<\/p>\n
To Keep Dhunia Fresh
Often recipes call for garnishing a hot curry dish with dhunia just before serving. To ensure that you always have this, store chopped dhunia (leaves and tender stems) in your freeze by washing the dhunia and place in ice-cube trays with a thin layer of water. When frozen, store in freezer bags or plastic containers in the freezer. Just before serving, break off portions as needed from freezer and pop into hot curry. The steam will melt the ice and you will have your fresh looking garnish on top.<\/p>\n
Storing Fresh Dhunia in Refrigerator
Wash and clean bunches of dhunia to get rid of all sand and defective leaves. Wash and drain dry. Spread out on kitchen paper and pat dry. Place loosely in airtight container. In the fridge they will keep fresh for over a week.<\/p>\n
To Freeze Fresh Chillies
Ground or pounded read and green fresh chillies are an important item in Indian cuisine. When freshly available, buy a large quantity, clean and wash, then grind them in mincer or processor. Put in ice cube trays and freeze. When frozen put blocks in plastic bags and keep in freezer. When required, take out a block and thaw at room temperature or in microwave and use n your curries.<\/p>\n
If you feel there is some excess oil in fried vegetables, sprinkle some gram flour over it. Gram flour absorbs the excess oil and makes vegetable more tastier.<\/p>\n
Add a handful of rice flour to bhajia batter for crisper and less oily bhajias.<\/p>\n
Roast cumin seeds on a warm griddle before dry grinding. They will give a better flavour and grind faster<\/p>\n
If dried herbs are used in a recipe, crush them first to release their fragrance. <\/p>\n
Always mash potatoes when they are still quite hot. They mash more easily and can be finely mashed<\/p>\n
If you happen to put excess salt in the curry, cut a raw potato into about 10 pieces and drop them into the curry & leave for 15 min. They will absorb the excess salt. Remove the pieces before serving. <\/p>\n
To make thick gravy for mutton, chicken or vegetables, grate the onions, squeeze out their juice and brown the onions and the masala. Add the juice as stock, after the onions are brown. The onion flavour is not lost and you don't have to add water to make the gravy. <\/p>\n
Brown onions faster- Onions will brown faster if 1\/2 teaspoon of salt is added to the onions while frying.<\/p>\n
To get potato cooked faster, add little lemon juice to it.<\/p>\n
To peel baby onions\/pearl onions easily, soak them in cold water for 20 minutes.<\/p>\n
Bitter Gourd (Karela): Slit Karelas in the middle and apply a mixture of salt, wheat flour and curd all round. Keep aside for 1\/2 an hour and then cook. This will take away some of the bitterness.<\/p>\n
No More Shedding Tears When Chopping Onions <\/p>\n
Onions are a very integral part of Indian cooking and we cannot but search a way to reduce the tears when peeling or slicing onions. There are two sure shot ways that will help you firstly dip them in salted water prior to cutting them. The second is to chill them first this will reduce the sulphuric compounds that cause teary eyes.<\/p>\n
To remove the stink of onions from your hands, rub some cumin\/jeera and you will find it will leave the hands odour free.<\/p>\n
To remove unpleasant odours from the oven, place a wide pan with warm water in which used tea leaves have been added and leave it to stand in the oven for some time. Even a bowl of warm water with vinegar or lime juice does the trick.<\/p>\n
If food boils over in the oven, sprinkle the burnt surface with a little salt. This will stop smoke and odour and make the spot easier to clean. You can use a metal spatula to rub off the spills. Use a damp sponge to clean off.<\/p>\n
Deodorize cutting board by rubbing it with a paste of baking soda and water. <\/p>\n
Spread a little hot oil on your new utensils and rub with a half cut onion thoroughly. The utensils will not burn easily.<\/p>\n
To remove odours from plastic storage containers; wash them with a solution of baking soda and warm water then rinse with fresh water and dry.<\/p>\n
To keep herbs fresh; put them in a plastic bag, blow air into the bag as if it were a balloon and seal it tight.<\/p>\n
—
Ammarah
Radio Islam
+27118547022
ammarah@radioislam.co.za
www.radioislam.co.za<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To Keep Dhunia FreshOften recipes call for garnishing a hot curry dish with dhunia just before serving. To ensure that you always have this, store chopped dhunia (leaves and tender stems) in your freeze by washing the dhunia and place in ice-cube trays with a thin layer of water. When frozen, store in freezer bags […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[252,354,328],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kitchen-tips","tag-handy-hints","tag-handy-indian-cooking-tips","tag-kitchen-tips"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/confinement-food.png?fit=400%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pc0QIf-1L","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-20 17:14:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}