Indian celebrations can be about many things; about celebrating an occasion or festival, or celebrating events like marriages or pregnancies. They can be for meeting up with the entire extended family, or about getting together with friends to share some great food and fun talk. One doesn’t need a reason to throw a party or dinner. Whether you’re Indian or not, here’s how to throw an Indian-style party.
Party Theme:
Decide on the theme of the party. Will you be celebrating an Indian festival or holiday like Diwali, Pongal, or Holi? Will it be a Bollywood party, celebrating musical Indian movies (with English subtitles)? Or will it be a casual backyard barbecue?
Depending on the theme, you can plan your food, décor, dress code, and ambience.
Indian festivals are an occasion to dress up. Everyone brings out their colorful sarees or other Indian garb.
If the party is related to a festival, decide on the party wear and recommend an Indian inspired dress code. A Diwali festival party will call for darker colors with gold, and elegant formal wear. For Holi, it will be shades of white, and casual. Many festivals or occasions have their traditional foods, too. Festivals are about desserts and special meals. They also have their own décor elements.
If your event is casual, include some popular elements from Indian films. The Indian film industry is called Bollywood and it is huge, producing more movies per year than Hollywood. Indians idolize the Bollywood actors and love the extravagant sets, stories and food. The movies are colorful and full of songs and dancing. You can plan your invitations, decorations and food around a movie. Food can be anywhere from appetizers and snacks to an elaborate Indian meal menu, or favorite foods mentioned in the movie.
Invitations:
Once you decide on the theme, plan the design of your paper invitations or virtual e-vites. Rangoli, used in some regions of India, are designs made with colored powder on the floor. Look up Rangoli patterns on the web and print those up on the cards. Or use patterns from fabrics or sarees.
Décor and ambience:
Add some simple accents like colorful pillows or throws, some tea lights, bright and golden sarees, and hang dupattas or fabric to act as curtains.
Plan a music playlist. There are many options on YouTube or Spotify for Bollywood music. Choose pleasing songs like ghazals, or peppy dance songs from popular movies.
Pick up some temporary henna tattoos, bindis (forehead stickers), and bangles that everyone can try out during the event. Most of these additions will work well with any Indian theme. Add other elements specific to the festival or event plan.
Plan the menu:
Indian cuisine has so much to choose from! Many regions have their own cuisine. There are many categories of food, too.
Plan your menu well in advance to have time to shop for all your ingredients. Get your recipes together. Read the recipes, cooking ahead if possible so you have limited heating or kitchen work to do on the day of the event. Plan to adjust to your guests’ preferences; Indian food can taste hot to some and mild to others, but heat and the spices generally are easily adjusted to personal preferences. Plan to have spices like cayenne and garam masala, along with salt, on the table for guests to use.
The food you serve can be small plates and nibbles, like chaat snacks, or an elaborate dinner menu with North Indian or restaurant style curries, or a casual backyard barbecue.
Chaat Menu: Chaat is a generic name for snack foods that are available from street stalls or roadside shops in India. Chaat is a whole cuisine in itself with sub-categories. Chaat dishes generally are flavorful, served with chutneys and condiments that can be sweet, sour, hot, spicy, cool, or tangy. Chaat items can be served at a chaat bar, just like a nacho bar. This reduces your work as host, as you won’t have to prepare each serving. The open chaat bar also makes it easy to have many food combinations for your guests to mix and match.
A chaat bar can use papdis (Indian crackers), tikkis (cutlets or potato/veggie patties), or samosas as the base for toppings. These can include cooked potatoes, cooked chickpeas, chickpea curry, pomegranate, sweet chutneys, hot chutneys, mint chutneys, and more. Garnishes can be chopped onions, cucumber, cilantro, sev (chickpea noodles), and other farsan (savory snacks).
Backyard Barbecue: For outdoor type of menu think barbecue-able veggie kebabs, tikkas (marinated veggie or tofu tikka) and chutneys. There are many different marinades recipes in the many cuisines in India. Make some at home or buy them premade. Add pre-baked samosas, kachoris (savory pastries), and batata vadas (mashed potato fritters) to round up the spread.
Restaurant style or North Indian menu: Indian restaurants favor North Indian foods that are heavy with luscious curries. The sauces have complex flavor profiles and are rich and creamy. Add veggies, tofu, veggie “meat” balls, beans or meat substitutes to the sauces. Make a spread with popular dishes like tikka masala, malai kofta, butter tofu, naan, palak paneer, pulao or biryani.
South Indian Spread: South Indian cuisine is diverse and very allergy-friendly with many gluten-free options. Make a spread with pre-made idlis (steamed rice and lentil cakes), vadas (fried or baked lentil cakes), dosa crepes, chutneys, sambhar (lentil soup) and veggie sides. Dosa crepes have many filling options, which, like chaat, can be served like a taco bar.
Round out any of these spreads with drinks like masala chai, mango juice and lassi (yogurt smoothie).
