I’m certainly not the hostess with the mostest quite the opposite in fact. I’m not used to entertaining and we have some guests coming from quite far away they’re my hubbys cousins. Probably about 4-5 people I’m not sure. What should I do?
Food wise I mean.
Re: help!! Guests arriving
what exactly do u need help with ..??...the menu i guess...:)
Re: help!! Guests arriving
yes... food ideas.
Re: help!! Guests arriving
A few times when we had lots of guests coming, we'd do some cooking ourselves and order food too. Its worked very well! We'd order from Desi restaurants, like big tray of samosa, rice, some beef or ckn dish. A 3-foot long hero sandwich and some salads from the deli counter at the grocery store. Then we'd fill in with our specialties - like roast lamb, biryani and chicken tandoori. That way, some of the pressure is off, we can enjoy making our specialites and still have all the trimmings. And you do save a bit when you do at least some of it yourself.
Re: help!! Guests arriving
Good idea MO3.
You can also do preparations ahead of time so you don't stay in the kitchen too long while they are there.
Marinate chicken legs & thighs and freeze.
Make shami kababs, other type of kababs and freeze.
Make haleem, and freeze!
Make the salan for the biryany, do the rice and dum on the day they are coming.
Re: help!! Guests arriving
My mother IS the hostest with the mostest. One of her tricks is to always have the freezer well-stocked. Lots of frozen kabobs, eggrolls, etc, prepared and quickly defrosted and ready to be served. In addition, chop up things before hand (onions, veggies, peppers, etc) to store for easy serving. You can certainly even fry onions and keep them for a few days, so salans cook faster.
But don't hesitate to supplement your meals with naan and other dishes from outside. It's not a big deal (and if it is, oh well!).
Re: help!! Guests arriving
I am very new at this stuff so trying to learn fast. One of my first lessons is that cooking a day or two in advance is NOT a bad thing. For the couple of dawats i have hosted so far, i started cooking the salans/dessert a day in advance and did rice the same day. Cooking salans a day in advance have the added advantage that your house doesnt smell like onions and masalas when teh guests arrive. I also use the frozen naans that you can warm up in the oven. Also like Sahar suggested, keeping the freezer stocked with items like shami kebabs, samosas etc can be of some assistance if someone drops in at short notice. Also, at the time of my last dawat, i made extra koftas to freeze and use for anothe occassion. I am still learning to make things easier though.
Re: help!! Guests arriving
whenever i know that i have guests coming over,i cook a day in advance...as others said...
it becomes so easy....i just leave the salads etc and rice for that day...
the house doesn't smell of masalas and the thing that i like most is that there are no dirty dishes or pots and pans in the sink at the time the guests arrive....
as others said,freeze some things like shami kababs,or meatballs or kababs to make a quick salan out of them...marinated chicken ,that can be cooked in the oven also save a lot of time and also making a fish dish is easy....:)