I would like to throw out the idea of a grill mat or grill cage, be it teflon or metal type. You can find these at home improvement stores, grocery stores, even Walmart. Especially for the veggies and fish, it will keep things from sticking to the grill and trashing it up between different grill fills. And speaking of that, if you’re on the grill, who is helping you with the rest? Food for 30 takes some time to cook. Get some help on prep and sides, plating everything to a serving table, etc. Keep the flow of traffic away from the grill as a path to eat.
I would second @Courteous_D 's recommendation to chunk and skewer any chicken you’re going to make. Chicken is notorious for being goldilocks on the grill, aka, “this chicken is too burned/uncercooked/etc.” Save yourself some time and skewer it with some additional veggies like onion and peppers and grill those together, then dump them into a single tin tray and let people get as much or as little of it as they want. The chunked chicken will all cook more evenly that way, just ensure space between things on the skewer.
Speaking of tin trays, @ArmandoPenblade mentioned your serving needs, add all your plates/utensils and serving and cooking needs to your cart while on your store run. Less dishes to clean up afterward.
Jesus, I hope either those avocados were football-sized, or the limes were thumb-sized, because otherwise that’s an insane ratio. I usually find anything over half a lime’s worth of juice to three or four avocados to overwhelm the other flavors.
Made some dipping sauce with the juice of two limes just yesterday. It would have been hard for them to overwhelm the eight tablespoons of nam pla though. My kitchen still smells of fish sauce.
Bit of both, tbh. The avos were damn near mango sized and the limes were mostly pith. But even then, I was gonna go hard on the acidic to help with browning, since that particular guac was intended to sit on a counter for 6-8 hours, getting opened and closed constantly.
Certainly a boon for chicken breasts, which have a very narrow window where they’re not inedibly pink or inedibly overcooked, but really not necessary for chicken thighs, which is why they’re ideal for this sort of thing.
The only downside of thighs–cooking 'em long enough to be sure they’re really really done–is that they can kinda hog space on the grill, depending on total size. If you’re trying to work in vegetables/vegan stuff for those that prefer it, having to work around this big no-go zone on the grill while the thighs sizzle away merrily can be annoying.
Not to say you shouldn’t do it, @ChristienMurawski, just that you’ll need to plan your grill’s shifts appropriately :)
You folks are so great. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate all these ideas and advice.
We may indeed back off of the seafood, mainly because we would prefer salmon but would want it all to ourselves, and trying to do that at a cookout is weird. Plus it’s expensive.
Strictly speaking I should advise you to keep the lid closed, but if people are gonna be fishing burgers outta there on the regular, it’s not like that is gonna help. Keeping it on low or even high with the lid off is better than just letting the food sit out, in my book, but, you know, the safest possible thing is to eat all the food immediately as it it comes off or get it to a fridge within half an hour, yadda yadda FDA yadda yadda laws yadda yadda wrongful death suit yadda yadda :)
Boneless. skinless thighs in a good teriyaki marinade are amazing. Great on their own, and people love to make chicken burgers with them as well. I would buy premade burger patties though, to minimize prep time.
If I had to do seafood, a salmon filet would be the easiest. Buy a nice wood plank (alder, cedar, maple), soak it overnight or at least a few hours, put the fish on that, and on the grill. Cool presentation too,
After all the meat has been cooked, clean the grates and throw down some fresh sliced pineapple and watermelon. Halved peaches are also good, but a bit on the pricey side.
Grilled peaches are pretty awesome. Our local store gets peaches down to .10 a lb, and while I usually spend hours skinning and freezing them, but when others grill them they are awesome.
Pork picnic shoulder was on sale so I ended up making some slow cooker pulled pork. I wanted to have pulled pork sandwiches but didn’t have any buns on hand. So what I decided to do was make some from scratch because I have never done it before.
Thanks! That’s high praise from somebody who ought to be the owner of a tremendously successful catering business and hosting a Food Network show, Armando’s Gaming Geek Den and Food Emporium.
