Saffron Trail

healthy vegetarian cooking

Easy Indian Cooking, Tips

Tips and tricks to help you with Indian cooking

This Cooking Tips series is all about making cooking easier- right from buying and storing groceries / produce to kitchen hacks, time saving shortcuts and tips to make your life easier in the kitchen. This post rounds up some of the useful tricks to have up your sleeve for Indian cooking! [This list will be updated regularly, so do bookmark it for easy reference.] If you liked this post, also check out:

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  • #Fathersday special lunch- Chole, kulcha, kachumber and a Karnataka style mango and milk dessert called Seekarne. Flesh of ripe mango diced very fine and the seed is squished to remove all the pulp stuck to it. What you get is a mix of a fine dice and smooth pulp, add milk, elaichi and sugar. I used Raspuri mangoes that were incredibly sweet so I avoided the sugar altogether. @anitaraokashi told me about this mango dish when we met recently and I could not wait to try it. You can also try her method of skipping milk and sugar and adding condensed milk instead to make it super indulgent. . The kulchas were atta based kulchas by Britannia and they tasted good toasted on a pan with some Amul butter. . Wishing all the dads out there a very happy Father's Day ๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ‘งโ€๐Ÿ‘ฆ๐ŸŽ‰
  • I love cooking from regional Indian cookbooks - Rasachandrika is one such cookbook featuring Konkani Saraswat recipes. Last weekend I cooked a couple of recipes from the book - Khamang kakdi and Potato Ghashhi. Served with proso millet and some Ridgegourd kootu that my neighbour made from my blog and shared with me :)
  • I have lunch to cook and stories to file but first a photo. @sainajayapal was all praise for my dress this morning and I had to document it ๐Ÿ˜…๐Ÿ˜… Pose director and photographer- My son ๐Ÿฅฐ
  • Boiled or roasted beets, feta cheese and extra virgin olive oil, just three ingredients to create this dip-- 3 small cooked /roasted beets- peeled 100 grams feta 1-2 tbsp or more, ev olive oil . Puree beets with half the feta. Spread in a dish, top with remaining feta and olive oil. . That's all there is to it. If you want, you can add toasted crushed walnuts and some micro greens or finely chopped herbs as a garnish. I have added crushed dried rosemary here . What's your go-to dip that's easy and quick to make? . For more such quick recipes, follow @saffrontrail
  • There's nothing I treasure more than someone inviting me over for a home cooked meal. I don't mind the travel, the distance, the traffic. Today, the traffic gods were kind to me and the food gods even kinder. @charukesi had invited some of us over for lunch and @anitaraokashi whose cooking I have heard so much about, brought in her mango rice and mango gojju. Both lip smackingly delicious. Here's the lunch menu: -3 kinds of homemade pickles - avakkai, gongura and dosakkai (Mangalore cucumber) -Tendli curry -Rasam -Mango Rice -Mango Gojju -Aamras -Vadam -Curds -Aampapad . We discussed all things food over the most delicious and satisfying lunch and were making plans for our next meal even๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜ . Happy meal indeed!
  • This is my current favourite saree! Softest muslin cotton bought from a Weaver shop in Mysore. I like to pair this bright orange saree with a grey, black, white or off white blouse for contrast. Swipe to see this paired with a @nicojournal grey crop top. Shot in a leafy lane at Indiranagar. A few rain showers are the trees are looking gorgeous.
  • Pumpkin flowers galore and each of these plants have come up from pumpkin seeds that we sowed in the garden instead of discarding them. I have the leaves and the flowers to cook with even if I don't get any pumpkins out of them! . These are known to as secondary edible parts of a plant which you get access to only if you grow them (mostly). I'm told in West Bengal and Odisha, the half opened pumpkin flowers do get sold in markets. But haven't heard of them being sold in any other Indian metros. . Swipe to see more pics. . Follow @saffrontrail for such gardening inspirations.
  • A Mumbai girl all along, I am no doubt a big fan of the street side Mumbai sandwich- Wibs white bread, (lots of) Amul butter, freakishly thinly sliced boiled potatoes, beets, onions, tomatoes, cucumber and toasted in a sleek little sandwich toaster on a portable coal stove. I ALWAYS chose the toasted one. . Thanks to Intermittent Fasting, breakfast is a rare luxury, on the days I choose not to fast. So it had to be a pretty good breakfast. . Made these glammed up Mumbai sandwichesโ€” . -Open faced because I wanted to eat more of the veggies as compared to the bread . -Freshly made green chutney (I use some sattu to give the chutney body, instead of toasted peanuts which takes extra effort) . -Skipped raw onions because I donโ€™t like the taste of raw onions in my food . -Topped with my special toasted seed mix (because, healthy AND it looks pretty)- details in stories . -A few sprigs of small rocket leaves from the garden . -A pinch of micro greens from @livingfood.co . Now if only a cup of adrak chai will appear magically in front of me :) . For more such breakfast inspirations, follow @saffrontrail . I know you guys will want to know about the cute spoon! It is a gift from my friend @lakshmisharath from her trip to Budapest

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