Winter Dinner Party for 26: Plated Menu, Oven Plan and Plating

Twenty-six people at a seated, plated dinner is a big ask of a home kitchen, and the menu has to be built around that. This one is. Three of its dishes are finished before the guests arrive, the salad is assembled on an assembly line, and the main course is a scaloppine, which looks like last-minute cooking but can be browned an hour ahead and finished in the oven in the sauce. The real constraint is not skill. It's oven space, and most of this page is about how to share one oven among five dishes without anything going cold.

The menu

Passed with drinks

• Scallop puffs: bay scallops in a creamy herbed filling, baked in puff pastry
• Crudités with a yogurt and fresh herb dressing
• Savory baklava: phyllo layered with walnuts, feta and herbs, cut in small diamonds

Plated salad

• Mesclun with roasted pears, toasted nuts, garlic-infused goat cheese and a fig dressing

Main course

• Veal scaloppine with mushrooms, white wine and lemon (pork tenderloin cutlets work the same way)
• White and wild rice
• Roasted Brussels sprouts
• Braised radicchio
• Vegetarian option: individual acorn squash halves stuffed with rice and mushrooms under a light cheese topping

Dessert

• Lemon roll with lemon cream
• Chocolate roll with chocolate whipped cream
• Coffee and tea

Why this menu holds up in a home kitchen

Plated service is unforgiving because all 26 plates need to be hot at once. The trick is to choose dishes that hold at different temperatures. The rice holds for 45 minutes covered. The Brussels sprouts are good warm, not scalding. The radicchio braise is happy sitting in its pan on the back of the stove. Only the veal needs to be timed to the minute, and even that is finished in the oven, so nobody is standing at a skillet while the salad plates are being cleared.

Both desserts are rolled sponge cakes, made the day before and sliced cold. They need no oven time on the day at all, which is the whole reason they are on the menu.

Quantities for 26

I always make two extra squash halves. Someone who said yes to veal will ask for one after seeing it go past.

The oven schedule

Assume one standard oven and a stovetop with four burners. If you have a second oven, everything gets easier, but this schedule works without one. Dinner is called for 7:30, with the salad at 7:45 and the main at 8:15.

The veal is the worked example worth walking through. Fifty-two cutlets in a 12 inch skillet go four at a time, about 90 seconds a side, which is thirteen batches and about forty minutes with wiping the pan. That's why it happens at 5:00 and not at 8:00. Thin cutlets cook through in that time; brown them until golden and just done, layer them in two shallow hotel pans, cool them uncovered for a few minutes and refrigerate them covered. Don't leave them half cooked to finish later. Leave the skillet unwashed. At 6:30, make the mushroom, white wine and lemon sauce in it with all the browned bits, and keep it warm on a back burner. At 7:50, pour the hot sauce over the veal and slide the pans into the oven for 12 to 15 minutes, until the cutlets are steaming and read 165°F (74°C). The sauce keeps them from drying out. Pork cutlets get exactly the same treatment.

Plating for 26

Plating 26 dinners is a three-person job, and it goes faster than you'd think with a set order.

1. Line up the warmed plates on every clear counter, in rows.
2. Person one: a spoonful of rice at eight o'clock on each plate.
3. Person two: two cutlets leaning on the rice, with a spoon of sauce and mushrooms.
4. Person three: sprouts at two o'clock, a wedge of radicchio at four.
5. Wipe the rims with a damp towel and send the plates out two at a time.

With practice the line plates all 26 in about twelve minutes. Do the squash plates first and keep them aside, so the vegetarians aren't served last.

The salad plates go the same way but cold: mesclun, then pears, then nuts, a round of goat cheese, and the fig dressing spooned over just before they leave the kitchen. Plate the greens up to an hour ahead and keep them on sheet pans in a cold room or on a cold porch, dressing them only at the last moment. If you'd rather not attempt a plated salad at all, the greens with pears, Asiago and cashews can go out family style in two big bowls.

Make-ahead

• Two days before: Make the fig dressing and the yogurt herb dressing. Bake the savory baklava. Toast the nuts.
• The day before: Bake and roll both sponge cakes with their fillings and refrigerate them wrapped. Make the scallop filling and assemble the puffs on parchment, then refrigerate. Mix the garlic into the goat cheese and shape it into rounds. Cut the crudités and trim the sprouts.
• The morning of: Set the table and stack the plates by course. Cook and cool the wild rice.

If you want maple on the sprouts in the New England way, the warm vinaigrette from the Brussels sprouts with maple walnut vinaigrette can be made ahead and tossed in at the end.

Swaps and help

• Gluten-free guests can eat the salad, the main and both vegetables; skip the flour dredge on a few cutlets and brown them bare.
• For a guest who doesn't eat veal, pork is the easy swap, as above.
• Hire at least one helper for the evening for a party this size, even if you do all the cooking. Someone to clear plates and pour wine is worth more than any equipment. The guide to full-service catering explains what a full crew does if you decide not to cook at all.

The stuffed acorn squash

From the recipe box

Acorn squash stuffed with rice and mushrooms

6 halves

Prep

30 min

Cook

1 hr 15 min

Rest

5 min

Total

1 hr 50 min

Show amounts in

US cups & spoons metric

Squash

• 33 acorn squash, halved through the stem and seeded
• 2 tbsp30 ml olive oil
• 1 tsp5 ml kosher salt

Filling

• 2 tbsp28 g butter
• 11 medium onion, finely chopped
• 12 oz340 g cremini mushrooms, chopped
• 22 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tsp5 ml fresh thyme leaves
• 2 cups330 g cooked white and wild rice, mixed
• 1/3 cup40 g toasted chopped walnuts
• 3 oz85 g Gruyère, grated

Method

1. Heat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Brush the cut sides of the squash with oil, salt them and set them cut side down on a parchment-lined sheet pan.
2. Roast 35 to 40 minutes, until a knife slides into the thickest part with no resistance.
3. Meanwhile melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat and cook the onion until soft, about 6 minutes.
4. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring now and then, until their liquid has cooked off and they brown, 10 to 12 minutes.
5. Stir in the garlic and thyme for 1 minute, then the rice and walnuts, and season well with salt and pepper.
6. Turn the squash cut side up and pack the filling into the hollows, mounding it slightly.
7. Top with the Gruyère and bake 20 to 25 minutes at 350°F (175°C), until the filling is hot and the cheese is browned in spots.
8. Rest 5 minutes before plating.

Notes from the kitchen

• Roast and stuff the squash in the afternoon, refrigerate, and add 10 minutes to the final bake.
• If a squash half rocks on the plate, shave a thin slice off its back so it sits flat.

When the last main plate leaves the kitchen, turn the oven off, put the kettle on and take the two rolls out of the refrigerator. Twenty minutes at room temperature, and they slice clean.