Let's Talk About Multicourse meals

[u/AutoModerator]

As part of our weekly "Let's Talk" series we want to discuss multi-course meals. Have you ever cooked or hosted a multicourse meal? How did you manage time/space/energy to pull it off? Any advice to avoid common pitfalls? Any examples that you're proud of?

On the flip side of that - what's the best multi-course meal you've had? Anything you didn't like about it? Any advice from the receiving end you'd like to share?

[u/SewerRanger]

I'm in a supper club so I've done my fair share of multicourse meals at this point. I think the biggest decision you have before you even start is "will you be eating along with the people you are serving". This decision changes all the aspects of your dinner. The prep, timing, serving, etc. will all be different if you're also hoping to join the people eating this meal. I think it's the biggest factor people don't consider when planning these things out. With that out of the way, I've had this comment from years ago saved for a while and it's been super helpful. I've incorporated the ideas into my own sort of "how to guide" with planning and executing a multicourse meal.

Step 1

Plan out the menu

• Pick a theme for it - French food, nouvelle Chinese, Land and Sea, etc. You have to have some overarching theme for the food to flow together and feel like it belongs together.

• Don't just lump "things that taste good" together because the menu will feel disjointed. Starting with bruschetta and then serving and chicken paneer followed up with pavlova just doesn't work

Step 2

Write it all down

• Create a list that starts with all of your menu items:

  salumi and cheese

  risotto alla monzese

  brasato di maiale with broccoli rabe

  semi-freddo

• Take that list and write out the ingredients separately:

  mortadella, finocchio,parmesan,asiago

  carnaroli rice, stock, shallots, white wine, saffron, luganega, pecorino romano

  pork shoulder, sage, pancetta, garlic, tomatoes, red wine, onion

  cream, blueberries, lemon, sugar, butter, olive oil, eggs

• Now you know everything you need to buy and you know if anything can be mixed. Maybe instead of parmesan and asiago, the antipasto is asiago and pecorino so you're not buying three cheeses. Maybe you want brescola instead of mortadella since you'll be having more pork for the primo. This is where you can see if things go together or are too heavy or clash in anyway.

• Now, figure out what you can make ahead of time - charcuterie and cheese should be sliced the day of; the risotto can be par cooked the day before and finished to serve; the brasato can be made 1 or 2 day ahead of time and reheated in the oven. The semi-freddo can be made a week before.

• Now you create a worksheet with each day listed and what you're doing on that day. Mine tend to look like this. Break it down by big ideals.

  Monday: Go grocery shopping

  Tuesday: Make the blueberry compote, marinate the beef in the red wine

  Wednesday: Make the lemon cream for the semi-freddo and freeze it, Slow cook the pork shoulder

  Thursday: Finish the semi-freddo, par-cook the risotto, cut sausage into balls, wash/clean/ prep the broccoli rabe

• The final bit is then planning out what's going to happen the day of. Make another list but have a suggested (and this is definitely just suggestions because you will be wrong) time line of events

  Cut charcuterie and cheese at 5:00

  Remove risotto at 5:45 and cook sausage, guest arrive at 6:00

  Place pork shoulder in oven set to 275F; serve charcuterie and drinks

  Finish cooking the risotto at 6:45 and serve at 7:00

  Clear dishes when everyone is finished (give 15 - 20 minutes depending on how much everyone like to drink and talk).

  Serve pork at 7:45. For the main give everyone 30 minutes to eat

  Clear dishes at 8:20 and serve cheese; remove the semi-freddo and blueberry compote.

  Serve dessert around 8:40.

[u/Tonexus → u/SewerRanger]

Wow, both this and your referenced comment are excellent! Massive undertakings like these have always seemed unapproachable for me, but the way you break it down makes everything seem much more manageable.

[u/SewerRanger → u/Tonexus]

It really helped me go from spending 90% of my dinner party cooking the dinner (panicking the whole time about if I could pull this off or not) to a much more casual and relaxed event.

