Looking for some ideas of what to have for a huge 50th Bday (mine) cook

sudsandswine said:

I think I would make less things, having made lots of things before and realizing how much work it is. Your special day though, congrats :thumb:

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Well, I did something like 12 proteins mostly as "mains" last year and had a blast. That's what the photos were from stand. Standing in the pouring rain working the hell of one of my Ranch Kettles. Any way I do it, it'll end up being being a good amount of work as I'm expecting somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 - 100 folks.

My SV cookers will take some of the load off my shoulders. Take Picanha for instance. Usually, I do it pretty close to how it's done at Brazilian places. Skewer it raw and throw it on the roti. Let the outer surface brown up and the fat get crispy, pull it, slice of the face til I hit really rare meat then put it back on the roti to brown again. Rinse/repeat. For this, I'll SV'ed the sliced cap, skewer it, let it brown, then slice it all up.

Additonally, at past parties, I've always had a good selection of proteins, perhaps 5 or 6 different offerings as the "mains". That has me trying to all that protein cooked, ready and coming off the grills/smokers at the same time immediately one after the other so that folks going through the food line had everything to choose from. It actually gets to be a complicated dance trying to grill up 20 pieces of chicken, 24 ribeyes, 12 pork chops, 16 burgers and some hot dogs. At the same time, keeping up with 8 racks of ribs and 2 briskets on the smoker. Trying to time when to put what on, when to bank to indirect to put something else on, getting everything to finish at roughly the same time, then dumping the grills and smokers and getting all the food inside.

If things work out the way I'm thinking, I'll actually be able to focus on one dish at a time and in small batches to boot. Skewer and spin some Picanha, pull, slice, send it out. Next, some Kalbi. That'll only take 5 minutes to grill, so no hurries. When it comes off, move to bulgogi. That one will get a bit tedious and high maintenance, but I'm only planning on doing about 10lbs of it.

There will be some overlap as the Al Pastor will take some time to cook from raw. Wings will take an hour in the smoker. Haven't decided if I'm going to SV the ribs and/or brisket and finish on the smoker, or just smoke them. Either way, they'll be running in the background. But still, things will be spaced out a bit.

I guess it definitely does hurt that like many others here, I actually enjoy the cooking. The prep work leading up to it will be a bit tedious, but the cook itself ? To me, it's kind of like going white water rafting.

bbqwizard said:

I absolutely love things like this. A lot of work, but fun. Then again, I'm biased, ha ha. Try to think of a theme for each item. You have the more American for some, Asian for some, Argentinian, Mexican and so on. You seem to already be on this path, but sometimes you just need validation. I also mix up my flavors by having something savory, sweet, spicy, exotic, creative, and fusion, etc. Even if you just want to stick to the usual suspects, try adding a fruit pico/salsas to them, grill sliced bread or grill flatbread. Add a chutney, chimmichurri, mole, pesto to everything to offer variety...you get the drift.

Have fun most importantly!

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Thanks. Yeah, I think I'm going to have a blast. The one thing is that I'm not all that creative, adventurous or that much of a foodie. I used to be a meat and potatoes guy, now I'm just a meat guy. For example, I'm thinking about some Churrasco I had down in Puerto Rico, so now I'm searching here and Googling to find out just what the heck Chimmichuri is and how to make it. If I read things correctly, what I'm actually thinking of is called Faldhi (?)

One huge drawback to my limited knowledge is that I don't even know the names of things or the keywords to use for searching here. I've kind of resorted to just scanning page after page of posts, attempting to decipher which threads are food threads that might work for what I'm wanting to do and then drilling down from there.

What would really help is anyone jumping in and saying "Dude, you've got to make X, or Y or Z" which I could then search for. Even better if they had a link to a cook thread

Did a test run on London broil and Kalbi just for the heck of it. Definitely need to cut back on the soy proportion

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Known dishes so far.

Wings:
-Injected and smoked Scarbelly wings.
- Deep fried wings with various sauces.

Moinks
Kalbi
Bulgogi
Pork Al Pastor
Pork belly burnt ends
Char sui pork belly bites
Teres Major
Picanha
Top round London Broil
Churrasco


Baby Backs
Brisket
Brisket burnt ends
Ribeyes
Some form of Chx breast (not sure about seasoning/marinade yet), whole, chunked, kebabbed ? Don't know what, just gotta have chicken.



Will probably do some kind of bacon wrapped pork loin. Undecided on ingredients.

Hoss said:

Google DizzyPigs maple bourbon salmon.I HATE salmon but this recipe makes it very Tastee.

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Demosthenes9 said:

Known dishes so far.

Wings:
-Injected and smoked Scarbelly wings.
- Deep fried wings with various sauces.

Moinks
Kalbi
Bulgogi
Pork Al Pastor
Pork belly burnt ends
Char sui pork belly bites
Teres Major
Picanha
Top round London Broil
Churrasco


Baby Backs
Brisket
Brisket burnt ends
Ribeyes
Some form of Chx breast (not sure about seasoning/marinade yet), whole, chunked, kebabbed ? Don't know what, just gotta have chicken.



Will probably do some kind of bacon wrapped pork loin. Undecided on ingredients.

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Forgot: Adding Mikhail's and Hoss's Salmon suggestions to the menu. As well as Tri Tip.

Happy Hapgood said:

Lord Have Mercy! Mighty fine plan. What about the Hors d'oeuvres? Ain't you got no cooth? Appetizers Man!



You need to put the oven to work too and make some Bacon wrapped Saltines. Half strip of bacon around each cracker. Broil or grill till bacon done.


They will disappear right before your eyes.

You can also add your favorite toppings - peppers, cheese etc.

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Hehe, I definitely don't have any couth, but, I thought I had apps covered with wings and moinks. Those crackers do look interesting though. Do you coat with any rub or brown sugar or anything like that?

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Mikhail said:

Y'know, Louisville is just a short drive. It may be too late this year, but next year you might need some help with that salmon. :mrgreen:

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Too late ? You're less than 2 hours away and the party isn't until Saturday! Come on down ! Hell, I do day trips to Cincy / Covington a couple of times a month.


And yeah, of all things, the Salmon will probably be the hardest for me. I've grilled it once, on a cedar plank using a gasser.

Getting stuff lined up. Found a great BBQ store not too far away. They have a nice selections of ribs and sauces. Really liked that they had sample shakers and squeeze bottles off all the runs and sauces that they carry.

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Food Prep has begun. Drtupped and sectioned out a case of wings. Pi ked up some of the other meats today. A whole top round, 15lbs of Tri tip. 10lbs of inside skirt, 20lbs of boneless Boston butt and a 12lb pork belly. Stumbled across some beef tenderloin butts on sale so I grabbed 4 of those as well.







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Happy Hapgood said:

First off Happy 50th Youngster! I never claimed to have any couth either. Those saltines will crisp right up around that bacon. Add you favorite topping. Watch them disappear. :thumb:

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Thanks! I'll admit that I'm seriously intrigued by these crackers. Enough so that I'm going to do them and try them, even though I've sworn off carbs.

redchaserron said:

For a 50th birthday most doctors recommend you have a colonoscopy :grin:

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I quite literally don't know how to respond to that :heh:

KevinInStL said:

Holy crap that's so much meat! You're risking a meat-alanche:becky: with all of that cow & pig piled on that broken shelf! Have fun and happy birthday.

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Haha. Yeah. I guess I need to try and see if I can find a new shelf. Thing is, replacement parts are kind of hard to find for a 40 year old fridge. :redface:

But, I did just kind of reinforce it. I managed to get 28 bagged chicken breasts in under that shelf to try and support it.