Dessert like laddoos (ball-shaped sweets), Gajar Halwa (pudding), Gulab Jamun (doughnuts), and assorted burfis (milk-based sweets) work well with any of the themes as well.
Spicy Baked Cauliflower Florets (Gobi 65)
Fried cauliflower (gobi) appetizers are offered in Indian restaurants. One of the most common ones is Gobi 65, spicy fried cauliflower in a cornstarch and flour batter with curry leaves. This is a baked version of Gobi 65. You can also fry the cauliflower for a restaurant-style version. Serve alone or with a side of mint-cilantro or coconut chutney. To make these gluten-free, use 100 grams (1/2 cup) chickpea flour combined with 50 grams (¼ cup) rice flour instead of unbleached all-purpose flour.
Recipe adapted from Vegan Richa’s Indian Kitchen Copyright © 2015 by Richa Hingle. Used by permission Vegan Heritage Press, LLC.
Ingredients
For the batter:
- •30 ml* (2 tablespoons) chopped red onion
- •207 ml (¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons) unbleached white flour
- •45 ml (3 tablespoons) cornstarch
- •5 ml (1 teaspoon) salt
- •5 ml (1 teaspoon) garam masala
- •7.5-10 ml (1½ to 2 teaspoons) cayenne pepper
- •5 ml (1 teaspoon) sriracha sauce, chile garlic sauce, or other hot sauce
- •2.5 cm (1 inch) knob of ginger
- •4 cloves garlic
- •12 curry leaves
- •10 ml (2 teaspoons) soy sauce
- •237 ml (1 cup) water
- •10 ml (2 teaspoons) safflower or other neutral oil
For the cauliflower:
- •1 liter (4½ cups) small cauliflower florets
- •Safflower oil spray, as needed
For the garnish:
- •5 ml (1 teaspoon) safflower or other neutral oil
- •2 cloves garlic, minced
- •71 ml (⅓ cup) thinly sliced red onion
- •71 ml (⅓ cup) thinly sliced green or red bell pepper
- •10 curry leaves, chopped
*Metric Conversions by The Cook’s Cook
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 218°C (425°F). Blend all the ingredients for the batter in a blender and blend until smooth and pasty. Transfer to a large bowl. If the batter is too thin, add 15 ml (1 tablespoon) flour, or more, and mix well.
Add the cauliflower florets to the batter, toss to coat, and let rest for at least 15 minutes. Mix to coat again. Place the florets on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and spray with oil.
Bake for 20 minutes, then rotate the baking sheet. Bake until a toothpick passes through the cauliflower easily, about 15 minutes. The total baking time is 30 to 35 minutes.
Make the garnish: Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic, onion, peppers, and curry leaves, and cook until the onion is golden, 7 to 9 minutes. Garnish the baked cauliflower with the onion mixture. Serve hot.
Fudgy Cardamom Squares (Vegan Kalakand)
These fudgy squares use ground-up almonds to mimic the texture and taste of the khoa (milk solids) in the common milk burfis. It may be hard to believe that it works, but it does! Try it.
Recipe from Vegan Richa’s Indian Kitchen Copyright © 2015 by Richa Hingle. Used by permission Vegan Heritage Press, LLC.
Ingredients
- •½ cup* almond milk
- •2 teaspoons vegan butter or safflower oil
- •½ cup granulated sugar, or as needed
- •1/8 teaspoon salt
- •¼ teaspoon cardamom powder
- •1 cup ground raw or blanched almonds or fine almond meal
- •¼ cup oat flour
- •⅓ cup or more coconut flour
- •Seeds from 4 cardamom pods, lightly crushed
*Metric Conversions by The Cook’s Cook:
1 teaspoon = 5 ml
1 tablespoon = 15 ml
2 tablespoons = 30 ml
¼ cup rice flour = 40 grams
¼ cup oat flour = 23 grams
⅓ cup coconut flour = 37 grams
½ cup sugar = 100 grams
½ cup chickpea flour = 46 grams
¾ cup all-purpose flour = 90 grams
½ cup = 118 ml
1 cup = 237 ml
300°F = 149°C
425°F = 218°C
¼ inch = .6 cm
1 inch = 2.5 cm
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 149°C/300°F. Combine almond milk, oil, sugar, and salt in a saucepan over medium heat. Mix well to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a bubbling boil, about 4 minutes.
Continue to boil the mixture for 2 minutes. Take off heat and mix in the cardamom powder. Cool for 5 minutes.
Add ground almonds, oat flour, ⅓ cup coconut flour, and cardamom seeds to the saucepan. Mix well to form a soft dough. Add 1 tablespoon more coconut flour if the mixture is too wet. Mix and let sit for a minute before adding more. The mixture will continue to get less wet as it sits. Taste and add 1 tablespoon more sugar if you like it sweeter.
Pat the sticky dough onto a parchment-lined sheet and shape into a ¼-inch thick square. Cut into 1-inch squares using a knife or a pizza cutter.
Bake for 16 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush almond milk or oil on top. Cool completely before serving or storing. Store on the counter for a day and refrigerated for up to 7 days.