Household Tips
1. Do not throw away a carbonated drink that has gone flat. Pour it into the toilet bowl and flush after sometime. Watch your toilet sparkle - Think what the carbonated drinks do to your insides!
2. If in an emergency you have to use a bandage torn out of a cloth, sterilize by running a hot iron over it.
3. Save time and fuel while cooking dal by adding 1 tsp. of any edible oil to the dal along with the water. The oil decreases the boiling point of water and thus the dal is cooked faster.
4. Before deep frying anything add a tablespoon of vinegar to the oil/ghee. This will prevent the food from absorbing too much fat and will eliminate greasy taste.
5. After frying fish, put a few potato peelings in the fat. These will purify the fat which can then be reused.
6. A little vinegar added to boiling fish will keep the flesh firm and avoid flaking.
7. Wash the knife with vinegar to get rid off the smell after cutting fish.
8. To keep cheese fresh, wrap it in a piece of muslin cloth after putting a few drops of vinegar on the cloth.
9. If you want to impart the flavor and smell of meat to a vegetarian dish, add little lemon grass while cooking.
10. Mint will keep fresh longer if a dash of soda bicarbonate is added to the washing water.
11. A pinch of baking powder added to meat will tenderize it.
12. Rubbing salt on freshly cut coconut pieces will prevent them from turning yellow.
13. Pieces of newspaper and water together make a very good cleaning agent for cleaning a flask.
14. A small piece of hing in the fridge, keeps the fridge odorless
15. To clean combs, soak them in water to which soda bicarbonate has been added. They will come out as good as new.
16. When heating the butter to make ghee add two curry leaves. The ghee will never smell stale.
17. While preparing dough for puris, knead the dough with warm water for crunchy puris.
18. To avoid a layer form on any thick liquid preparation while cooling (for e.g. Basundi, tamarind chutney, custard etc.), sprinkle some granules of sugar over the surface of the dish.
19. Lightly roast garlic flakes, rub between the folds of a piece of cloth. The skins will come off easily.
20. If you are preparing pulao or biryani with new rice and juice of one lemon to separate the rice.
21. Fry some bread pieces. Then dip them in stirred curd. Add salt and red chilly powder. They will taste exactly like udad dal vadas.
22. For a thick and tasty gravy for channa masala add one cup of soaked channa dal while cooking.
23. Never wash an oily pan. Instead sprinkle a little salt on it. Keep it on the fire till it is just hot Then wipe with paper. This will clean the pan.
24. A simple way to remove the skin from fish fillets is to cook them in a hot lightly greased pan for a minute on each side. Cool and the skin will peel off easily.
25. To peel garlic skin easily soaks them in water for a few minutes.
26. When cooking payas (trotters), slide a supari (beetle nut) cut into two halves into the pressure cooker. The payas cook faster without losing its taste and flavor. On opening the cooker wash the suparis and keep aside for future use.
27. Green chilies will last longer if their stem is plucked off and they are kept in airtight containers for future use.
28. Add 3 to 4 drops of vinegar to the green peas before cooking. Its colour will be retained.
29. To make mutton or beef soft, add sugar and keep for two hours before cooking. There will be no need to pressure cook. Vinegar and salt should be added when the meat is about to get ready.
30. When kept in the fridge for about three hours, soft biscuits and papads turn crisp again.
31. For soft chappaties mix the wheat flour with hot water and oil before kneading.
32. Use grated carrots (good red variety) for vegetable pulao and it will have a fascinating colour, much better and superior to that of saffron.
33. If mutton or any curry has become pungent add some curds. It will remove the pungency.
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34. If you want to make your rotis more colorful and delicious, knead the dough with carrot juice to get orange rotis, beetroot juice for red rotis and mashed spinach for green rotis. This way your rotis will look different, be highly nutritious and your children will also relish it.
35. Cut the leftover bread in the desired shape. Deep fry in ghee. Soak in sugar syrup. Garnish with almond pieces. And you have delicious bread gulam jamuns ready.
36. If the jam bottle is almost over, fill it with chilled milk. Shake well and you will have an unusual milkshake. For those extra thin bread slices, dip the bread knife in boiling water before use.
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