Portions: How To Decide How Much To Order For Your Function

Portions: How To Decide How Much To Order For Your Function

Planning parties, be it a significant birthday or a wedding, is always a time of great stress. You are hysterical by the upcoming story and at the twin time worried when you review at the details.

Your caterer or wedding advisor will help you get the details in the correct order but you still want some control over quantities of food and wine to order.

Here is a check list of how to plan, and the questions you need to ask yourself:

1. Beverages We estimate from bottle of wine per person to 1 bottle. However many other factors come into play alike as

a. Lunch time or dinner.

b. Age of group younger men will exalt beer / women often lift non - alcoholic beverages for lunch etc.

c. How many guests are driving?

d. If champagne is served as an aperitif then this should count towards total wine ordered.

2. Food including canapes Standard portion sizes for meat and fish for plated meals are easy to find using a site consistent as http: / / www. lovefoodhatewaste. com / perfect_portions. However canapes at the start of an story are more difficult to gauge. Here are our tips.

a. Canape party without dinner

i. 5 canapes in the first 30 mins and then 3 per hour up to a total of 10 per person.

ii. By adding nuts and olives you can decrease the number of canapes

b. Canape party with dinner

i. No more than 5 canapes per person.

ii. Consider just having olives, crisps and dips.

3. Buffets This can be a mean tremor served from a set eats or deeper canaps - twice the size of a finger canap.

a. Popular crash The ratio of meats to salad / starches will be for every portion of meat or fish ( 175gr per person ) implement 240 gr of salad / birr. This means that if you have a poached salmon or breast of chicken you will render 100gr of potato or pasta salad and two portions of other salad each weighing around 70gr each. If you take about this logically there is a total locus or weight of food a person can eat.

b. Classify stroke Expanded canapes. The trite is 10 per person for a party abiding 2 hours. If your guests are known as good eaters err on the farther side when you choose your establish canapes. A hummus with carrots or miniature baguette will be more stuffing than a delicate smoked salmon on toast!

3. Dessert portions go all out in this area remember the last food your guests eat will be remembered best. So variety and good display are very important. A tower of profiteroles ( croque - en - bouche ) would be ostentatious with a comfortable chocolate mousse and possibly a tropic fruit salad.

Final thoughts do ask your outside catering slick to set right how they have arrived at their portion sizes they will be happy to translate and you will touch more in control.

An article in a series published as a blog for South London Outside catering users.