Cooking tips

Welcome to Cooking tips. Smallest of things can make the job easier as well as quicker. I will post a few cooking tips that may be useful in day to day cooking. Here you go.

1. Placing a small amount of tamarind (say 25 paise size) in cooker while cooking prevents salt deposition and hence the hard crusts of salt will never form.You can also use a small;l piece of lemon instead of tamarind.
2. My mom pressure cooks tamarind with little water in pressure cooker for sathumadu ,kozhambu etc(whichever dish uses tamarind). This ensures the raw smell of tamarind goes off. This is useful for people like me who Cannot digest the raw taste of tamarind. I have also tried microwaving tamarind with little water for abt 50 secs and the results are same. So please proceed whichever is convenient for you.
3. Adding a few red chillies in the container while storing rice prevents insects. Also it dries up water.
4. Never use oil used for deep frying again for the same purpose. Use the oil used for deep frying to temper, sauté vegetables or for making dosas/rotis.
5. For making thick curd at home, boil milk and reduce the flame and simmer for five minutes. Pour curd only when the milk turns warm. Adding curd while the milk becomes cold or when it is super hot does not help the fermentation process. In places where it is extremely cold like Canada(where I stay), I keep the milk inside baking oven overnight.  The next day morning, I can see thick yummy curd
6. Also make curd in stain less steel vessel as the curd made in any other vessel doesn’t taste as equal as this.