Japanese food for 12 would be interesting especially if you arent used to cooking for that many. Let alone the aesthetic value that japanese food holds, imo it would be a bitch and ive done banquets for 500+. Japanese food is tough.
Anyways, scaling recipes.
There is the basic way to scale a recipe. For example, a recipe serves 4-6. Take 5 as average. And say you need to feed 25. Multiply by 5. Easy.
The more advanced, longer and more precise way to scale is by using a Conversion Factor. Basically the conversion factor is a number that you multiply all ingredients by to come up with a recipe amount that will produce the amount of food needed for the amount of people that are attending. I could describe it, but i feel that ive already lost some people in teh.. fuck.. here it is .. quoted off another website.
Quote:
Divide the recipe “old” yield with the “new” yield you need. Here are a couple of examples.
For making smaller recipes for presentations or production needs:
You need only 32 ounces of sauce. The recipe you have yields 160 ounces.
Simply divide 32 (new) by 160 (old).
Looks like this:
new / old = conversion factor; 32 / 160 = .2
For making larger recipes for production needs:
You need 200 ounces of sauce. The recipe you have yields 80 ounces.
Simply divide 200 (new) by 80 (old).
Looks like this:
new / old = conversion factor; 200 / 80 = 2.5
2. Multiply all the ingredients in the recipe by the new conversion factor.
Now that you have your conversion factor, you simply multiply each ingredient by this factor. Note that if the conversion factor is less than 1, then you are decreasing the recipe. If the factor is greater than 1, then the recipe will get larger. The only ingredients that do not follow this rule are; salt, pepper, and “hot” spices. They must be adjusted according to taste.
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And after that, just follow the method the same, but with bulk food. This Conversion Factor can work both ways. It can take your Seafood Paella for 6 and turn it into 373, or take the above recipes for 50 and scale it down to 2.4. If you so fancy. Its helpful and something that chefs use alot in costing recipes. Etc etc.
Try it out!