I’m Having a Dinner Party, Here’s Your Invite.

I justify every new crockery purchase with, ‘it’ll be good when I have a dinner party’. Still riding the high from one I hosted 3 years ago, I thought it probably about time I do it again. As a lover of schedules and planning, I began cooking up ideas in autumn of last year and decided the big night would be on the 5th of February 2025. So about 4 months for me to feel excited, stressed, and overwhelmed. Perfect.

I started of course with the menu, which probably saw at least 30 changes before the final product was shared with guests. I spent hours combing through my favourite meals and recipes to find my absolute favourites, things I think everyone should try at some time in their lives. Might I also mention, everything had to be gluten-free and vegan. You'll soon find out it didn't quite end up that way, but I gave it a pretty good shot. Each dish on the menu is one that I love and was truly proud to serve, even though I had some last-minute hiccups.

I also took some time to make sure I nailed the atmosphere. That means music, lighting, the whole space. I tested lighting combinations with and without candles, positioning of dishes, flowers, even went as far as labelling each plate with the food going into it. If by any chance you’re hosting and are in search of a playlist, I’m quite proud of mine, you can find it here.

Here's how it happened.

The Food:

I’ve somehow collected a silly number of cookbooks over the last 12 months, so used those in aiding my research. Every spare moment I had over the last few months was spent reading and rereading recipes, deciding what the best way to go about them was. Some recipes were based only on my knowledge of the dish and others on very vague, unhelpful google searches. After all that work, I used 2, maybe 3 recipes from a cookbook. And in the spirit of honesty, not everything on the menu was homemade, but some things just aren't worth the hassle.

Designing a Menu:

I wanted a menu that was simple and classy, but still fun. After scrolling through every available font, I settled on something quite boring. A menu has to be easy to read, after all. No one’s coming to a dinner party looking to do homework. I used my limited design knowledge to put together something that ticked all my boxes. I did struggle to fit it all on one page which made me wonder whether I had overdone it, but removing a dish felt like admitting defeat.

Party Favours:

Everyone should leave a party with something to remember it by- I dabbled with the ideas of garlic oil, chocolate, some sort of baked good, but after adding hot honey to the menu that felt like the logical choice. I gathered up 10 tiny jars, 10 tiny thank-you notes, 10 pieces of twine and got started on the honey. In my refusal to learn more about fresh chillis, I wildly underestimated the heat of about 25 Thai chillis and made the spiciest hot honey I have eaten to date. Each of these went along with a small print of the menu.

Let’s get into the food in a little more detail. A couple of these were slightly more labour intensive than others, so I made sure to keep preparation time in mind. I also had to factor in my very tiny fridge with its very tiny freezer, so I couldn’t do too much too far in advance. In fact, I was still buying ingredients until about 3 hours before guest arrival. To minimise stress on the day, I started prepping whatever I could at least 2 weeks in advance; things as little as toasting sesame seeds for the dessert to assembling and freezing spring rolls.

Main Events

Pani Puri

Also known as Gol Gappa, these are a childhood favourite of mine. I rediscovered them as an adult and they’re equally as exciting every time. They’re a pretty high-interaction food- tap open the shell and fill it with goodies like raw onion and tomato, tamarind chutney, chickpeas and mint & coriander water. Delicious little explosions that require very little preparation, win-win.

Tteok Kkochi

I started on these 3 days in advance by whipping up the sauce and storing it in the fridge. Gochujang is a great thing to keep in your kitchen, not only for use in Korean dishes. Mixing it with a few other pantry staples makes a thick sauce which becomes sticky when brushed on to Korean rice cakes that have been boiled and crisped up in a frying pan. I sprinkled furikake on mine for a little something extra. These ended up being an unexpected crowd favourite.

Pumpkin Cha Gio

Spring rolls are an excellent choice if feeding quite a few people- make in advance, freeze, fry. In my case, I fried in the morning and reheated in the evening, thinking everything would be perfectly fine. They ended up being much softer than I had planned; letting them sit for too long post-frying gave the filling plenty of time to soak into the wrapper. That aside, a very simple filling of steamed squash (I couldn’t find a pumpkin, don’t tell anyone), coriander, fried shallots, and vegan fish sauce was one of the most deliciously simple things I’ve had the pleasure of eating. I first tried a variation of this dish in Vietnam, but as much Google searching as I did, I couldn’t find anything similar online. Neither could I find the correct name, so I had to improvise, taking notes from a few different recipes. Thank god it all worked out. Almost.