[u/7minegg → u/SewerRanger]

This list is next-level. I used to do it, not any more because 1) it's too much work, and 2) people don't seem to appreciate the craft of cooking any more. I've invited people to participate in a multi-course pot-luck, the only rule is try some thing new and/or challenging, it's fine even if it fails and doesn't taste good. People come with some premade to-be-assembled thing and I can't see me continuing. We're losing the art of cooking and eating together, never mind the multi-course.

Someone suggested to me to hire a half-day helper, someone to pick up and lay out things, put away things, put food out, get things for guests when they need, empty the trash, etc. That seems a good way to have the host eat and spend time with guests instead of constantly running around fetching things.

[u/Dogs-wearing-clothes]

I made a 3-course meal for friends and it was all dishes I could prep ahead. I spent the day preparing but when my friends arrived all I had to do was pull something out of the oven or the slow cooker so I could spend the time socialising with my guests. First course was pumpkin soup (made and kept in the slow cooker until needed) with bread, mains was cottage pie (made ahead of time and put in the oven to bake) and dessert was a cake I baked ahead and bread and butter pudding that I pre-assembled and put in the oven after the pie was done.

[u/Disastrous_Bee_5772]

I'm a private chef in Miami and cook multi-course dinners in client kitchens. What keeps the timing and the food temperature right:

1. Count plates before you lock the menu. Four courses for ten people need about 40 plates plus cutlery. Many homes and rentals don't have that, so check early.

2. Ask for a photo of the kitchen and the oven beforehand. The oven decides what can stay hot together.

3. Serve one-bite appetizers for the first 30-40 minutes while guests arrive. It wakes up the appetite and absorbs late arrivals before the first plated course.

4. Plan backwards from the first course. I arrive 2.5 to 3 hours early and cook everything from scratch on site.

5. Work with a second person. I always have an assistant: one of us plates while the other cooks the next course, so hot food goes out hot.

6. A plated dinner runs about 2 to 2.5 hours. Keep portions small enough that nobody is tired of eating by the last course.

[u/thecravenone]

In my small kitchen, I put every cooking and prep surface into a spreadsheet with 15 intervals. Thus far this has only failed me twice: an oven going out on Christmas Day and a co-host who started prepping 75 minutes into the 90 minutes they had allotted for the oven.

Run the dishwasher as often as possible. On a big meal that means I want the dishwasher empty when I start prep, it will run and be emptied at least once during cooking and again right when we start eating. This isn't just about avoiding dishwasher backup - it also frees you to dirty more things. I find a big meal easier to cook with things like prep bowls but I only have so many of those and running the dishwasher often means not limiting myself there.

[u/telkrops]

I did this once where I served 8 people the menu from the final first class dinner on the Titanic (about 11 courses). It took so much planning—I made a chart of when I expected to serve each course and worked backwards in terms of timing. It was tricky because I am a home cook so I only had one oven and a normal 4-burner range to work with, so timing had to be immaculate in terms of how long things needed the oven as well as if there needed to be extra time for the oven to adjust temps. I did trial runs in the weeks leading up to the dinner to get timing right, and I made cold things the day before where I could. I did not eat with our guests; I don’t think I could have gotten it all done had I also eaten.

The timing planning made all the difference for me. I’ve done other multicourse menus but I was able to select courses for those that allowed for more flexibility in timing. The Titanic one was tough because it was a) someone else’s menu, b) I hadn’t even heard of some of the dishes prior to making them for this event, and c) I had to learn a lot of techniques which meant I was probably slower than I should have been in the timed trials. It was immensely fun though and I’d do it again :)

[u/Aggressive_Move6451]

I hosted a four-course dinner once and what saved me was picking dishes that could be done ahead. A cold starter, a soup I reheated, a braise that got better overnight, and a dessert made the day before. that left only one thing to cook while guests were there, and I'd say keeping the number of last-minute dishes to one or two is the main thing.

[u/No_Marsupial_7566]

I'd pick courses that mostly get done ahead of time, like a cold starter and a dessert, so I only have one thing to cook once guests are at the table.

