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I remembered the days where I would do a "Chinese Banquet" with six to eight dishes which sounds extreme but the trick is to use one thing thru different dishes cooked in various ways such that each dish was different to the others.
I would make many small meat balls the size of your thumb, and don't ask how I knew how big your thumb is,...some I would fry such that they were Just tiny crispy meat balls and serve them with say three choices of sauce...which back then I could make sauce and again you started with a basic mix divided it up and say added chilli to one batch, plumb sause to another and sesame seeds to another and another with whatever as many as you needed.
Dish two you could make a sweet and sour sauce with some vegetables and add in the meat balls usually pre fried,
Third dish you make some wung tung pastry..just flour and egg yoke and make little packets with the meat ball inside with some sauce and maybe an almond and some you deep fry and some you boil or steam. You could also make a vegetable dish with these things additionally boiled where they became bread like...And you can get some mileage by making some square packets and others like a mini spring roll and add some vegetables from the sweet and sour dish...and you can do this with say some pork belly where you get various dishes from the pile of chopped up meat.
AND of course you could make some noodle pastry and add flavoring different sizes whatever..but you could end up with just so many dishes with just simple ingredients and mountains of food with little variation in ingredients.
I remember a friend threw a dinner party for twelve guests and I did the cooking but he liked my Chinese dishes and my fondue dishes and insisted on both ..each would have fed twelve ...it only took me all afternoon as the fondue followed the build on approach ..however the weather turned real nasty where is was dangerous to go out and at about 5.30 the phone started ringing "we cant make it" over and over until finally just the four of us sat down to the magnificent feast...talk about left overs.
But the good thing with this stuff it usually tastes better the next day.
Alex
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