Golden Rules & Tips for cooking!!

Hi friends,
Here I will be posting all the useful, essential handy time saving and taste savouring tips for cooking. You know how there are these small small things which matter so much for cooking. So here's a list of all such secrets. Feel free to share your secrets too here :)

1. Oil: any oil should be smoked first before adding any ingredient to it. 
It greatly enhances the flavour, makes the cooking faster and reduces the heavy oily feeling. If you all remember our grand ma's always used to do this for all the oil before storing it away, now a days we don't do that coz of lack of time, but make sure u smoke the oil before cooking. You will feel the difference :)

2. Herbs: Should always be crushed in between warm palms before adding to food.
Be it italian herbs like basil, oregano, indian herbs like kasuri methi etc, always crush them between ur palms and add to the food. The heat produced by rubbing between our palms enhances the flavour. A simple quick & good trick

3. Fresh herbs: Should not be cut if possible
Cutting the herbs with knife makes them loose their color and a bit a flavour on our chopping board itself. Instead tear the leaves apart with your own hands. It feels good and tastes better.

4: Whole spices: Should always be dry roasted first
The whole spices we use are often kept in storage for long time. So before we start using them, just dry roast them till you start getting their aroma and then pound them using pestel & mortar or add just like that to the dishes, you will see that the taste of spices has been greatly enhanced. 
P.S in practical day to day life this step is hard to do coz of lack of time, so just fry your whole spices in hot oil before you add any vegetable, this improves the taste to :)

5. Tea: Should also be given passive heat
Never add tea leaves to the water/milk mixture with the heat still on, the heat burns the leaves and gives an odd bitter/burnt taste. Traditionally hot water was brought in kettle and tea was added then, these days we just make the quick fix tea, so what's the solution, heat the water/milk/flavour mixture and bring to boil, with the flame still on add the desired amount of tea leaves and immediately turn off the heat, cover with a lid which covers the vessel completely and leave for a min. After that drain the leaves, this gives a nice delicate tea flavour. I know this works coz I used to make bad tea, always used to burn it, but with this trick I get just the right flavour :)

I'll keep updating here and looking forward to getting to know more & more handy tips from all you.
till then,  

If you have any comments pls feel free to post them. Good or bad I would love to hear them all :)
So have fun and happy cooking everyone :)

Quick & Easy Spaghetti / Pasta !

Hi everyone,
Lately I have had lots of work at office, as a result of which when I come back home, I am just too exhausted to cook anything with a long recipe.

So I make this 10-15mins time taking spaghetti. Its easy, quick, filling & delicious!

So here's the recipe

Ingredients: (for one serving)
Spaghetti ( use any number you like, for one person about 20-30 should be good enough, but its a personal choice)
1 medium sized onion
3-4 peeled cloves of garlic
Italian herbs ( I use this pre mixed mixture of pasta herbs, its easily available in the market, else one can use basil, rosemary, oregano, thyme, if fresh herbs are available its even better :)  )
olive oil
1 tbsp cheese (optional use 3-4 tbsp cheese if you like it cheesy :)  )
4 big tbsp ketchup / tomato sauce
1 tbsp any ready made italian sauce ( i like primavera sauce, you can use any red sauce available, trust me using these sauces save a lot of time)

Optional ingredients: (veg)
Capsicum, mushroom, corn, carrots, spinach, basically any vegetable you wanna add. Cut them in small pieces or any way you like
note: if using broccoli or brussel sprouts, dont cook them, add them just 2-3 mins before serving the pasta, else they develop a weird bitter taste

Optional ingredients: (non-veg)
sausages, shredded/diced meat, boiled egg whites
note: if using sausages, add them just 2-3 mins before turning the flame off. There is no harm adding the sausages before, its just then they loose all their flavour. Adding towards the end helps retain their own flavour & yet it absorbs the juices for enough time to blend in.

Method:

Cut the onion in long thin slices, crush the garlic and cut the other vegetables as you like, just make sure the pieces are not too big.

Break the spaghetti into half if you dont have a vessel big enough to boil it. Now we all know boiling pasta takes a lot of time, so I have a short cut, boil the pasta in a pressure cooker with the whistle on, as soon as you get the first whistle, immediately put the cooker under running water till you can open the cooker. Drain the spaghetti / pasta in a strainer taking off all the water, coat with one table spoon oil. It saves a lot of time n the pasta is just al dente (to the bite)

While the spaghetti gets boiled in the pressure cooker, heat about 2-3 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan. As soon as the oil starts to smoke, add the crushed garlic cloves followed after 5secs by long thin sliced onions. cook the onions till they start to shrivel a bit. Add in the herbs and let them fry a little in the garlic onion oil mixture.

