Cooking for guests
A dawat is about generosity: more dishes than anyone can finish, and the host’s best cooking. These recipes are the ones that make guests ask for the recipe. They scale well, and most can be partly made ahead.
Building a menu
A balanced dawat menu usually has:
- One rice dish: chicken biryani, Hyderabadi biryani, kabuli pulao, or an Arabic centrepiece like mandi or maqluba.
- One or two curries: a rich qorma and a lighter karahi or white karahi.
- Something grilled: malai boti, seekh kebabs or Turkish adana kebab.
- A vegetarian option: paneer butter masala or dal makhani.
- Cool sides: raita, kachumber salad, hummus.
- Breads: naan or lachha paratha.
- Dessert: rasmalai, shahi tukray, trifle or baklava.
How much to cook
Plan on about 250–300 g of meat per guest across all dishes and 75 g of raw rice per person. Our dawat planner scales every recipe for your guest count, combines the shopping list and estimates the cost in your local prices.
Keep calm
Choose dishes that can be cooked the day before (qormas, haleem, nihari, desserts) and leave only one or two things, like kebabs and rice, for the last hour. Read our full guides to dawat menu planning and dawat on a budget.