Party Menu 3 | Menu Planning | Indian Party Menus | Dinner Party

It feels like ages since I have actually done anything. I just needed something to push me back to being regular here. And that was the party that parents hosted last night. They had their friends coming in over for dinner and Amma was preparing all the dishes. I planned in to pinch in early, however Amma said one of the aunties is coming over early to help her. She ended up making a new dish for us, rather for me as I was really pestering Amma to make something new. I have been so up against the wall in terms of cooking new dishes for this space!

I had told her ahead that I was expecting her to think of something new and she politely told me that a party is exactly not a time for her to experiment. Well I simply had to heed her words. I got lucky when Vasantha Aunty agreed to make the Chicken curry she makes. She is a wonderful cook and an expert when it comes to making Non Veg dishes. Daddy always keeps praising her dishes and though we have never tasted her food, from the content look that gets settled down, says enough.

Venue : Home
Number : 12

Our Dinner Party Menu was:

Drinks
Mixed Fruit Juice (Store bought)

Salad

Spicy Channa Sundal, Iyar Style
Onion, Cucumber, Carrot Salad

Veg Starters:

Fried Masala Cashew

Onion Pakoras

Non Veg Starters:

Chicken Pakodas
Chicken Nuggets (Store bought)
Mutton Roast

Main Dishes

Pepper Chicken Curry, Tamil Nadu Style
Peas Paneer Curry
Chapatis
Pepper Cumin Rasam,
Plain Rice
Curds

Dessert

Custard with Fruits
Butterscotch Ice cream

Preparations for the party

Soaking the Channa overnight and getting it cooked by early evening. 

Custard prepared the previous evening and refrigerated.

Masalas got ground by morning

Washing and cleaning the mutton, chicken and draining them over a colander by afternoon. Refrigerate until usage.

Marinate the Chicken for the Pakodas by 3 pm.

Mutton Roast got started by 5 pm along with Veg dishes.

Rasam can be cooked ahead by afternoon without tempering, which can be done just before the party.

Rice and rotis done by 7 pm.

Have all the onions chopped and ready for the pakodas.

 Mutton Roast

 Paneer Peas Masala

 Pepper Chicken Curry, Tamil Nadu Style (without Coconut)

Spicy Kadala Sundal, Iyar Style

Fried Masala Cashew

Cashews Whole - 1/2 Kg
Red Chili powder - 1 - 1 & 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste
Oil to deep Fry

Heat the Oil and when it hot enough fry the cashews till they start turning colour.

Drain them on to a kitchen towel. Sprinkle red chili powder and salt. Cover and shake them well to make sure all the cashews get coated with the masala well.

Allow to cool and then store in air tight container.

If you have noticed, we make sure we always have some dishes that we keep repeating and include some new dishes. Having all dishes as new may not always work out as expected. So always include some dishes that are your favorite and also your guests favorite.

In this menu, we repeated Chicken Pakodas and Mutton Roast as it was requested so many times. We thought our guests would love it and as expected they really enjoyed these.

The Onion Pakodas that I made were different from the one that's already on the blog. Since I didn't exactly click pictures of them, I am linking to the other recipe I have on the blog.


Party Menu 1
Party Menu 2 

Menu Planning | Indian Party Menus | Party Menu 1 | Dinner Party

I frequently keep getting emails from readers, asking for suggestions on menu planning and selection. I have spent many hours working on menus for each of them, end of the exercise I always think I should either record it or at least ask them to click pictures for me to see. However I keep forgetting to do so.

For quite sometime I have been thinking I should share my menu planning and Party Menu suggestions. The theme tends to change and of course you ought to consider so many factors. Most of the requests have been for get togethers, some for birthday parties and some festival occasions like Christmas party or Diwali party. Birthday parties have been most challenging as I have to come up with interesting dishes for kids, including ways to keep them engaged and interested. 

Other parties like Christmas or Diwali, will feature some of the traditional dishes one might prepare for these festivals. The number again varies from 10 - 50, one office party was for 80 and of course my own office party was for 100 people. Planning and drafting out takes real efforts as we have to scale up each dish and requirement for 100 people.

Growing up in a colony ensured that we had frequent dinners. Plus the fact that parents used to host parties very often, ensured that I was always keen and interested in planning for huge crowd. I have always been the person in charge for setting up the house and playing the second hostess. When I was old enough to help, I was given more responsibilities apart from the setups.

Just the other day when I was talking to Amma, I was telling her that it's been a while since we hosted a party. And it so happened that we had to give a farewell dinner for our neighbors. We were excited that we are doing it after a long time, and the fact that I remembered ahead to click pictures. It was non vegetarian party, so the preparations started from morning. Some needed marination, some had to be cleaned ahead. 

So deciding on the dishes that you are planning to make, is very important in the onset. 

Venue : Home

Number : 8

Our Dinner Party Menu was this:

Starters:

Chicken Pakoda

Side Dish - Semi Gravy

Mutton Roast

Main Dishes

Mutton Dum Biryani

Mutton Kura

Rasam

Plain Rice

Homemade Curds

Dessert

Custard with Fruits

Since we were getting on the dinner straight, there was no soft drinks served. Else you can plan to arrange some welcome drink if your party is going to extend over few hours.

Chicken Pakoda and Mutton Dum Biryani recipes will be published soon.

