I am lazy. And I have way too many taste buds. A bad combination. Very bad because I hate to stay in the kitchen for more than 30 minutes. I would rather have curd rice with some pickle than a badly done 5 course meal. Or paruppu saadham with shredded and salted carrot. I am yet to understand the earlier generation- my mother wakes up at 4 AM every single day and cooks EVERY meal. And plain curd rice/ paruppu sadham is not an option she considers.
Apart from being monumentally lazy, I hate the kitchen I have. The house is older than me or Hari. The kitchen window opens to show me a very commercial, traffic ridden arterial road. My neighbours are as follows: a private grain/pulse godown, a Government warehouse, a saloon and an electrical shop. You get the picture. I would rather suffocate inside the kitchen than open the windows. If I am out, I can have a subway sandwich for lunch and be satisfied with it. I love anything that has colourful vegetables. The more, the merrier. I loved working in Nungambakkam for this reason- I could walk into the nearest Subway outlet and have a veggie delight sub. While I do enjoy good food, I don’t like to cook every day. Too much of an effort. But I pride myself on being able to find shortcuts/ minimise effort and yet have a very good end result when I do cook! So, I have compiled a list of such tips that’d help you tremendously if you happen to be as lazy as I am.
1. Rice is versatile:
Basmati, Ponni.. If you are a health conscious nut and you stay away from white rice, get the hell out if here NOW. I shop for groceries once a week. Again, the earlier generation that follows a monthly routine here, scoffs at me for this! So, whenever I shop, I stock up on basic vegetables. I ALWAYS buy carrots, fresh green peas, capsicum etc. All I need to do is cut these vegetables, soak the rice if you have time and cook this in a non-stick fry pan with a lot of cumin, select spices and sambar podi/garam masala. Yes, I use sambar podi for anything and everything. Blame my South Indian taste buds. You can have this with plain curd. And it is awesome for a lunch box. You can read the newspaper, do the crossword, have a bath while it cooks. Soak the rice for better results. I have done this enough and more times and I was a little concerned about the lack of protein in the dish. Especially if it’s the sole lunch dish of the day. That’s when I realised I would do better if I stocked up on soy nuggets/paneer. Sometimes, I add peanuts in this too. But that requires soaking overnight. I have also tried cooking a similar rice dish with sweet corn that comes packed in white plastic containers with cling film on top- you can find these in every Pazhamudhir Cholai/Nilayam in every part of the city. You can shred beetroot, fry it a little with some cashews, add rice and cook this with salt and chilli powder. Tastes wonderful. The husband claims he hates beetroot; I gave him this and claimed it was Delhi carrot. He asked for a second helping!
2. Paneer:
I love paneer. I grew up in a very traditional South Indian household and we never made paneer at home. But I love paneer. Whenever I dine out, I have to have a paneer dish. The best paneer I have had are at Cream Centre, Bombay Halwa House and Sigree. And when I started experimenting with paneer, once I started cooking on my own, I found that store bought paneer was a terrible, terrible idea. That’s when I started making it on my own. Through trial and error, I have found a procedure that works well for me. You can tweak it according to your needs.
It’s mandatory that you have all this ready, before you start the process: The right dairy choice: One litre of Nilgiris rich milk and 200 gm of Nilgiris fresh cream.
The right acid: One ripe lemon at room temperature. Take it out of the fridge and let it come to the room temperature. Otherwise, it’s really tough to get the juice out. Now, I have always had an availability problem with lemon. Kalla kandaa naai irukkaadhu, naai-a kandaa kal irukkaadhu. I would not have milk and lemons at the same time. That’s when I shifted to vinegar. It comes in a bottle and sits in the fridge all the time. I use around 2-3 teaspoons of vinegar. I have never used sour curd as a coagulant. So, I have nothing to share about it.
The right draining system: Have a clean cloth or two reserved for this purpose. I have two large handkerchiefs that I use only for paneer making and I wash it with dishwash liquid, lest the smell of Rin/Surf ruin my paneer. I guess a clean duppatta can serve the purpose though. Have a colander ready.
Now, empty the milk and cream into a large vessel and boil it. I don’t know if it’s necessary but I always tend to give this a mix with a ladle whenever the fresh cream starts collecting on top. Meanwhile, have your lemon juice mixed with a glass of water. Or 3 spoons of vinegar by your side. Line the colander with the cloth. And wait patiently. When the milk is ABOUT TO RISE UPWARDS (don’t wait until it pongifies), stir in the vinegar/lemon juice. Add it while stirring the mixture well. After a few seconds, you must be able to see the white solids separate from the yellow-green whey liquid. NOW, switch off the flame. Else, the texture of your paneer will be compromised. If you feel the liquid is still white, add more lemon juice/vinegar. Pour this over the cloth laden colander. Pinch the corners of the cloth, lift it and hold it in a running stream of cold tap water until the temperature comes down. Now, you need to drain the excess water. Tie up the cloth, suspend it from the centre of a ladle and place the ladle in a tall, narrow vessel. It will resemble a pulley and water well system. (Check this for a visual representation:
Let it drain for 2 hours. You can squeeze it at the end of 2 hours but the fresh cream added will make your palms greasy. Now, don’t attempt to remove the paneer ball from the cloth as of yet. Roll it into a sphere and then flatten it to form a shape somewhere between a rectangle and a circle. Place it on a perforated steel surface. And place some weight on top of it. You can use unopened atta packets or stone pepper mills. I don’t use anything heavier than 2-3 kg for fear that the paneer will lose way too much moisture. Forget about it for 2-3 hours. Carefully dismantle the setup and you will have your block of paneer. I cube it immediately and store it immersed in water, in the fridge. Stays good for a week.
