Indian Dinner Party

A couple of weekends ago we had friends over and I did my take on an Indian banquet.

I tried to make it an interesting experience in my own words the look I went for was 'oriental opulence'.
 

I chose a selection of coordinating crockery and cutlery. The plates were a selection of white porcelain mixed with some Imari China (Royal Crown Derby of course!) and a few serving dishes from Grotaglie the local pottery town near our house in Puglia, Italy.

These were inter dispersed with a few vases of spring flowers to add height as well as some plates on stands again offering a little height.

We had three families (including ours) for lunch so were short of some places, so we pushed two tables together, one for the adults, one for the children, but kept the theme flowing with matching table clothes and crockery.

To make things a little easier we had drinks and a little appetiser in the lounge and then went through to the dining room to sit down and eat the starter, main course and sweets.

Again I didn't want to be up and down all the time so to stick with the 'opulent banquet' theme I presented all of the starters and main courses in one go and allowed people to pick 'n' mix as they chose.

To start we had Prosecco with wild hibiscus flowers in syrup. The flowers were placed in the sparkling wine for a visual treat and it also gave somewhere for the bubbles to begin their journey up into the open from.

With this I served 'pani puri' (Gol Gappa in Punjabi) which are an Indian street food snack. The pani means water which is a flavoured liquor poured into the pani - small puffed up balls of fried semolina paste. With these was a sambal of fresh herbs and vegetables, a simple chick pea curry and a tangy mint and tamarind chutney.

A small drizzle or spoon of each of the above are dropped into the open and waiting pani, then the whole thing can go into your mouth in one go creating a taste explosion.