Cooking Tips - Off the Hook...Part-3...!!!

Although the above shown "Aloo Gobhi Matar" combo looks good, I found that it was not fully cooked when I served it with rice in the first serving / meal. What to do?


Well, to save my subsequent meals - I added more water, chilly powder and salt to the vegetable and heated the mixture for around 10 minutes on "medium" mode - continuously stirring the contents with spoon to avoid any kind of overcooking / burning! I just thought that the heat of water should be sufficient to cook the vegetable mixture to a decent level without overcooking / burning anything. Salt and Chilly was added to avoid diluting the taste of the vegetable because of "extra" water added.

The trick worked superbly! And it saved my DAY (read Aloo Gobhi Matar) !!!


Maybe that's why they say:
"Always use LOGIC,
EVEN if it’s broken it can’t get worse… !!!"

:)



Few tips:

1) Buy "Flour Tortillas" - a good substitute for "Rotis" at US! Use Desi Ghee for taste - it also makes the somewhat hard Tortillas a bit soft, effectively.

2) I found "Nanak Paneer" quite tasty. You can easily get hold of it at Swadesh / Taj store.

Cooking Tips...Day 2...

In continuation with the below article....




Here you see:

Day : Sunday
Chef: Mr. Mukul Pandey
Meal Type: Lunch
Whats on table?
1) Vegetable Biryani (nicely garnished with fried egg)
2) Plain Yogurt
3) Salad (Cucumber garnished with Cilantro)
4) Mango Pickle

My definition of "Vegetable Biryani": Rice cooked nicely with Potato, Pea and Onion. I also added fried eggs to the aforesaid mixture to give a "new" taste...!! (I love eggs)...:)

TIPS:
1) Since I find Garlic tough to peel, I use Garlic mixture which comes in the form of cream here at US. It's better I guess since it blends nicely as it's like a cream!
2) Don't try to EXPERIMENT too much....Just buy PLAIN YOGURT...I once tried VANILLA YOGURT (my friend tried BANANA Yogurt)....None of us wants to recall that terrible taste now...:)

I frequently watch channel "Food Network" - to increase my "appetite"...Just Kidding....Infact, it's a good channel here as they give some really nice tips. Like: To avoid "crying" while peeling onions, use FROZEN ONIONS - that SLOWS down the chemical reaction which produces the gas that makes you CRY, when you cut them...

I still need to learn from some one (God knows who?) the easiest way of peeling onions, I find it tough...:)

Here's another view:

COOKING TIPS....Day 1

Thanks to my 3 months business trip to US....It made a cook out of me....In hindsight, I feel grateful about it...Believe me - cooking a nice meal for yourself is always an instant and spontanous gratification....As also the satisfaction that comes with it...1 friend of mine found this funny as she never thought that guys could think like that about FOOD...While another friend (female) believes that the BEST cooks in the world are MALES...Different people, different reactions and hence that cool HSBC AD....:)

I'm sharing here some culinary tips for people (like me) who would inevitably find these useful when they FIRST START cooking Indian food in US....:)

In the above picture that you see:

Day: Saturday
Meal Type: Lunch
Chef: Mr. MUKUL PANDEY

Whats on Table:
1) Fried Rice
2) Potato / Green Beans / Pea / Corn / Carrots mixed vegetable
3) Salad (Cucumber and Tomato, well garnished with Cilantro)
4) Plain Yogurt
5) Mango Chutney

I was always reluctant to the idea of having CORN in cooked vegetable until I saw it here at US! Believe me - It just peps up the taste nicely!

Tips:
1) They call Coriander (Dhaniya) as Cilantro. I first confused it with Italian Parsey - BEWARE !! They both look similar but taste DIFFERENT!!
2) They call Dahi as Yogurt.
3) You can get MIXED vegetables in nice FROZEN bags, instead of buying them separately. Buying such bags helps you in 1 more way - the vegetables are already cut and shredded into pieces!
4) You'll find many Indian stores like (Swadesh, Taj etc) where you can get Indian spices, Pickle, Chutney etc

Here's another view:












More to come....

:)

CHANGE THE "WAY" YOU DO THINGS !!!

I have put this awesome quote pasted on my office cubicle to inspire me when I'm "low"...-
"If you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll keep on getting what you've always got!"


...................................................................................................................................................................................................


......Few days back, I was badly stuck in rectifying an error in a script (computer program)...I had struggled for hours to crack it....But NO RESULT...
After hours of frustration, I went for lunch to my Hotel room. Usually, I FOLLOWED the SAME PATH of going to and fro the hotel room...ONLY THIS time I took a DIFFERENT PATH to get back to my OFFICE CUBICLE....SURPRISINGLY, I was able to CRACK the BUG within the next 30 minutes...(after getting back to my cubicle from hotel)

.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................

.....In HINDSIGHT, I would like to add 1 more line to the aforesaid quote:

"Depends on you, how you CHANGE your PATH / METHOD to get the NEW result...!!!"

:)

CHANGE YOUR MIND !!!

I heard this song in my favorite movie "Bedazzled" and it instantly became my favorite....Maybe that's why the say - "Like attracts like!"...( :

Change your Mind by Sister Hazel:

Hey, Hey
Did you ever think
There might be another way?
To just feel better,
Just feel better about today

Oh no-
If you never want to have
To turn and go away,
You might feel better
Might feel better if you stay.

Yeah yeah
I bet you haven't heard a word I've said
Yeah yeah
If you've had enough of all your trying
Just give up
The state of mind you're in:

[Chorus]
If you want to be somebody else,
If you're tired of fighting battles with yourself.
If you want to be somebody else
Change your mind, change your mind.

Hey hey-
Have you ever danced in the rain
Or thanked the sun
Just for shining- just for shining
Or the sea?
Oh no! Take it all in
The world's a show,
And yeah, you look much better,
Look much better when you glow.

Yeah yeah
I hope you heard every word I’ve said.
Yeah yeah
If you've had enough of all your trying
Just give up
The state of mind you're in:

[Chorus]

Hey hey-
what ya say
We both go and seize the day.
'cause what's your hurry,
what's your hurry anyway?

Yeah yeah
I hope you’ve heard every word I've said
Yeah yeah
If you've had enough of all your tryin'
Just give up
The state of mind you're in:

If you want to be somebody else,
If you're tired of losing battles with yourself
If you want to be somebody else,
Change your mind, change your mind.
Change your mind, change your mind.

Out of your mind, out of your mind,
Just lose your mind....