Sunday, July 11, 2010

Few quick cooking Tits n Bits:

There are certain tips each of us would be following to make our day’s work easier or quicker. I just thought of listing down few here. I shall keep updating this post whenever I find a new one.

  1. Varutharacha Thenga (Fried coconut ground to a paste):
I use this for many curries like sambar, kadala curry or any other Varutharacha curry. Instead of frying and grinding at that moment I fry one or two whole shredded coconuts at a time, grind it to a liquid form and store it in the freezer. I know that its always better to have things fresh, but this helps us when we are in a hurry. Also I’ve never felt any compromise on the taste.

 



The best part is to store this in an ice tray so that its again easy for you when u use them. It’s quite difficult to break the frozen block into pieces when we need only a small piece out of it. Storing in a covered ice tray solves that as well.




  1. Coriander Chilly Powder:
I ve never made this myself as I still have around ½ kg of the mix prepared by my mother-in-law which I packed from home. I got the recipe from her and here it goes.  


I am using this in a number of recipes and you can replace 1 tbsp of this powder with 3/4 tbsp of coriander powder + 1/4 tbsp of chilli powder + 1/4 tbsp of garam masala or can add these while frying coconut and grind together. Most of the recipes with this masala calls for fried and ground coconut too.


Ingredients:

Coriander Seeds        --   1 kg
Red Chilly                   --   ¼ kg
Cinnamon Sticks        --   2 – 3 big sticks
Cloves                         --   10 – 15

Preparation:

Dry roast the red chillies until they just change their colour. Keep them aside. Dry roast the coriander seeds, cinnamon and cloves until the coriander seeds start turning dark. The indicator is the roasted smell.  Make sure that you do not roast them until dark brown. The masala will turn brown if u over roast the chilly and coriander.

Mix them and grind to a smooth powder. Store in an air tight container for 5 -6 months or more.


I ll definitely have to make this one day and I shall update the pics then.

  1. Storing curry leaves:
We get a packet of curry leaves which has around 25 – 30 springs. I always used to dump the last few springs of curry leaves every time I get them because they get spoiled. I did try storing it different ways – clean and dry and keep in an air tight container, clean and freeze them etc. But none was completely successful. Yeah I should admit other ways of storing is much better than keeping them in the cover itself.

Finally my aunt gave me the idea to microwave them and then store in an airtight container. But you have to be careful while doing this. Steps are as follows.

a.      Clean and dry the leaves. Make sure that they are completely dry.
b.      Spread them in a plate and microwave this for 25 sec (Mine is a 1200 watts microwave). When done, they will have some amount of water content beneath each leaves. Wipe it with kitchen towel and let it dry completely.
c.       Once they are completely dry, store them in an air tight container. No need to keep them in fridge.


  

They become a kind of dried leaves but believe me; they give the taste and aroma of fresh leaves. Also make sure that they are completely dried before storing as the water content will help the growth of fungi.
A new tip I found was to keep the leaves on a kitchen tissue while you microwave it. The towel absorbs most of the moisture and hence its easy to completely get the water content off the leaves.

25 comments:

  1. Nice one,really worth doing this, a time saver..

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  2. very useful tip ..thanks for sharing dear

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  3. Very useful tips, thanks for sharing..

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  4. Great tips dear especially the curry leaves, I used to throw away mine since it has turned bad.......

    http://treatntrick.blogspot.com

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  5. I store grated coconut in freezer... its a gr8 idea to store curry leaves like tht... useful tips

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  6. those are excellent tips esp the coconut and curry leaf ideas..but ive never heard of coriander chilly powder..what exactly du use it for

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  7. @ Open Book: I use this coriander-chilly powder for theeyal, varutharacha curry etc.. More recipes to follow dear..

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  8. hey, very helpful tips here...enjoyed this wonderful post..

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  9. Hey those tips are very useful ones...i liked the tip of storing in the ice tray....i always have that problem so i will iuse this now...thanku so much Nitya...

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  10. Those are really excellent tips, especially the curry leaves, thank you for sharing it dear.

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  11. Very useful and informative post, thanks for sharing...

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  12. excellent tips nitha...will surely follow them.. very useful

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  13. Storing in the ice tray as cubes will be extremely handy to me. I like the way u have shared useful information. Thanks!

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  14. My mouth is watering......curry looks so tempting

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  15. informative post.. the coconut garvy in ice trays thats sounds interesting
    For the curry leaves.. just keep cover with kitchen tissues and keep them in refrigerator. u can keep them fresh for 1-2 week..will try ur idea.

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  16. I am new to ur blog, and the tips look so handy , especially the ne about the coconut, thats so new to me, about the freezing thing :) thanks for sharing ! I am gonnal follow ur blog :)

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  17. I too loved these wonderful tips esp that of the curry leaves...Evide 1-2 sprigsnu 1$ annu and it gets spoiled soon..Will follow your tip from now onwards..

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  18. these are wonderful tips dear.. I too do it sometimes..Varutharacha coconut is always a handy item for we Malayalees.

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  19. can u tell the coriander-chilli pwdr rcp in small quantity? (i mean in teaspoon- tbsp measurment).
    and thank u for the easy replacement for this powder.

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  20. @ Nithu: You can just try it out in that proportion. that is
    Coriander powder : Chilly powder : Cinnamon sticks : cloves will go as 4 tbsp : 1 tbsp : 1 piece : 4cloves

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