Help!! - New Years Logistical Quandry!

Hi everyone.
I've been over this and over this in my mind and bounced it off Len and neither of us knows exactly what we should do. I know I am coming to the right place by asking you seasoned entertaining veterans!

We are having a little New Year's Eve party for about 25 people...starting at 6pm. (We live in the desert and people party early around here!)
The idea is to have cocktails from 6-7:30, and then serve a buffet dinner.
On the buffet will be roast tenderloins of beef made via the foolproof Ina Garten way, and roast salmon roasted at high heat in the method of one of our favorite restaurants.

The Ina Garten method calls for the beef to be coated with butter and s/p and roasted at 500 degrees for 22 minutes (rare) or 25 minutes (med-rare). Then take it out and rest it for 20 minutes covered in foil. I usually roast to med-rare.

What I don't want to be doing is roasting while everyone is there. Due to the high heat, there will be smoke (beef and salmon), so I'll need to run the fan on high. What I'm wondering is, could I possibly roast it for maybe 20 minutes at 5:30pm, take it out and put it in our warming drawer (on low) until dinnner two hours later? If you subtract the cooking time, it would actually be an hour and 40 minutes. Would the salmon be okay this way too?

If not, does anyone have any suggestions? I guess I could do a slow roast (never done that) at a lower temp and just cook after guests arrive? I like this plan less because I'd like to enjoy our guests. I'll have servers to slice, serve, etc...

Thanks in advance for your input. I'll check back often!

[Jenise]

Ai yi yi. Never have done the high heat methods myself but if I were your sous chef, here's what we'd do. Cook the salmon low and slow: at 225, a whole side of salmon cooks beautifully in 45 minutes and the white albumen fats don't leak unattractively all over--I learned this from Alice Waters. If a few show up, they can be easily wiped off before service. Brush with olive oil after baking for a shiny surface. I would bake them sans skin, brushed with EVOO, s & p, and maybe an herb like dill depending on your saucing plans and serve them whole on large trays that people can cut off what they want with a spatula or pie server--always impressive at buffets. These can go into the oven while the guests are there and go straight from oven to service. The texture is velvet, you'll love it. I've done it dozens of times. Separately I would do the filet mignons early before guests arrive and hold under a foil tent. I would then put them back in the oven with the salmon, presuming there's a free oven or shelf, about ten minutes before service. At that low temperature they should re-warm nicely without cooking further. Slice and serve. This is the best way I can think of to get all the meats out without all the noise or tension you'd have doing them any other way.

"Jenise" is just another word for "genius". I think her recommendations are perfect. This is a whole beef tenderloin you're talking about, right?

Could the beef be cooked outdoors on a grill, thus avoiding the smoke and heat inside and allowing the use of the oven for the salmon? I've done whole strip loins this way on New Years in the past (over charcoal, in Buffalo, during a snowstorm).

Hi Jon, yes, they are whole tenderloins. Howie, yes, I suppose they could, but wouldn't be ideal since people will most likely be right outside by the grill (we have the outdoor heaters). I'd like to do the little cooking that I'll need to do while guests are there as discreetly as possible.
Jenise, your plan sounds good. Would you take the beef out after twenty minutes? Just shy of rare? In case the warming time with the salmon further cooks it?
Thanks everyone for your help!

[Jenise]

Carrie, I'd take the beef out at exactly where you would want it if you were going to be serving it in the regular manner. The reheat at 225 is not intended to do additional cooking. A thermometer should help you monitor that. Two other options just occurred to me--will you be slicing and plattering the meat for service, or only to order? If the former, the sliced meat going onto a really hot platter will warm it up quite nicely. Also, you might consider keeping it warm until then by stashing it in an insulated cooler (or even tented in your warming drawer on a low setting). That will probably add around five degrees. But know what I'd do? Go buy a cheap eye of round roast--will only set you back about 12 bucks, and do a practice run. Roast it as you would the tenderloin, let it rest, then place it in a cooler to stay warm with thermometer in place the whole time. You'll be able to calculate from that whether or not any adjustments have to be made and be able to cook with confidence for your party.

UPDATE! No good deed goes unpunished!
I purchased all of my food for the party on the Thursday before New Years..mostly from Costco. Everything other than the Salmon, that is. The date on the salmon would have been fine...they gave it a sell-by date of Jan 3. But, wanting to serve my guests the freshest fish I could, I waited until the next afternoon to make a second trip back to Costco. The salmon was completely sold out!!!!!! Arrgggg.
What I ended up deciding on the spot was to make the surf and turf with roasted colossal shrimp instead of salmon--which they did have. The size was 8/per pound and they were gorgeous.
Since it was mostly the smell of the salmon I was worried about, I had everything ready to go (Shrimp and Tenderloin) into the 500 degree oven (waiting in fridge). My kitchen helper popped them into the oven when they needed to be and everything was done perfectly with no fans and no smoke and no need for the warming drawer.
The food was a big success. The shrimp were the talk of the party.
Todd English's White Chocolate Bread Pudding with Raspberry Sauce also was a hit. (Very festive too.)

I would bake them sans skin, brushed with EVOO, s & p, and maybe an herb like dill depending on your saucing plans and serve them whole on large trays that people can cut off what they want with a spatula or pie server--always impressive at buffets.

Just noticed this.

As an easy alternative to skinning them raw before baking, I just put them on aluminum foil with the dull side next to the fish and then bake it. The skin sticks to the foil and you just run a blade between them to separate and you slide the fish off onto the serving plate.

[Jenise]

As an easy alternative to skinning them raw before baking, I just put them on aluminum foil with the dull side next to the fish and then bake it. The skin sticks to the foil and you just run a blade between them to separate and you slide the fish off onto the serving plate.

Yes, I'm aware of that technique and we do that with a lot of skin-on filets when we roast them on the barbecue. However, in this instance, I would prefer this method as long as I have a good knife for fileting. There's a lot less chance that I'd miss with either the blade or the spatula, and end up with a less than perfect filet.