Recipe: Preparing Beef Teriyaki for 150 - ideas for Robin

Hi Robin! Sounds like you have agreed to help your friend with a couple of favorite reception foods that actually take professional catering equipment/facilities to make easily.

Here are my ideas regarding our beef teriyaki portion of your question. You can (and should!) absolutely prepare and marinate your teriyaki beef skewers ahead of time, but you can't cook them ahead of time. Fortunately, the meat is thinly sliced and cooks very quickly.

As part of a large appetizer buffet, I would suggest using 1.5 ounce of the beef per person as a guideline. That would put your beef purchase at just under 15 lbs. of completely lean meat (flank steak works pefectly, though top round would also be o.k. since it will be marinated and quickly cooked). I would probably buy at least 17 pounds of meat if I had to do this, so I could compensate for any fats/sinews that I might have to trim away from the meat I bought.

Buy 7"-8" wooden skewers in the grocery store and soak them in water for about 1 hour prior to using.

Slice your beef very thinly, against the grain, into 4"-6" long slices about 1/3" thick. It is much easier to slice meat this thinly if it is VERY cold (even slightly frozen).

Thread your beef slices into a loose "accordian" fashion onto the wooden skewers. Place the skewers into either ziploc bags or other containers and pour your marinade over. Seal up the packages/containers, and either freeze or refrigerate.

When it comes time to cook and serve, give each skewer a shake to get rid of excess wet marinade, and then place on a pan under the broiler or on a hot grill for about 2-3 minutes per side (any more and you will overcook it and make it tough/chewy). The idea is to keep the meat moist while getting a tiny bit of crusty edge on the meat - you must do this with VERY high heat and very quick cooking. If you do this a little ahead of time, know that the meat will continue to cook, so pull it off the heat before it is done. Also know that, should you consider cooking it ahead of time, covering it to keep it warm will start to "steam" the meat and make it less good (won't taste awful, but the texture will be less desireable).

About your request for cream cheese wontons - these are another item that can't be cooked ahead of time. They are items that really must be deep fried just prior to service. If you won't have facilities available for deep frying for large quantities available to you onsite at the party, you won't be as successful in making these. No recipe will help you with this dilemma. Suggest some alternatives to your friend to replace this choice. I will post my recipe for phyllo "kises" that are easily made ahead and baked just before service, but don't require a deep frier. They are quite popular and can be made ahead in huge quantities and frozen - I do it every year for the holidays.

Hope some of this helps!