Add the tomatoes n 1/4 tbsp sugar & wait till tomatoes start dissolving.

Next add the cut vegetables and meat/eggs and cook them till they are also al dente. If using boiled meat/eggs, add them after the vegetables are al dente as they dont need much cooking.

Add the spaghetti to the mixture and mix well with all the ingredients. Add in the cheese and keep mixing till all cheese has melted and has coated the vegetables and spaghetti.

Now add the chosen pasta sauce and mix well and let it stay for 30 secs.

Next add the tomato ketchup/readymade pasta sauce and mix. Follow by 1 cup of water ( the quantity should be such that 1/8th of the spaghetti gets covered, our aim is to form a sauce which isn't too liquidy but at the same time the pasta should not feel dry.) Add salt to taste. 

Bring to a boil as you constantly keep mixing, add the sausages if using any.

Turn off the heat and add broccoli / brussel sprouts and mix.

Now is the time to get a bowl and enjoy a delicious easy to cook meal. Tadaa!!

I just use the garlic & onions & sometimes frozen corn to cook after coming from office, & trust me folks, it tastes  really good!

So go ahead, try this basic, quick and easy to make spaghetti :)

If you have any comments pls feel free to post them. Good or bad I would love to hear them all :)
So have fun and happy cooking everyone :)

Easy to make sheera/ kesari bhath/ suji ka halwa/ semolina pudding

Hi friends,

I am writing after many days. Finding very little time to write as the work keeps me really busy.
So here I am posting about the easy to make & good to eat sheera.

Its a very good breakfast and since it takes just 10-15 mins to make, its a good choice for when in hurry :)

Ok so let's get started!

Ingredients:
Suji/ rawaa/ semolina
ghee
milk
water
1-2 cardamoms
sugar
Turmeric/ Saffron (To give color)

Time: 10-15 mins

Now as you all would have noticed, I have not specified the quantity, well for this delicacy, there is a ratio, remembering which goes a long way :)

its: 1 cup suji-1 cup sugar-3 cups milk-1 cup water - 2tbsp ghee

Method:

Take a deep bottomed pan ( preferably non stick) and add the suji and powdered cardamom, you can add cardamom at the end to. Add the pinch of turmeric now if you are using it, if using saffron soak it in milk n add when you add milk.
Roast the suji for about 3-4 mins till you just start getting the aroma of roasted suji. Add the ghee now and mix well with the suji.

Now some recipes say you should boil the milk/water and then add sugar to it, but honestly who has all this time, so here's my effective shortcut

Once the suji is roasted, add in the milk and water and keep stirring the mixture constantly. If any big lumps are there, try to break them with the spatula but keep stirring, the lumps dissolve sooner or later. Keep stirring for 2-3 mins like that and then add the cup of sugar and keep mixing and stirring constantly. No stopping the stirring folks, that's the key :)

Now the mixture will come to a boil so be careful while stirring, in a minute or two you will see that the whole mixture starts moving in the pan more or less like one big mass. Now that's the point when you can turn off the flame n tadaa!! :D

Sprinkle with some powdered cardamom and coconut and enjoy :)
P.S if you wanna add dry fruits like resins, cashew nut, almonds etc, put them in while you add ghee, no need to fry, roasting them in ghee along with suji gives them a nice delicate flavour and does not make them heavy.

So here it was, the easy and quick to make sheera/ suji ka halwa/ kesari bhath/ semolina pudding.


If you have any comments pls feel free to post them. Good or bad I would love to hear them all :)
So have fun and happy cooking everyone :)

Ema Datse (Chilly Cheese) Bhutan's National dish

Hi everyone,
Today I am going to share the recipe of Ema Datse with you all. Most of us are not aware of this excellent Bhutan's dish which is excellent for cold weather and for cold treatment. I love having this dish as breakfast or night's dinner or anytime of the day. In Bhutan people have it with every meal. Its really really really healthy!

