tani On Board

 This post is a suggestion from my flatmate, who has seen my experiments, success and failure in the kitchen for a longer time, very closely. It is his suggestion to write a blog on what one should not do in the Kitchen. 1. For the people who love tea, especially the Indian Masala chai with ginger and jaggery, NEVER EVER boil the milk with jagerry and ginger. If milk is boiled with ginger/jagerry, they curdify the milk. Making a strong cup of masala tea needs a bit of effort and time and a little mistake can ruin everything. I did it more than once, then realized the mistake. Now I boil the ginger with water first, then add tea leaves. Once the liquor is done, then I add worm milk and jagerry to it.  For the same reason, one should not add jagerry in the very hot milk-rice pudding(payesh). 2. A knife can be sharpened while running it on the back of a ceramic mug. But you should watch carefully while doing it, otherwise, you will see blood everywhere in a moment. 3. Always take...

 I am generally a fan of anything "hot". In my dictionary, any type of leaves/roots soaked in hot water is tea. My definition of tea is not bound in Chamelia Synthesis but includes turmeric tea, cinnamon tea, blue tea e.g. though my choice of tea depends on the weather of the day. If it is a rainy day or a gloomy winter day, and I feel like being a mountain on my bed, a cup of hot CTC Chamelia Synthesis with a spoonful of spice kicks me out of the bed.  I am a person of practice. If I stop making "hot" masala tea for a few days, I forget the process. For that reason, I am writing down the recipe for a perfect cup of Masala tea that I like very much. For a single cup of tea: Ingredients: 1 cup of water, 2 cloves, 2 cardamoms, a pinch of cinnamon powder, 1 teaspoon of crushed ginger, 1.5 teaspoon CTC tea, 0.5 teaspoons of coarse-grained pepper and 1/4 cup full cream milk. The proportion of the ingredients may vary on personal choice. I mostly drink tea without sugar/...

 I will be moving to a new apartment at the beginning of next month. I do not like packing, moving, unpacking much, but sometimes can not avoid that. Packing clothes is comparatively easy rather than packing grocery items, utensils. Thankfully I do not have many utensils, but there is a shelf full of packets. There are a few packets that are almost unused e.g 1kg packet of semolina, 1kg packet of flour and it goes on..countless things. I am reluctant to pack them properly and carry them to the new place. Anyway, I still have two more weeks..so nowadays I target a particular packet on the shelf (does not matter what is inside) and cook something to consume at least 50% of the packet.  Yesterday I have targeted a 1kg flour packet. I also had a 100gm paneer packet and a small cube of parmesan cheese in the fridge. So the targets were fixed and I had to think a bit about how to attack the targets. Finally came up with the panner bread /flat paneer patties whatever you call it. It ...