starting to get full but won't stop eating because they seemed to think it's all very good. I get done with the boil about the time the drinking gets really heavy (around 8 pm), so people are starting to get the munchies.

Ribs have been on since about 1:30 and aide gradually been letting the temps fall off from the high heat I started at. They get foiled and put in the cooler until 9:30 when I pull them and carve them up. Honestly, I think the ribs were the best dish of the day.

All in all, I think it was a smashing success. We had a blast. A stayed basically busy on my feet for over 14 hours straight, and I have to say that I loved every minute of it. But good grief, I was tired at the end of it all.

Thanks again for everyone's suggestions. I would not have made it through that without some advice.
 
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