Ingredients: ( for 2 servings)
1. 2 medium onions, cut into long slices
2. 3-4 Green chillies
3. 2 Medium tomatoes, cut into long slices
4.  one capsicum, cut into long slices
5. Fresh green Spinach leaves, the quantity after cutting should be equal to those of the tomatoes. Cut spinach as you like.
6. One tbsp ghee or clarified butter or normal butter will do although the dish will taste a little different.
7. 1-2 tbsp cream cheese ( the Bhutanese use a spl chesse, but i have seen this gives the flavor atleast, you can use normal cheese to)
8. 1/4 tbsp pepper powder.
9. A pinch of turmeric
10. Salt to taste (at least 3/4 tbsp)

Method:
1. Heat ghee in a deep frying pan till its melted completely. 
2. Split the green chillies from middle or break each chilly into 2 pieces and add to ghee, cook the chillies till they are totally fried. Now you can either leave the chillies in the pan or throw them away. The point of frying them is to remove their heat, yet retain their flavor. So enjoy the taste of green chilly but no need to worry about the acidity :D
3. Next add the onions to fry in the pan. The flame should be kept on high always and onions should be tossed around constantly. Repeat tossing till onions edge starts developing brown color at places and you get a nice aroma.
4. Throw in the spinach leaves at this stage and lower the flame and let the spinach leaves get cooked, after about one minute or so add the cut capsicum.
5. Put the flame back on high and fry for 1-2 mins.
6. Add in the cut tomatoes and fry for about one minute.
7. Add the black pepper,salt, cheese and turmeric and mix thoroughly & fry for about one minute.
8. Add 1 glass of water or as much water as you would like and bring to boil. Boil for 1-2 mins and tadaa! :D

You have your perfect food for cold weather. You can even add shredded/cut pieces of boiled chicken and cook alongside onions if you are a non vegetarian. Adjust the salt according to taste and increase black pepper quantity to 1/2 tbsp n turmeric to 1/4 tbsp.

The dish is really really good, healthy and delicious, it tastes excellent with momos! 

So everyone enjoy this recipe and happy cooking :)


If you have any comments pls feel free to post them. Good or bad I would love to hear them all :)
So have fun and happy cooking everyone :)

Basic Indian Curry / Gravy (Smooth)

Hi everyone! Today I am going to share this basic Indian curry/gravy recipe which is the smooth type. This is the curry/gravy you can use when you want that rich restaurant like smooth curry/gravy. Like the ones they use to cook paneer dishes like paneer butter masala, kadhai paneer , Butter Chicken etc. I'll upload a pic next time I make it. So here is a recipe you can make whenever you feel like eating those restaurant style mild spicy gravies :)

Sample pic of Paneer Butter Masala Curry:

Ingredients: (for 2 people)

1. 2 medium sized Tomatoes
2. 3 medium sized onions
3. 5-6 cloves of garlic
4. 1/2 inch piece of ginger
5. 1 tbsp garam masala/meat masala/kitchen king masala/ powder of 3-4 black pepper corns, 2 cloves, 1 inch bay leaf, 1/2 inch cinnamon, 1/4 black cardamom, 1/4 star anise, 1tbsp cumin and any other spice you can find (better dry roast the spices and then crush them dry using pestle & mortar, you get excellent flavor!!)
6. 1tbsp kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves) 
6. 1 Green chilly medium size
7. 1/2 tbsp red chilly powder
8. 1/4 tbsp turmeric powder
9. (optional) 1/2 inch piece of beet root( the amount should be like 1 inch cube of beet root)(it gives a nice reddish color)
10. cold/normal temperature milk ( quantity varies according to taste)
11. Oil to cook
12. Salt to taste