Now, for the all-important paneer pointer: NEVER cook paneer cubes. When you want to sue the paneer in a dish, say a biryani/ paneer based gravy etc, switch off the flame and then FINALLY, add the paneer and give it a stir. Only the addition of coriander leaves follows this step. And then, you put a lid on top. If you are looking to cut down on fat, skip the addition of fresh cream. I gathered a lot of information from this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-06r0M55P4
3. Handling vegetables:
I consume a lot of vegetables. More than half my plate is covered with vegetables. I hate the humble potato cooked in most Indian forms. I don’t like Urulai kazhangu kari/fry. I hate it in mixed vegetable rice, can’t stand it in gravies. Like it in cutlets and as aalu parathas though. Like French fries if done perfectly. The perfect French fries: I have to thank the Masterchef series for introducing me to notable chefs and their techniques. I hate the lousy French fries served in many restaurants. What people claim to make at home is lousier. It drips of oil and is lifeless. I followed Heston Blumenthal’s version. His triple cooked fries are awesome and you can try it at home. You don’t need any special apparatus. In a nutshell, you first boil it in water, freeze it, take it out of the freezer, fry it once, refrigerate again and fry it once again before serving. Sounds like a laborious task but it’s not. While it boils, you set a timer and read. And then it lies in the fridge. Only actual job is the frying part. The result is definitely worth it.
Here’s the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIiQbeVHgX0
I abhor, detest onions. Hari loves onions more than anything else. I can stand it when it is cooked well and the smell is masked well. I don’t ever store chopped onions inside the fridge. I hate it when the onion stink encompasses every nook and corner of the fridge. Since I hate it so much, I like it ground or chopped very finely. To the extent of mincing it. Yes, I do cry every time I chop onions. I have tried freezing it beforehand, immersing it in water to get rid of the Sulphur oxide. And while it does reduce the impact, nothing really solves the problem. So, you need to be super quick in chopping the onions.
And Gordon Ramsay has taught me to do that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwGBt3V0yvc
I follow this and I chop them really fast. And to miniscule dimensions. To save time and effort, and to please my whims, unless the curry demands a slightly crunchy texture, I end up grinding the onions.
Capsicum fascinates me. I consume them a lot. Capsicum sambar, pasta, side dish for phulkas, with vegetable rice etc.
This is how I cut capsicum these days: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o28yI1XTQQU
I slice it around the seed cluster.
Broccoli is a great favourite. I seem to like this better than its cousin, cauliflower. Lighter and more colourful. Hari fell in love with a broccoli-jalapeno fry I made with our usual phulka. It was super good, I must say. Lovely combination.
Among other vegetables I love are podalanga, vaazhatthandu, vaazhai poo, chow chow, avaraikka, pooshanikka, parangikka... all of which the husband hates. So, I don’t cook them much but consume all of them regularly, when my mum cooks them.
4. Phulkas:
The only painstaking job I do in the kitchen; which is why I don’t do this very often. Would love to eat it every day though. With a nice curry or dal. While most people like the richer roti/paratha and the fancier naan, I always order phulkas along with any curry, when I dine out. And when I reach for my wheat flour at home, it’s almost always for phulkas. Raised a proper south Indian, phulka making did not come to me naturally. I learnt it after several foiled attempts. I made it once for my mum, who loves her chapati done the south indian way. And she exclaimed ‘I have hated it until now because I have sucked at making them. So, this is how soft phulkas can be’. I pack this into Hari’s lunch box and he says it stays soft until his lunch time.
Only a few steps matter in this procedure.
Kneading: When you decide to knead the flour, don’t attempt to make enough dough to last a week. Stick to how much ever you need for that meal. Larger quantities don’t yield very soft dough. To the wheat flour, add a little salt for sure. And you can choose to add whey that’s left over from paneer making endeavours. You can add a little amount of warm milk. You can add some ghee. Warm water makes kneading very easy. You can mix some ragi flour with this. You do have to knead it until the dough feels soft and pliable. It should not stick to your palm/fingers much. Rest the dough for at least 30 minutes.
Rolling it out: As thin as possible, with as little dry flour as possible. I usually make very small phulkas. The size of my palm. Note: I have large palms :)
Storing it: Once it’s off the tawa, it goes on to the flame and then straight into a closed lid casserole/ dabba.
5. Soya nuggets:
A wonderful source of protein and it blends with anything you make. And it is very easy to cook with. You can add it to simple vegetable rice or to a curry. A lot of people seem to have an issue with the smell of these nuggets though. Thanks to googling and trying out random suggestions, I figured out what works best. Cook these nuggets with 75 percent water and 25 percent milk, in a pressure cooker. Once you take it out of the cooker, wash the nuggets as much as you can, with cold water. Drain THOROUGHLY. Shred it with your bare hands, add it to the curry or rice. Done. Allow the dish some resting time though. That's when the nuggets absorb all the flavour.
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