This crowd winning menu will ensure your guests walk out with a satiated palate and full tummy, and you also don’t spend much time in the kitchen…
This crowd winning menu will ensure your guests walk out with a satiated palate and full tummy, and you also don’t spend much time in the kitchen…
For starters, keep a few dips ready. They are easy to make, taste well and offer a scrumptious company to almost everything on the platter. You may want to overlook easy dips, which may not seem important in the grand scheme of casual parties, but think where your guests will go with those French fries, sandwiches and kebabs without a lip-smacking dip to dunk them in. Click here to check the recipes our crowd winning quick dips for house parties.
One thing you need to realise is that when you are organising a party at your place and calling over friends, there will be a lot of boozing happening and more often than not, people usually end up drinking through the night, without paying much attention to food. They just need something to nibble on to, along with their drinks because once the glass is empty for the night, all they want to do is just crash on a bed. I have seen a lot of food being wasted at my friends’ house gatherings and the next morning, it all goes in the bin. So, it is always wiser to have a couple of veg and non-veg options for starters and just one dish for the main course.
Depending on the size of the gathering you have invited, you can have one, two or three starters each for the vegetarians and non-vegetarians. You can look at fries, sandwiches, kebabs, rolls, grilled meat and veggies, pop corns, salads, a platter of assorted roasted meat or veggies, flavoured with herbs and spices, options are aplenty. Remember one thing that if you are making quite a few starters try to keep the recipes simple to avoid spending a hell of a time in the kitchen and feeling tired just when the party starts.
If you have a grill or a barbecue, you can keep in your garden or balcony, and grill your meat or veggies while sitting and chitchatting with your friends, and also involve them. They would love to do it. There’s nothing like bonding over food. You can make it enough so that you don’t have to cook separately for the main-course, as it will be filling and a wholesome meal in itself.
When you have already gone overboard with the starters, keep your main-course basic and yet enticing. I generally toss some pasta in olive oil and throw in some sautéed veggies or meat, and flavour with herbs like oregano, rosemary or thyme, whatever goes best with the taste. It is quite simple and doesn’t take much of your time and if the recipe is basic and easy to follow, you can almost never go wrong with the taste. Or, another option would be to cook up some biryani or pulao, along with raita. If you have tried your skiils at making biryani ever, skip it as you wouldn’t like to experiment when there are a lot of people out there to get disappointed. Instead, go with a mildly flavoured pulao with some veggies. It will be both easy on the palate and stomach.
