Cooking Tips - Essential Kitchen Tips - Useful Cooking Tips

Some Cooking tips at your kitchen

I have listed out Essential Cooking cooking tips, most of which i learned from my Cooking Experience, Some from my Grand mother and some through practice, and some from magazine.

1. When u prepare poori dough, add water little by little and make tight dough. As soon as you make the dough, prepare poori's. Roll it out with medium thin circles  to get fluffy poori's. if it is thin, you get flat poori's.
2. To get seperate grains , soak  basmathi rice in water for half an hour before you cook rice.so that it absorb moisure and also you get fluffy rice.
3. To avoid worms in  rice, add neem leaves  to rice container.
4. Soak Garlic and onions in a water for half an hour for easy peeling.
5. If paneer is hard, put  the paneer cubes in hot water for 10 minutes to make it soft.
6. To make tamarind extract quickly, put the tamarind in hot water for few minutes, till tamarind becomes soft then squeeze it.
7. Add little salt while sauting onions and tomatoes for fast cooking.
8. When you prepare carrot or beetroot halwa, add some milk maid to it, which gives  extra taste to halwa.
9. if dosa batter is  more soar, add  tsp of sugar to it, to reduce its sourness,depending on  quantity of batter.
10. To get seperate Noodles add tsp of cooking oil, to water,while cooking noodles.
11. To remove excess karam, from food add few tsp of ghee to it.
12. When you make gravies add 1/4 of milk, after adding water, which gives additional taste to gravy.
13. When making idli's, not necessary to grease the plates with oil, instead just wash the plates with running water, then pour the batter.
14. When making upma's, instead of adding Greeen chillies, add both red and Green chillies in equal proportions for extra spicy taste.
15. When making masala dosa, instead of adding oil over dosa's, add ghee which gives additional taste to dosa's.
16. When making medhu vada's, for 1/2 cup urad dal, add 1/2 tbsp of rice while soaking, to get crispy vada's.
17. To get Soft idli's for 4 cup of rice & 1 cup of urad dal, add 1 handful of poha while soaking.
18. After making chapathi dough, soak the dough for 1/2 an hour to get soft chapathi's.Also kneeding is important, more you kneed more soft the chapathi's will be.
19. When making gravies add fennel seeds when tempering, which gives extra taste to gravies.
20.  When making kozhukkatai(modak) instead of rice flour, use idiyappam flour to make it easily.
21. When making puli kulambu,  add ground coconut at the end, and allow it to boil for few minutes, till it blends well with kulambu, which gives extra taste to kulambu.
22. When making biriyani, if you don't have mint leaves just omit it. it is enough to add cilantro, taste won't give up.
23. Crack eggs on a flat surface,not the edge of a bowl, and you'll be less likely to get bits of the shell in your food.
24. Not sure if your eggs are fresh? put the eggs into a bowl of water.Eggs that sink are fresh, and eggs that are float are not. 
25. To retain the colour of spinach, add 1/4 tsp of sugar,to boiling water.
26. To remove excess salt from food add fried gram powder, to the food which absorbs excess salt.
27. if you feel Milk is going to spoil, add a pinch of cooking soda, to milk, then heat it. Milk won't spoil.
28. To cook  any lentils or sundal  fastly, take a hot pan, add lentils, then bring the water to rolling boil, and pour over lentils, and cover it with the lid.Let it be as such for 2 hrs. Then cook the lentils normally.
29. Remaining refrigerated chapathi dough, will be harder. To make it softer microwave the dough, for just 10 seconds. Then it becomes the fresh dough.
30. To get crispy dosa's, add 2 -3 tsp of sago powder or fried gram powder to dosa  batter.
31. To cut the bread or bun neatly, heat the knife before usage.
32. To avoid milk sticking to vessel, while boiling milk, first add 1/4 of water, then add milk.
33. To avoid upma sticking to kadai, try to make it in pressure cooker, with open lid. so you could stir easily and also it won't stick to bottom.
34. While u r making gravy or sambar, if u want to add additional water, add hot water to  boiling gravy/sambar , which gives good taste to the recipe, as well as food gets cooked faster.
35.  To cook potatoes faster,soak it in salt water for half - an - hour, before cooking.
36. While making chapathi dough, to avoid it sticking to hands, apply oil or salt before kneading.
37. Crush ginger, and add to butter milk, to avoid it becoming sour.

 For Longer life 

1.  Remove the stems from green chillies before refrigerating, for its long life.
2. For long life of  cooker wallet, Place the  wallet in a freezer or soak it  in a water, when it is not in use.
3. Place the cilantro in a plate or paper to remove its moisture, then place it in ziplog covers for longer life.

Idli Tips 

1. Urad dal batter Consistency should be thick and fluffy.So add water little by little to grind the urad dal.This is very important step to prepare soft and fluffy  idli's.Even if rice batter consistency is watery, if u mix rice batter  with urad dal batter, after fermentation, it becomes thick. 
2. If  Urad dal consistency is watery, you won't get idli's.but you can prepare dosa's and uttapam's.
3. While mixing urad dal and rice batter together, stir from the bottom of container. usually i use hand to mix the batter. 
4. it is not necessary to Grease idli plates, instead you could, wash the plates  with running water.

 Dosa Tips

1. To get crispy dosa's, add few tbsp of water, to idli batter, to bring to spreadable consistency then make dosa's. adjust the water according to quantity of dosa batter.
2.  Before making dosa's, apply 2 tsp of oil on tawa, then rub brinjal or onion on it, then make dosa's, to prevent dosa's  from sticking to tawa.

      Some Variations

• You can add Ragi flour to dosa to make Ragi dosa.
• You can add wheat  flour to dosa to make wheat dosa.
• You can add  bajra flour to dosa to make bajra dosa.
• Soak 1/2 cup of moongdal+ 1 inch of ginger + 1 tsp of cumin for 4 to 5 hrs then ground it to a  coarse paste with needed salt and water,then mix with dosa batter to make pesarattu.
• Add onions to batter, then temper mustard seeds, chana dal ,urad dal, 2 curd chillies  and few curry leaves in a oil, and add it to batter, then pour it over paniyaram pan to get paniyaram(guntaponganaulu). use the same batter, and pour it over tawa, as thick circles to get uttapam.