It is advisable to do the prepping ahead with the basics that is needed. Fresh Ginger Garlic paste is very important for the right taste.

So get this done in the morning and store it.

Wash and clean the meat and have it ready. If something requires marination, it's better to plan when you ought to do, so that you can avoid last minute tensions.

Like for us, the guests were expected at 8 pm, so we knew we had to have all the dishes done by 7.15 or so. Last minute preparations will be the table set up and fruits for the custard. Of course the chicken was left to marinate as it was to be made after they arrived.

 Dinnar Party Menu

 Mutton Gravy, Chicken Pakoda

 Mutton Dum Biryani

 Mutton Roast 

Custard with Fruits

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing about it.

Will be very interesting to know how you plan your menus and parties. Do share them!

What's in my pantry? ~ Menu Planning!

OK, this post must be the most impromptu of all! I must have gone nuts you think, well I am not sure. You see I posted my Menu Planner, et al but even when I did plan, I never came around posting it. I actually think hard every Sunday to ensure I have a menu planned so that I don't' get up all worried. Sunday nights are always long, infact the days are so long!

So having something clear in mind helps a lot. And of course I have endless list of recipes that I still have to prepare. Saturdays are mostly saved for the book, though I have hardly worked on them for the past 3 weeks. I should surely write on the progress, at least to make myself get to it more clearly. The other day, I had a reader call me to ask when the book was going to be ready. I was really so touched by her concern.

Today being the 3rd, I am still up not ready with my monthly groceries. So I thought I might as well plan on something that I can make and clean up my pantry. Though there are certain items that get really over by end of the month, there are few other which never seem to get over. We normally stock rice, but other flours I get every month.

Our monthly grocery includes, wheat flour, APF, Millet flour, Lentils and legumes. plus the many spices. For a change I thought I would raid the freezer and see what I have up there!

The freezer is really an amazing space, everything gets dumped in there and forgotten!

Whenever I think of the fridge, I remember Daddy saying that Amma actually tests the Shelf life of things by storing them in the fridge and happily forgetting it! And for all I know about her, she never stores cooked food.

So when I peeped into my freezer, I found the following:

Kabuli Chana (garbanzo bean) - 1 kg
Black Chana - 1 & 1/2 kg
Sabut Dal - 1/2 kg
Wheat Rava - 3/4 kg
Bansi Rava - 1/4 kg
Whole Moong dal - 1 & 1/2 kg
Almonds - 1/2 kg
Cashew nuts - 250 gms
Amul Milk powder - 1 kg (god knows why I got this, I actually wanted to make chocolates!!)
Grated Coconuts about 4 whole
Dry ginger powder - 250 gms
Cashew + almond powder - 1 bottle
Masoor dal - 1/2 kg
Dried peas - 1/2 kg
Milk - 4 litres!
Jackfruit seeds - 10

Masala powders like Amchur, Pepper chicken masala (that I never used) and an array of few more, which I don't want to look at right now!

Custard powder, Icing powder (I hardly ever bake, but always wanted to have these handy), Jelly mix, Condensed milk.

I started freezing milk as I found it really tough making Paneer at drop of the hat. Konda has this habit of asking for paneer as and when she likes. So freezing them was the best option. The moment she asks, I can make paneer and give her. But to still have 4 liters left is just too much.

And veggies -
1 kg of beans
quarter kg of fresh carrots and some 100 gms of carrot from a two weeks ago shopping
1 quarter kg of fresh cabbage, that hubby dear got a week ago (obviously it may not be so fresh now)
2 Radish
2 drumstick
and many more....

In my kitchen shelf's..

quarter kg of Soya beans, yeah even after that Soya bean korma we still had something left!
Beaten Rice - 1 + quarter kg
Plus many more which I find hard to take notes

The list was astounding! Gosh do I really need all these things. And I hardly peep into the freezer most of the time.

Apart from these, I normally have ingredients handy near the kitchen. Those includes the things that are used everyday. Maybe I will have to replace some of it.

But the menu for this month will surely include ingredients from the above list! My grocery list is surely not going to include any of these.

Now comes the second part. I will have to "discover" new recipes that include these, can I have some suggestions? Would surely love to try new ones.

I just remembered about the milk! I had planned to make paneer tonight, hoping to prepare the long forgotten Paneer Butter Masala, but Athamma beat me to it. She had made a dish with it, knowing that its becoming very hard for me to prepare dinner with the kids becoming so very naughty!

She made a new dish, she called it the Paneer Korma. Hubby dear is against converting traditional things into unconventional dishes. But if you guys want it, shall post it. Of course it was just too delicious, since yours truly tasted it!

Now coming back to the original thought, if you guys have experienced similar raids to the freezer would love to hear the story. And if you are up to sharing what you found in it, are welcome to leave a trail in this post!

A post without a picture is not something I like, so I leave with our Sunday breakfast. It was supposed to have been our Saturday dinner. But something came up, so postponed to breakfast. Again something else came up, so finally had it for lunch. But I made it for the kids for their breakfast!

It was Kal Dosa with Arachiveta Sambar, and Amma's Podi nothing can beat this!


****************************************

Finally my discoveries this weekend....came across these blogs, thought I would share with you all!

This super talented lady with some multiply blogs to her credit!

And this relatively new blogger called the Chettinad Fiesta

Thats all for today, wishes for a happy week ahead!


Like what you read...Share it with your friends!