Cooking for a crowd

SERVES: 6
PREP TIME: 20 mins
COOKING TIME: 40 mins
DIFFICULTY: easy
IDEAL FOR: crowds, Friday night meal, mid-week, batch cooking
BUDGET: £

The BIG 5-0

Not me!!

Hell no, I’m still a sprightly spring chicken!

Sort of… maybe… depends from what ‘directional-age’ you’re looking at it from.

Anyway, let’s not debate that.

The shining spot light is firmly (and he’s loving it) focussed on Tim.

A crowd descends

As some might know, we’re now into our final 4^th week of celebrating.

It’s exhausting.

Tim could probably do this for the rest of the year!

But the finale is in our village… with our village… and friends and family from all over the country.

So, it better be good, right?!

A storm brews

The only snag in all of this, is the apocalyptic dramas that keep rolling on.

Storm Ciara, Storm Dennis, general-windy-snow-rainy-unnamed storms, Coronavirus.

Perhaps, we’ll all end up in a lock-in at the Green Dragon for days on end battening down the hatches in quarantine.

I think that’s both our Landlords worst nightmare, actually.

The low-down

The basics are this…

We’re all too old for ‘eating’s-cheating’ nights out.

Just the idea of a party pretty much sends me into a sweat thinking about how to avoid a hangover.

One of my best pals has the same ‘condition’ as me with parties.

We can get extreme hangovers (… it’s depressing).

We’ve tried everything… milk thistle, wine drops, banana’s, fry-ups, water (obvs)…drinking less (??).

So, this weekend, I’m all about food pre-night out.

Then we head to the pub for Nick-the-Fish (amazing singer/entertainer) followed by a silent disco!

And a return to the house for left-overs.

Sorted.

But it’s a lot of cooking.

The food

I’ve now (casually) been informed we have 18 adults and children crashing at our house.

18! No, our house is really not that big.

So, it’s crowd food and now crowd management.

So, I’ve gone for 3 classic dishes to help ease the strain:

• Chicken curry
• Real Texan-style chilli (Tim’s fave) link to post
• Dahl (for any vegetarians)
• (with Naan bread, rice and baguettes)

These are all great because you can make them in batches and freeze them.

It’s taking the stress out of a busy weekend and should make it a fun as we won’t be overloaded with cooking and being ‘stuck in the kitchen’.

Watch this space

I’ve cunningly posted this pre-birthday bash weekend.

This means you can imagine:

What a lovely and sophisticated time we all had.

That the food was a hit!

Nick-the-Fish smashed it.

And I was an absolute legend on the silent-disco-dance-floor.

Oh, and I woke up the next day with no hangover 😊

Ok, so keep that happy image in your head.

(and maybe, I’ll post the truth in a later post)

Do you have a favourite curry for a crowd? Drop me a comment so we can share ideas.

Print Pin

Chicken curry

Course Main Course

Cuisine Indian

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour

Servings 6 people

Cost £

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp coriander seeds
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 small onion, quartered
• 6 large tomatoes, quartered
• 1 red chilli, deseeded
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and cut into chunks
• fresh ginger, peeled and approx 3cm
• 2 tsp turmeric
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 6 curry leaves
• 12 skinless, boneless chicken thighs, thickly sliced
• 400 g tin chopped tomatoes
• 300 ml chicken stock
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 juice of lemon
• 75 ml natural yoghurt

Instructions

• In a large frying pan, dry fry the coriander, cumin and fennel seeds for 2-3 min until fragrant and just beginning to pop.

  Then in a pestle and mortar, grind them to a fine powder.

  Next, in a food processor or hand blender whizz the onion, tomatoes, chilli, garlic, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon and ½tsp salt to a smooth paste.
• Gently heat the oil in the same pan as the spices and add the spice powder and paste along with 3 tbsp water and the curry leaves.

  Let it sizzle on low heat for 10 mins until you see some oils come from the mix.

  Now, add the chicken, tomatoes and stock to the pan with the sugar and lemon juice.

  Let it all simmer for 30 mins or until the meat is cooked.

  Set aside to cool for 10 mins before stirring through the natural yoghurt.

  Serve with rice or naan and poppadums.

Notes

Recipe from The Good House Keeping