Gim Bugak

These nori-rice paper crisps were sort of an olive equivalent. A table snack, if you will. Just something for guests to dip into as they please, doubling as a tasty centrepiece for the coffee table. I find making crisps is such a hassle for very little reward, but these are satisfying enough to justify the prep. Wet rice paper, lay a nori sheet on top, cut, and fry. I decided on a whim to dust them in the magical mix that is MSG, sugar, and salt. Those of you who like crispy seaweed in a Chinese takeaway, you know what I’m talking about. This mix can make just about anything 10 times more irresistible. A perfect hit of savoury served with a fresh dip that had a kick of wasabi right at the end. A great combination and dare I say incredibly easy to make. I had to stop myself finishing the entire bag the night before.

Tempura Mushroom Bao

Requiring the most work, these mushroom bao were possibly the most impressive part of the spread purely due to the size of the platter. No, I didn’t make the bao, I bought frozen ones and cooked them in the microwave. It just wasn’t worth the risk or the effort. They got filled with super crispy tempura fried oyster mushrooms, a dollop of hoisin, sambal mayo, fried Thai basil and a little pile of pickled red onions. I found they could have done with a touch more sauce, but all-in-all, pretty successful.

Gui Chai Tod

Quite possibly my favourite thing on the table- I had what I would call a serendipitous experience trying these for the first time. Final night in Thailand, couldn’t find the last item on the ‘food I will be unbelievably upset if I don’t try’ list, got ready to cross it off in defeat, up I looked, lo and behold, two lovely women selling Gui Chai Tod. These utterly delightful, fragrant little cakes made from rice flour batter and an absurd amount of garlic chives very quickly became one of the most memorable things I’ve eaten. They were simple to recreate at home and luckily, are very possible to make in advance. Frying and reheating in the oven worked quite a treat; I will most definitely be making these frequently. Take a look at this fantastic recipe from Hot Thai Kitchen for Crispy Garlic Chive Dumplings if you’d like to give them a go.

Things on the side

Granted, I bought two of these premade but at some point, you have to question whether you really want to do all that work when you know the shop can do it way better. From the shop: wakame salad and kimchi, and from my kitchen: sunumono and ajitsuke tamago.

Sunumono is a fairly standard cucumber salad, with a few simple ingredients doing all the work in this very addictive dish. Ajitsuke tamago are soy marinated eggs, and although there are many recipes for this online, adding whatever you have on hand tends to work out just fine. I was also able to prep this days in advance which presented the risk of forgetting them in the back of the fridge, but thankfully they made it onto the plate. In the marinade was soy sauce, chilli crisp, spring onions, black vinegar, sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds, and probably a few other things. Add a little water, bring the marinade to a simmer, pour over (hopefully) soft boiled eggs, and leave them alone for a few days. Luckily, the eggs were jammy in the middle- soft boiled eggs are always a guessing game for me.

Dessert

 Kluay Kaek

Another eye-opening treat I stumbled across in Thailand, bananas fried in a coconut meat batter. Now, I forgot until the last minute that the main ingredient in this batter was coconut meat, and it just so happened that every store in my area was completely out of it. I picked up the phone and called a few stores, recruited friends to check other parts of town, and started to come up with potential alternatives in case it couldn’t be found. Luckily, I got my hands on some thanks to some hard work from a dear friend, and everything went to plan, these were served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a heavenly miso-maple sauce. When I say that sauce was an incredible combination- wow. I’d never come across it so when the idea occurred to me, I whipped up a test batch and it… tasted good? I was slightly in awe. A sprinkle of toasted sesame (which as you can see made quite a few appearances) really brought it together. Salty, nutty, sweet, rich but not overwhelming, this may be my all-time favourite dessert.

Right, that’s everything. Thank you for staying until the end. If you happen to be extra curious about any of these recipes, a few of them will be in No Measurements, so keep your eyes peeled.