You are the Queen of the Home, so take care of yourself to take care of the entire family. Here are few tips for maintaining good kitchen to make good food.
Kitchen Tips:
- Invest in good cookware. There are much varieties available, like Cast Iron, Stainless Steel, Non-stick, Hard anodized, Aluminium, Copper etc., Each of these has its own pros and cons, so use it accordingly.
- Cast iron is good for eggs, smearing meat, fish etc. Try to avoid using it when cooking acid based ingredients.
- Throw away if the non stick cookwares, if the non stick coating is scratched, peeled or even flaked.
- Stainless steel is a non reactive cookware, but it gets burnt easily, thus frying in stainless steel is lot more difficult.
- Cutting boards are available in many colors and shapes.
- Try avoid using plastic grades.
- Use different boards for veggies and meat to avoid cross contamination.
- Discard any old chipped boards with mold.
- A good sharp knife makes your work easier, so try to sharp it regularly at home.
- Discard, cleaning sponges when they are worn out.
Cooking Tips:
- Soak lentils and grains for a while before cooking.
- Use natural tenderizers for meat, like curd, lemon etc
- Add salt when frying onion and tomato for the gravies. This step makes it gets cooked quickly and turns mushy easily too.
- Use medium and simmer flames for the better taste and flavor.
- When making Indian curries, add salt when vegetables are 80% done. Adding salt at the last stages helps to minimize the salt quantity to the recipe.
- Add few drops of cooking oil to pasta, rice and noodles while cooking. It prevents them from sticking each other.
- Opt for fresh fruits and vegetables.
- Try to make everything from scratch as far as we could. This greatly helps in reducing all the trans-fat we get from packaged frozen foods.
- Our preventive medicines are in our masala box, so try use them everyday. These ingredients have medicinal values beyond its tastes, like mustard, cumin, fenugreek, fennel, turmeric powder, dhania etc.,
- Pressure cooking vegetable are believed to be healthy as it retains all the nutrient values of the veggies.
Kitchen Hacks:
- Roll the lemon firmly between your palms but cutting. This helps to extracting better.
- Hang bananas vertically, to make it couple of days longs.
Safety Tips:
- Be double cautious when using spray type oil dispensers near the hot flames.
- Never cook in loose clothes.
- Turn the pan handles away from you.
- Never keep the food open, close it with proper lid or wraps.
- Learn the better way of using the knife, keep you fingers consciously to not to get hurt by ourselves.
- Do not allow toddlers in the busy kitchen.
- Keep the kitchen clutter free, which makes yourself feel better.