Tips and Advice

Tips and Advice

To boil eggs add them to boiling water and lower heat. This also avoids agitation and thus prevents cracking of shells.
After frying paneer, put the hot pieces in salted cold water. These pieces should be added only at the final stages of the dish. This will keep them soft and prevent them from getting rubbery.
Slicing raw meat in thin strips for stir-frying (for Chinese or Thai cooking) is easier if you freeze it first for about one hour.
Before chopping dry fruits, freeze them first for an hour and then chop.
To remove grease and odour from dishes, add a tablespoon of vinegar to your hot soapy water.
When buying dates, avoid ones that have crystallized sugar on the surface.
Yeast will last longer if kept in the refrigerator or freezer
Add fifty grams of methi seeds to every kilo of wheat, while grinding. Chapattis made out of this flour are easily digested and also cooling for the stomach.
Muffins will slide right out of tin pans if the hot pan is first placed on a wet towel.
If you drop an egg on the floor, cover it with salt and let it remain like this for a couple of minutes. You will be able to easily clean the mess with a paper towel.
Excess tomato puree may be frozen in an ice cube tray. Remove frozen cubes and store in a sealable freezer bag, using as and when required.
When pureeing soups and sauces with a good deal of liquid, drain and puree the solid ingredients separately. Mix in the liquid into the puree and stir until it is smooth.
Make tamarind pulp in large quantity and freeze them in ice cube trays. When required remove a cube and add it to the dish.
The best way to thaw fish is in milk. The milk draws out the frozen taste and gives the fish a fresh flavour.
To bake potatoes more quickly, boil them for ten-fifteen minutes, and then prick them with a fork and bake.
To use leftover egg yolks, poach yolks until firm, cool completely and press through a sieve. Use as a garnish in salads and soups.
When you bake cookies and they come out too hard, simply put the cookies in a bag with a piece of bread overnight. The cookies will absorb the moisture out of the bread and will be soft in the morning!
To cut calories, use prune purée or applesauce in place of shortening or butter in brownies, muffins, and simple cakes
If there is excess water in a pulao thereby making it mushy and soft, tie a muslin cloth to the mouth of the vessel and gently invert the vessel. The muslin cloth will absorb the excess water.
Do not panic if you have added too much turmeric in the vegetable. Cover the vessel with a white muslin cloth. It will absorb the excess turmeric.
If sauce acquires a lumpy texture instead of velvety smooth, do not discard it, put it in a food processor and run it for a minute. It will become smooth again.
Use a potato peeler to create cheese peels for garnishing salads, soups etc.
When you re-roll dough scraps, dust the pastry cloth with a mixture of half flour and half confectioners' sugar. This makes the cookies more tender than if they were rolled on a surface dusted with flour only.
Run out of mustard powder? Grind some mustard seeds finely and use as a substitute.
Make a fruit yogurt at home. Simply stir in pureed or mashed fruit of your choice and sugar if desired, after the yogurt has set.
To make sour cream at home, add 5 tablespoons buttermilk to 2 cups of heavy cream and keep for 8-10 hours. Refrigerate till needed.
To make toasted almonds at home, remove the skins by blanching them and baking them on an oven tray at about 175 C for 5 to 10 minutes. The nuts will turn crisp and brown.
Easy tip to select a good broiler chicken - should have short drumsticks (thigh bone), thick bones, flexible breast bone and firm pink flesh and weigh around 0.4 to 0.7 kg.
For a just-baked taste for store-bought cookies, wrap two to four cookies in a paper towel. Microwave on HIGH for thirty to forty-five seconds. Cookies come out tasty.
To whiten the chopping board, rub the board with lemon rinds which have been turned inside out. Leave it for a couple of minutes, then wash with warm water. Leave it to dry. Your board will be sparkling once again.
In order to soften the frozen butter quickly, fill a bowl with boiling water, empty and immediately turn it upside down over the butter dish. The butter will soften without melting.