How to Store Curry Leaves?

Two months back, one of our neighbors knocked our door with some small branches of a curry leaf plant.I was confused seeing her in that state, what prompted her to come our home with this much curry leaves? Before asking she said,"my cousin is staying in a villa in Dubai, and lots of plants are growing around their home, and these curry leaves are from there! You can keep this more than one month if you store in a bottle..........."
WOW! That was true, the curry leaves had a long life, when I kept as she said! It was a real helpful tip, since I usually throw plenty of dried leaves which H brings from vegetable market.Thanks to R for helping.

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Cooking Tips - Indian Cooking - Part 1

1. If dosa sticks on the griddle / tawa - Cut an onion and wipe the griddle / tawa with it.
2. Don't heat your dosa pan too much while making dosa, dosa will stick to it.
3. While making chapathi , porotta or pathiri, wipe the griddle each time with a clean cloth when you cook a new one. This is to remove the dust and oil left by the previous one.
4. Cooking time for eggs - for half boiled eggs - 3 or 3 1/2 minutes, to make it little harder - 4 to 5 minutes, for hard boiled eggs - 10 minutes.
5. How to remove smell of fish or onion from your hands or knives - Wipe your hands or knives with little coconut oil.
6. To prevent rice from sticking , pour little lemon juice while cooking.
7. Just wipe your hands with lemon rind , it will remove the smell of fish / onion.
8. Always remember to keep garam masala away from light , it will help it's flavour last for long.
9. Use hot water for kneading dough for wheat chapathis, it will help chapathi to be soft.
10. Using little milk while kneading chapathi dough, chapathis will be softer.
    

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Cooking Tips - Indian Cooking - Part 2

1. While making curries, reduce the heat after once it is boiled, you get nice taste for curries cooked on a medium / low heat. moreover, you can save some gas too.. :)
2. Soak onion / small onion in warm water, so you can peel it easily.
3. Sprinkle little water over the idlis soon when they are cooked and taken from the idli cooker and allow to cool, this will help you to remove idlis easily from the idli stand.
4. Add little vinegar in the water when you boil an egg which has cracks, this will allow egg white not to come out while boiling.
5. While frying onions put a pinch of maida / all purpose flour in the oil, just before you take out the fried onions.This gives the onion more crispiness.(Fried onions are used to garnish rice items like biryani).
6. To get more crispiness to omelets, add 1 tsp gram flour / kadala mavu to the egg batter.
7. Your fish curry became too watery, your husband dislikes it.. :( Don't worry add 1 or 2 teaspoons of rice powder and boil it.. Allow to cool.
   
8. Always remember to use less quantity of water while making curries, later you can adjust thickness by adding enough water or coconut milk.
9. If a recipe says 1 teaspoon garlic paste, then use fresh garlic 2 or 3 (Chinese garlic) and for 1 teaspoon ginger use fresh ginger approximately 1 " size. Using fresh garlic and ginger will improve taste.
10. Start crying while chopping onions? Cut the onions into two and soak them in water for some time before chopping.
    

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Cooking Tips - Indian Cooking - Part 3

1. Mix cocum / kudampuli / kokum with little coconut oil and salt.You can increase it's shelf life.
2. Soak the garlic cloves in cold water for some time, this helps to remove the peels quickly.
3. Cutting yam makes itching for some hands, apply little coconut oil on hands before chopping it.
4. Add little all purpose flour / maida to omelettes to make it little bigger and soft.
5. While making cutlets you should not add the amount of mashed potatoes than the recipe says.There is a chance for the cutlets to break when you fry them.
6. Mixing the idli, dosa or appam batter using hands makes it help to ferment fast. Many says this method works, but haven't tried my self.. :)
7. Add little oil while cooking noodles / pasta dishes, this will allow it not to stick each other.
8. If you have stored fresh coconut in freezer, pour little hot water to it, it will let you extract thick coconut milk.
9. To keep coriander leaves or pudina leaves as fresh in the refrigerator, wash and clean them, cover using a cotton cloth.
10. While cooking prawns / shrimp , don't cook it more than 10 minutes. Over cooking makes it hard.
    

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Cooking Tips - Indian Cooking - Part 4

Some "veggie tips" got from Magazines.
1.For keeping freshness of vegetables, soak them for 10 minutes in water with little vinegar added.
2.Add a pinch of baking soda while cooking vegetables,it will retain the color of veggies.
3.Leftover onion pieces? Apply little butter on the chopped part , it can keep freshness.
4.Apply little salt water on hands while chopping raw banana to avoid getting stains.
5.Wipe rusted knives with a piece of onion to become clean.
6.Don't like the smell of raw cabbages? Add little bread crumbs while cooking it.
7.If you buy much small onions, keep them in slight sun light for a little while, it will help to avoid sprouting.
8.Pour little hot water to the coconut before grating, if you have kept them in fridge.
9.Chop ladies finger / okra as round pieces, apply little turmeric and salt, dry in sunlight. You can make kondattams using this.(fry in oil)
10.Keep onions in the freezer for 5 minutes before you cutting them. No more tears!

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