Back when I started cooking in earnest it was the showy and high-maintenance foodie 90s, during which time I was led to believe that black truffle oil was as essential as fresh garlic, and that every dinner party had to be an overdone masterpiece, guaranteed to awe my guests and put me in the poorhouse. (My apologies to people that survived those years. Give me another chance and I swear it'll be so much more chill.) I've mostly gotten over this, but Indian recipes are usually full of things that I don't recognize and sometimes I just can't resist the allure of an entire meal of hard-to-find and hard-to-pronounce ingredients.
Naturally, making a meal like this for 120 people seemed a fine idea.
Here's what we had:
Minced lamb with peas
Potato and eggplant curry
Cauliflower with mustard and fennel
Spicy green beans
Red lentil dal
Steamed rice
Chutney
Yogurt with cucumber and mint
Coriander chutney
Pickled onions
Tomato, onion, and parsley relish
Never mind that scaling a recipe up by 15 makes it about 18,000 times more complicated. Nobody went hungry, nobody died, and nobody complained to my face, so I'm going to call this year's event a success. The most popular item was the samosas - an appetizer which I didn't make, because I'm not a glutton for that much punishment - but the chutney was also a big hit. As I doubt you need a gallon of it, here's the original recipe; it's wonderful with plain steamed rice and dal and poppadums, which is what we're going to live on until I regain enough energy to cook again. Adapted very slightly from Madhur Jaffrey's very wonderful and approachable Indian Cooking, which was my very first Indian cookbook.
Apple, Peach, and Apricot Chutney
1 1/4 lbs. Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and chopped
4 oz. dried peaches, cut into 4-6 pieces depending on how big they are
4 oz. dried apricots, cut into quarters
2 oz. raisins
6 cloves garlic, mashed into a pulp, or the equivalent amount of jarred garlic paste
2-inch cube fresh ginger, peeled and grated, or the equivalent amount of jarred ginger paste
14 oz. white wine vinegar
14 oz. granulated sugar
2 teaspoons salt
Put all the ingredients in a large heavy pot and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and cook until it has a thick, jam-like consistency (anywhere from 30-90 minutes). Stir it fairly often so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan or you'll be scrubbing the pan forever.
When the chutney cools it will thicken up a bit more. Store it in a canning jar in the fridge. where it will last for much longer than it will possibly take you to eat it.