[u/Specialist-Bowler465]

I've tried to do multi-course meals, but I just think it's too much food for everyone to eat, and since none of my other family members that I live with, cook, its a bit too much for myself, I think. It's quite awkward as everybody in the house has different dietary requirements, and we all like different textures, tastes and level of spice etc. Hard to fine a medium ground. One person doesn't like spicy, one does, one person doesn't like salty, one does, one person doesn't like crunchy, one does... One person *can't* have too much fattening or salty stuff, etc...

My aunt was really the only person I knew who would always offer us multicourse meals when we stayed with her. It was so good. I don't have anything that stands out, it's a blurry memory. She taught me how to make the fried white-rice noodles that you get at the bottom of Chinese food, and also how to make honey chicken. Honey chicken is the Australian version of USA orange chicken. She had all these cook-cheat sheets from when she used to run catering businesses.

I think the only multi-course meal I've had at a restaurant (that's proper multi-course), was Japanese. That was really good. Unfortunately, they run out of red-bean ice-cream at the time.

[u/Aunt-KK]

I've served huge Christmas meals. 1. Italian wedding soup...2. Pasta with meatballs and sausage...3. Chicjen, potatoes, broccoli rabe, mushrooms...4. Salad...5. Homemade cookies(can you tell I'm Italian? 😀) I make the soup the day before. Thaw chicken two days before. Broccoli rabe, meatballs/saysage precooked and frozen. Everything else i make that day.

[u/texnessa]

Even though my entire job is to plan out how dishes transition from one to the next thru a coursed menu across an entire restaurant menu, not just a tasting, I actually hate eating coursed meals.

The underlying philosophy of a coursed meal is a common theme, avoiding repeat main ingredients while also having continuity. From a planning perspective, it the same as all of the holiday planning threads we've hosted over the years, know your equipment and plan your timing accordingly. Write out a prep list, back time everything, have a kitchen minion to help clean as you go, store things properly, etc.

From a food perspective, first, just pick a cuisine FFS. Trying to create Frankenfusion on the fly is never the right direction. My inclination for every coursed meal where I plan to sit the fuck down and eat like a human is Italian. Its simple ingredients that shine on the basis of quality alone. Nothing that needs to be timed and rested, so no steaks. Nothing that sucks when left to chill out- no soggy fried items. Things that can be par cooked and refreshed and plated are the way to go- that's literally 90% of how restaurant menus are planned.

A sample menu would be something like a caprese that can be plated ahead of time and stuffed into the fridge. Olive oil, balsamic glaze and pesto in a squeeze bottle to plate. Two seconds and go. Or a Caesar with huge curls of shaved parm, enormous garlicky croutons. Make it in a huge bowl and let people serve themselves. Pasta. Seriously. Ya wanna get fancy? Make it by hand. But it cooks quickly, sauce it quickly in a couple sautes and onto a plate. A bowl of tenderstem broccoli with confit garlic on the side. Lots of great bread and expensive butter. Dessert- mach 7 espressos, enough sambuca to stop a charging horse and individual desserts plated in stemless wine glasses. Layers of mousse, cookie crumb, spiced chopped nuts, top with a swirl of crème chantilly with a star tip, extra fancy.

Personally, when I throw a dinner party its like if a kid was given free rein to just take everything out of the fridge and serve it at the same time. I grew up all over the place but my heart will always be in Singapore. Hand me seventeen different snacky apps, dumplings, satay, spring rolls, coconut bao, and I am golden. Serve em all at the same time with a stupid number of dipping sauces and a pile of Hainanese Chicken rice, call me when I wake up from a food coma.

[u/Orechiette]

There are a lot of cooked vegetable that can be served at room temp, and that makes things easier for me.

[u/chuckquizmo]

I’m gonna butcher the actual quote but Ina Garten said on some random podcast that her theory for cooking for a group is “one cold, one bought, one hot” and I think that’s a great starting point. Make something ahead of time that can be served cold, buy a pie or something, and make a big lasagna. Depending on how big the crowd is you might have to make a couple cold things or get a few appetizers, but I appreciate that she says that buying some good store bought stuff isn’t a detractor. Nobody will know the difference, especially when you have a couple other homemade things.