| While making pulao, and you want it to be whiter, add a few drops of
lemon juice to the water before boiling rice. |
| To test the freshness of eggs, dip in water. Fresh egg sinks in water whereas stale one floats. |
| When using a griddle / grill pan to grill, apply butter or oil on the the ingredient to be grilled. This gives nice grill marks as well as makes it crispy. Need not add oil or butter to the pan. |
| To dessed chillies, cut both the ends of chillies and hold the chilly vertically in the palm of your hands and roll. The seeds will fall out. |
| Curd / yoghurt should be beaten well before adding to gravies. This prevents curdling. |
| While adding curd/ yoghurt to gravies, which are being cooked, lower the flame or remove the pot from fire, then add and stir continuously to prevent curdling. |
| Since curd / yoghurt is acidic it slows down the cooking time of of vegetables. So add them only after vegetables are almost cooked. |
| Always boil and mash potatoes while still hot. The more the potatoes cool, the soggier they will become when mashing. |
| Salad dressing should be added to the salad greens only just before serving or the salt will drain out water from the greens and salad will loose its freshness. |
| Do not wash rice after soaking in water (for biryanis, pulaos etc.) as the grains will tend to break. Wash before soaking. |
| Boil water, take off fire.Add Almonds & Pistas (without kernels) to the water. After a few minutes, Almonds will shrivel. Then take out of water & peel of skin.Cut into slivers. |
| If your curry has turned very spicy, stir in some, milk, cream or tomato puree, curd or cashew paste depending upon the curry. |
| To ensure that ladyfingers don't turn black or stick to the vessel while cooking, add a spoonful of curd or vinegar to them. |
| To make crisp onions "pakoras", just sprinkle a little salt on the onions and mix well. Keep aside for a few minutes. Squeeze out water. Then mix in the gram flour and masalas and fry. |
| For garnishing pulaos, fry onions with a pinch of sugar. They will turn brown faster and impart a nice color to the pulao, too. |
| While making pancakes, pour the batter from a jug instead ladling, for an easy and even spread. |
| If you have added more salt to the "dal", put a piece of potato or a lump of dough in it, to soak up the extra salt. |
| To cut boiled eggs neatly, cut with a thread. |
| To powder small quantity of cardamom, grind it along with a small quantity of sugar. |
| To powder small quantity of cardamom, grind it along with a small quantity of sugar. Not only is it easier, it also gives a uniform cardamom flavour. |