Method:
1. Grind ginger and garlic & green chilly in pestle & mortar and make as smooth paste as you can.
2. Chop the onions. No need to chop fine, for a rough idea cut the onion into half and 6-7 pieces of that half. No use wasting your time and energy on chopping onion this fine. Don't forget to take out the white part at basement, it can spoil the taste of curry/gravy. Same goes for cutting of tomatoes.
3. Heat 3-4 tbsp oil in a deep frying pan/kadhai.
4. Add 1/2 tbsp cumin and fry till you get that roasted cumin smell just right. Immediately add the ginger,garlic,green chilly paste. Cook the paste while you stir it continuously till you see garlic changing its color to brownish. 
5. Add all the chopped onions and mix in with the ginger garlic chilly paste. Add 3/4 tbsp of sugar to the onion and mix properly. Adding sugar gives the onion a nice pinkish color and nice flavor and also helps in making onion get brown quickly. Add the garam masala/meat masala/kitchen king masala/ powder of spices. The taste of curry/gravy varies according to what masala you use. I personally like to use meat masala (vegetarians don't worry, its 100% vegetarian but has a nice flavor that you find in these hotel gravies.) Add the fenugreek leaves to. Add the red chilly powder, turmeric powder and mix well.
6. Let the onions absorb all the flavor of masalas that we have put in and start getting brownish. You get this really nice roasted masala smell.
7. Make a whole in the center and add tomatoes and let them cook. Mix well and let tomatoes leave their juices all over the onions. Add in the beet root and add salt to taste. Let the onion tomato mixture get cooked till you get smell of cooked masala or when the tomatoes start to leave their skin.
8. Turn off the flame and let the mixture cool down nicely. It's very important that the mixture cools down. Coz once the mixture is cold, transfer the contents to a mixture grinder and add cold milk or normal temperature milk will do to. Now the milk here is a replacement for water and cream that we add to give the curry/gravy its liquid consistency and rich taste. So add milk as you feel. You can use water to, but pls add at least one small cup of milk. Grind the mixture nicely in the mixer grinder till you get the desired consistency.
9.Transfer the smooth curry/gravy paste to a bowl and Tadaa!! :D

You have your basic smooth Indian curry/gravy! :D

Now you can make a variety of dishes with this curry/gravy. I will be uploading them in a short time. Like if you want just add some fresh paneer, 1 tbsp butter to this curry/gravy and heat, garnish with fresh cut coriander and you have your paneer butter masala. hehe i'll write down the recipe in more detail some other time but just to give you an idea, its that easy :)  

If you have any comments pls feel free to post them. Good or bad I would love to hear them all :)
So have fun and happy cooking everyone :)

Aaloo Pyaaz ke Pakode (Potato Onion fritters)

Hi friends! how are you and how's cooking going on? Well I was really busy at office so couldn't update my cooking experiences, and I didn't cook anything much new, but I made Pakode(fritters) yesterday, you know how sometimes you just have to have these yummy fried delicacies! Well I thought why should I put up this recipe, most of us know it, and there are so many recipes out there, BUT when I was going through some of these recipes, I noticed none of them explained the way, ingredients etc needed had to be assembled and cooked to make these delicacies properly!! So here I am with the solution! :D 

Here's my recipe covering every detail! kyunki yummy garma garam pakode khaana to sabhi ka haq banata hai! (coz eating hot & yummy fritters is everyone's right!)

Ingredients: (10-12 pakode)
1. 3-4 small size potatoes.
2. 1 medium size onion
3. 3-4 tbsp fresh chopped coriander leaves.
4. 1-2 tbsp fennel/anise seeds
5. 1-2 green chillies
6. Besan( Gram flour of course!) get at least 250gms, if left out we can use in other dishes.
7. 1 tbsp roasted cumin powder
8. 1/2 tbsp garam masala (if not available, ground 2-3 black pepper corns and 1-2 cloves, and a little piece of bay leaf, cinnamon, star anise or whatever spice you get your hands on. But dont leave out pepper and cloves)
9. 1/2 tbsp red chilly powder
10. Salt to taste
11. 1/4 tbsp turmeric
12. Cooking oil (no olive or coconut oil, rest groundnut, soya been, sunflower, mustard oil etc can be used)
P.S: You can vary the amount of garam masala and roasted cumin powder to taste. Same goes for green/red chillies, but this is the minimum I would suggest.

Method:
1. Peel the potatoes and then cut in thin small sizes. The thickness should be close to that of wafers or potato chips, can be little thicker to but not very thick. Length can be as small as garlic clove or just cut the potatoes length, although I prefer the garlic clove size.
2. Peel and wash the onions and finely chop the onions. Oh ya! the potatoes can be of around the same size to, a bit larger will also do.
3. Add the chopped potatoes and onions in a bowl, add the finely chopped coriander leaves, cut green chillies, fennel/anise seeds, all the dry powders, and salt. 
4. Add 1-2 tbsp oil to the mixture and add gram flour 1-2 tbsp at a time. Now keep adding gram flour and water little by little till all vegetables are just covered. Add 1 tbsp of gram flour more at this stage and mix. Don't worry if the mixture looks a little dry, we have to leave the mixture like that for 10-15mins, during this time the flavors get mixed and vegetables leave some water, so we get the perfect pakoda(fritter mix). & if you feel you need more water, you can always add at any stage :)
5. Once the mixture is ready, taste it to make sure all flavors are there. Any additions, adjustments can be done at this time.
6. Ok now that the mixture is ready, we have to do the frying, now how much oil should be used??
Well here for making pakode I am using a table spoon, so the pakode is going to be medium sized. You should use a medium/small vessel to fry. Fill the vessel with oil, the oil level should be enough to submerge atleast 2/3 of pakoda(fritters). Heat the oil till it starts to smoke a little.
7. Drop in the pakode mixture 1tbsp at a time. Keep putting the mixture such that there should 2-3 cms spacing between each pakode(fritter).
8. Now let them sit in oil and get cooked, what's the sign that they are cooked?? They will start to turn golden brown. This is the time to turn them around and let them get golden on other side.
9. Now before taking them out from cooking vessel, press the pakode(fritters) gently between the stirrer/ladle and let oil drip out. Take them out on a plate covered with tissue paper to absorb the excess oil. 
10. Serve them hot with Ketchup or Dhaniye ki Chutney (will upload the recipe soon).

