Topic: Curry night for 8 people ?

[petespot]

 I am having a curry night for 8 people, with my new found skills from this wonderful website I feel confident enough for this. Has anybody done this before ? I do not want to cook everyone's meal to order, I am thinking along the lines of just putting everything out. I am not averse to buying a few items i.e. poppadums and naan bread but I want to make all the rest. So far I am thinking of poppadums onion bhaji maybe mulligatawny soup ? pilau rice, aloo gobi and chicken madras. This is still in the planning stages at the moment, I am planning on prepping most of the dishes beforehand. What would be your perfect combination of dishes for this ?

[meggeth]

Hi Pete.  Why not ask your guests beforehand whether they like mild or hotter curries? If no one likes hot, then you'll need to keep them mild/medium. I would say 3 curries between 8 would be fine, each a good double portion, and maybe a side dish . I just made curry for 8 on Saturday and did this. If one or two don't mind a bit of heat, add a hot dish to your selection. Tarka dhal as a side always goes down well - when I did this I made it the night before then re-heated on the day so I didn't have too many things to do! 

There's some good hints on making multiple curries here -

http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,11656.msg90976.html#msg90976

[curryhell]

Sound words of advice there meggeth, particularly

I made it the night before then re-heated on the day so I didn't have too many things to do! 

[Madrasandy]

Careful planning, good organisation and get everything prepped.

Know what your doing and when it needs doing.

Silver foil take away containers are good for keeping already cooked curries warm in a low oven.

And lay off the booze !!!  ;D

[fried]

You were doing well until the last point

I'd cook 4 double portions of curry, or better still work on your technique and do 8 single portions of 4 different curries. Work on a planning for the week, get your chicken tikka marinading on Wednesday, cooked on Thursday. Dhal cooked in advance.

I've cooked many times for 8 or more and I prefer to have nothing to do on curry night...except frying poppadums, chopping onions, making onion bhajis, cooking bread, hoovering, buying booze....

I'd ideally get all the curry cooking finished the day before, sometimes I do half one night, half the next.

Make 4 curries that look and taste different. In my experience people claim not to like it too hot, but then leave all the creamy sweet dishes and scoff the spicy stuff.

[petespot]

Thank you for taking the time to reply, I will try and get some piccies up when I do it !

[mickdabass]

I made a bulk curry for 10 for new years eve.

Cooked it the day before.

 I  made a nice mild lamb bhuna and simply fried a couple of dozen finger chillies and chucked them in at the end, and simply advised people that if they dont like it too spicy, then dont eat the chillis!

Simples

Worked for me anyway

Regards

Mick

[TonyB73]

Hi, doing a similar thing sat 14th Feb......hadn't even considered doing all the cooking beforehand so if cooked the day before would you just warm back up in the pan or in the oven?

[mickdabass]

Oven Tony. I cooked the rice the night before and reheated that in the oven too

[TonyB73]

Thanks, now got to re plan, at least saturday night won't be as manic.....lol!!