Indian Foods Guide

Your Guide to the Best Food on the Planet

Tips for Cooking with Onions

 

  1. How to cut an onion without crying ? Indian food requires a lot of onions sometimes. Use sweet onions. Peeling  and  cutting under running water, chopping near a gas flame, and refrigerating onions before chopping, all methods for reducing the volatility of the sulfide that causes the irritation. 
  2. Try Cabbage instead of Onion : If anyone does not like or want the strong taste of onion, you can use cabbage in the recipe for the same taste and good recipe.

Tips for Cooking Rice

 

  1. Wash the rice a few times until the water runs clear. Remove all the water until no water remains. Let it sit for 20 minutes.  This will remove all the starch and help the rice to remain separate.
  2. Also adding a few drops of lemon juice to the rice while cooking, you will find that the grains of rice will tend to remain separate.
  3. Retaining the "whiteness" of white rice : While cooking rice add a few drops of  lemon juice. The  color of the grains become bright white.
  4. Reheating left-over Rice : Refrigerate leftover cooked rice in a well-sealed container. Reheat cold rice with a sprinkling of water in a microwave oven or in a covered pot over low heat.  Left over rice is great to have on hand for stirring into soups and broths and for making fried rice — it's perhaps the world's best vehicle for turning leftovers into something fresh and new.

Tips for Preparing and Grilling Kebabs

 

   Summer time is a great time for some nice outdoor grilling and this summer we spent a lot of time doing that and experimenting with some new kebab recipes.  Through those experiments we learnt a few things that we thought were worth sharing. 

Marination
  • If you grind your own spices, ensure that they are correctly pounded whenever possible to bring out the true flavors/aroma
  • When yogurt is to be used for marination, it should be hung in a muslin cloth for at least 1 1/2 hours before use to drain out extra whey.
  • With many Indian kebabs, marination is very important. Make sure your marinate the meat for as long as the recipes require, more if possible.
  • The marination should be thick paste to coat the meat and vegetables well.
  • For tandoori kebabs, basting acquires  special significance. It is the application of butter or oil which selas in the juices  and makes the kebab succulent.
Grilling Tips
  • When you have a lot of different items to grill, take your time. Start with vegetables, then do red meat and poultry. Fish and seafood should be done last, when the most delicate cooking is required.
  • Success of kebabs depend on the succulence, freshness, tenderness of meat, fish or vegetables besides the right degree of cooking. In tandoor or charcoal, one must ensure that which cooking kebabs, juice in meats are retained.
  • Kebabs should not be over-cooked as they tend to become dry and not remain succulent
  • If you are using skewers, make sure that you keep adequate gaps between the meats.
  • Seafood should typically be double skewered.

With a few more weeks of hot and warm weather in the US, you should still have plenty of time to enjoy some nice outdoor cooking unless you are in Texas where we have had about 40 days on 100+ degree weather. 

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