Rice for 100

Panic! So how do you make rice for a 100 people? Ok really, it's only 80 people, but still....

My friends and I are catering my sons wedding ourselves. The wedding is small and the food is fairly simple. So as I make the final plans of who is doing what, I asked one of my friends if she would be in charge of the two side dishes. Now you have to understand this group of friends, we put on at least one to two parties a month. Sometimes it's 10 people, sometimes it's 20. We've done upwards to 50 people ourselves. But the panic in my friends eyes when I asked her at lunch the other day to make rice for 80 people told me I better look at that a little closer. I told her not to worry about it, I would handle the side dishes. My apologies to my friend for even asking her to make rice for that many people.

So, I went back to work after lunch with my friends and proposed the question to my office mates. How do you make rice for 80 people? I had no idea. One person said I needed a really big pot. Another person said she bakes her rice. Bake rice? Ok, I"ve never done that. Whenever I cook rice in a pan I always have the urge to look at it and stir it. It never comes out right. I don't have a rice cooker and I'd probably need an army of them to get the job done. So I had some research to do. When I looked it up on the internet, I had to look up how to cook for a big crowd. A big crowd is considered 100 or more. So armed with that information I dug in. I found a great website Ellen's Kitchen and I also looked up several recipes on how to bake rice.

First I tried the baking method to cook the rice recipe for the wedding in normal portions. It worked perfectly. Next, armed with my new baking knowledge, I converted the recipe to a larger quantity. I have no fears now. I can cook rice for 1000, if I need to, but please don't ask. When my daughter gets married, I'm handing over my credit card and hiring someone else to do all the work!