Tadaa!! So we have the simple to make, delicious to eat pakode(fritters) !! 


If you have any comments pls feel free to post them. Good or bad I would love to hear them all :)
So have fun and happy cooking everyone :)

Perfect Tomato soup at home!

Here I am at my office, and most of the people are suffering from cough & cold. Well not surprising as its mid October now and winter has slowly started creeping its feet in our lives. Well winters are fun, but only if we take good care. You ignore it for one hour max, and you definitely catch cold !

Well humaare paas iss cold ka bhi tod hai !( we have answer for this cold as well)

Remember the days when we used to fall sick at home, mom's used to bring those delicious tomato soups ! aaye haaye, kya din the wo, but ab ghar se door wo soup ka sukh kahaan..( what days were those, but now we don't have that soup's relief away from home)

I am sure we all miss that healthy healthy hot hot soup, so here's my recipe for that perfect healthy tomato soup/shorba.

Ingredients:( 2 bowl full servings)

1. 8-10 medium sized tomatoes (the more red in color the better)
2. 6-7 peeled garlic cloves
3. half inch ginger piece
4. 1-2 tbsp each of chopped green coriander leaves, Spinach leaves, Basil leaves ( holy basil{tulsi}, or even dried Italian herb basil will do).
5. Black pepper powder to taste
6. 1/2 tbsp Roasted cumin powder(bhuna jeera)
7. 1-2 tbsp ghee/butter ( use ghee preferably, one can use 3-4 tbsp of ghee for that goody goody warmth if you feel like)
8. Salt to taste


Method:

1. Wash the tomatoes and cut each into 4 pieces.
2. Heat the ghee/butter in a cooker and heat till ghee/butter melts.
3. Crush ginger & garlic gently and add to the hot ghee/butter and cook till garlic starts developing brown specs.
4. Add in the chopped green leafs in the hot ghee/butter and cook till the leaves just start loosing their color.
5. Add in the cut tomatoes and add salt, roasted cumin powder and let the tomatoes cook. Remember no adding water ! Coz if we add water then tomatoes don't get cooked in the ghee and loose their water & flavor.
6. Once all the tomatoes are cooked from at least some side and you get that nice tomato cooked smell a little, then add one to one n half glass of water. Bring to boil without covering the lid of cooker. (add sufficient amount of water, insufficient water can lead to burning of tomatoes).
7. Cover the lid and wait till you get the first whistle. lower the flame and let it stay for some 5-7 mins, or if in no hurry, wait till you get the second whistle out of cooker. The advantage of doing so is the vegetables get nicely cooked and you dont need to put them in blender, putting in blender some how reduces the taste is what i feel.
8. let the cooker cool down on its own or put under a tap of running water and open when all steam is released.
9. Transfer the contents into a strainer and press the rest with a ladle. Press nicely so that you get all the pulp. you can keep adding the extracted soup again to get more out of the boiled vegetables.
10. Once completely extracted heat the soup to desired heat, we can add a little ghee/butter to the soup although I have never done it. Check the salt, add pepper to taste.
11. If you wish, you can cut down some toasted bread croutons and add to the soup. the toasted bread bits can be stir fried on a pan in 1 tbsp butter for further taste and cut into desired shape and size. Top the soup bowl with bread croutons and Tadaa !

Our healthy healthy soup is ready ! :) hope you all get benefited from it.

If you have any comments pls feel free to post them. Good or bad I would love to hear them all :)
So have fun and happy cooking everyone :)