Housewarming Party

...or how to feed over 30 people with 3 vessels and 1 rice cooker?

I finally had my housewarming dinner party on Christmas Eve, for the house into which I moved in June! It was originally scheduled for New Year's Eve, but many people said they would not be in town that weekend. So, I changed it to Christmas Eve. I thought (rather foolishly!) that more people would be free to make it to the party on Christmas Eve, since they celebrate Christmas Day with their families at home, and so would be in town. As it turned out, more people could not make it on Christmas Eve. I did not want to move the dates around too much. So, I just went with Christmas Eve.

I decided to make all the party food at home - except for the chips and dips. The challenge was to prepare food for over 30 people with just three cooking utensils and one rice cooker. For a single person's lifestyle, these are more than enough. But would these be enough to feed over 30 of my guests? With the menu I designed, it turned out to be just enough:

• Appetizers
  The chips and dips went into a couple bowls. Crackers went on a big platter. I made fruit chaat in a big aluminium disposable tray. The fruit chaat was a hit - it was made with apples, pears, bananas, papayas, pineapple, green grapes, oranges, lemon juice, pineapple juice, a few mint leaves, sugar, salt and chaat masala.



• Main Course
  Vegetable Pulao - Fried onions, bay leaves, cardamom in ghee, in one medium vessel. Masala paste was made by grinding coconut, cilantro, mint leaves, tomatoes, green chillies and ginger-garlic paste in a blender. (My blender died after all that hard work!). I mixed the fried stuff, the masala paste, uncooked rice, vegetables, salt and biriyani masala powder in the rice cooker, and cooked them all together. Four batches of this pulao were transferred from the rice cooker to the aluminium disposable trays, mixed with fresh-squeezed lemon juice and served with raitha mixed in a plastic bowl.

Curd Rice - Two batches of rice cooked in the rice cooker were transferred to the aluminium trays, mixed with curds, salt, green grapes, pomegranate seeds, green chillies, cilantro and seasoning made of fried mustard and curry leaves. Used one big vessel to make a gallon of curds in. This was served with mixed-vegetable pickle from the store.


• Dessert
  Seven-layer dessert, assembled in a couple of aluminium trays. Used one small vessel to mix the custard in.

Needless to say, drinks and cocktails flowed liberally. I had a whole drinks menu consisting of:
Non-alcoholic

• Masala Soda
• Orange Juice, Apple Juice
• Coca Cola, Sprite, Ginger Ale, Club Soda

Alcoholic

• Heineken
• Vodka, Tequila, Jagermeister

Cocktails

• Hot Heini
• Long Island Iced Tea
• Margarita
• Tequila Sunrise

After shopping trips spread over 3-days to 6 different stores, the cooking started at 10:30 AM on the day of the party and went on until 7 PM, with a lunch break in-between! I had invaluable help from a friend-colleague, without which I might not have gotten everything done in time. I am very grateful to her for all the help.

Everyone had a lot of fun at the party. Almost everybody who could drink, got drunk. And, there was much dancing all around! I am glad the party was a success, if I say so myself!