How to prepare ghee

Ghee or clarified butter has been a staple in many Asian countries for centuries. The word 'ghee' comes from the Sanskrit word meaning 'sprinkled' and it basically means that milk fat is rendered from the butter to seperate the milk solids and the water. It is made by melting butter and skimming the fat off the top. Not only it's really easy to make, but it has a lot of health benefits.

1. Ghee is rich in vitamins A, D, E and K and these vitamins are important for promoting bone and brain health, and for boosting the immune system. 
2. Ghee doesn't need to be refrigerated and it doesn't spoil easily if kept on the counter top. Just make sure to use a dry spoon or spatula to take out the ghee. 
3. Ghee keeps the digestive tract healthy and helps in increasing appetite as it converts fibers into butyric acid, which is beneficial to intestinal bacteria. 
4. It has a higher smoking point so can be used for a lot of dishes which require the cooking medium (cooking oil) to be heated at a high temperature, for example Indian and Asian cuisines. 

Ghee can easily be prepared at home in a few easy steps from unsalted butter. It doesn't need to be refrigerated and can be stored for months together on room temperature. You will only require unsalted butter to prepare ghee. 

1. Heat a pan on medium low flame and add the unsalted butter in the pan. As the pan will begin to heat up, the butter will begin to melt slowly. 
   
2. Let the butter melt and slowly with the help of a DRY wooden spoon, begin stirring it slowly. 
   
3. When the butter will melt completely, begin to stir the melted butter slowly at regular intervals. Do not leave stirring for long intervals. 
   
4. You will see that white bubbles are beginning to form on the top as the butter comes to a boil. This is milk solids. Keep stirring. 
   
5. After some time the milk bubbles will form the whole top layer as the milk solids begin to separate. 
   
6. When you will keep stirring, after about 2-3 minutes you will see the white layer is beginning to settle at the bottom of the pan. 
   
7. After the whole of the white milk solids layer disappears from the top and settles on the bottom, it will begin to turn darker, a shade of light brown. Turn off the flame at this point. 
8. Seive in a clean and dry glass container with a metal sieve. Do not use a plastic sieve it will melt down as the ghee is very hot. 
   
9. DO NOT CLOSE the lid and let it cool down completely as you don't want water droplets forming in the inside of the cover and spoiling the ghee as the ghee will be very hot. 
10. When cooled down completely, cover with a lid and store on room temperature. Use in your food everyday. 

How to freeze spinach

Spinach is my favorite leafy green vegetable. I love to have these greens whenever possible as spinach is very healthy: it's an excellent source of vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin K, vitamin C, vitamin B1 and B2, magnesium, iron, calcium and is a very good source of dietary fiber.

But fresh spinach is not always available. Or sometimes there is too much of spinach which cannot all be used up quickly, so instead of letting it go bad looking for ideas to use it all up, I feel it's a better way to blanch and freeze and use whenever required.

How to freeze spinach:

1. Wash and clean the spinach leaves and blanch them. Blanching process: add to the boiling water and when it begins to wilt, remove and add to ice-cold water. Spinach is one of those vegetables which is recommend boiling to free up acids and allow them to leach into the boiling water; this brings out a sweeter taste from the spinach. Discard the boiling water after cooking; do not drink it or use it for stock because of its acid content. 
   
2. Grind to a smooth puree without adding any water. 
   
3. Fill in ice trays and freeze for 24 hours. 
   
   
4. Remove the ice trays from the freezer. 
   
5. Store the spinach cubes in ziplock bag and date the bag so you remember to use it up quickly. 
    
   
6. You can use this frozen spinach cubes in many healthy ways: add the cubes to soups, add to boiled dal to get a different and wonderful flavor, sambhar, add to curries (curries for koftas, egg curries, chicken curries), palak paneer, even add to dough to make spinach parathas, add to dosa or idli batter etc.

How to make chapatti (roti/Indian flatbread)

Making chappati (Indian flatbread) is the most basic thing in an Indian household, but also it can be the most difficult thing sometimes. It's a blessing that I could make nice, soft, round puffed-up chappatis since the age of 9.. and the credit goes to.. obviously my Nani-ji. She was the one who taught me to make the basic roti dough and chappatis. She always used to tell me: Beta, where ever you live, no matter how much you earn, you MUST know how to feed yourself, because not every time you will find someone who would be willing to cook for you in exchange of money, not every day you will love what someone else can cook for you, and you must NEVER trust on anybody to fill up yourself with nice, healthy food; because anybody can deceive you when you want a nice, simple home-cooked food, but not your own hands. Your hands will always be with you, and if you know how to create simple and basic food, you will be satisfied and happy and independent.

So here's sharing how I make basic chappatis:

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour
Water to knead
Dry wheat flour for dusting

1. Make a nice dough with the wheat flour. See here: Making basic roti dough.
2. Pinch out a small ball from the dough, it must not be very big, not small. Now, how you roll this into a ball will affect how the chappati will turn out. So this ball needs to be punched a bit with the first two fingers and then rolled in a ball. The smoother the ball, the better the roti.
3. Now roll this ball into the dusting flour and press lightly with fingers. Dust off the excess flour and begin rolling, putting mild pressure. Rotis are best flattened when the rolling pin in held not too far from the part from the thicker part.
   
4. Roll in one direction, do not change sides often. Dust it in the flour whenever required, but do not dust more than twice for one chappati, and do not change sides more than twice for one chappati.
5. When the roti is rolled, it should neither be thick nor very thin, because the thick roti will not be done properly and very thin roti will dry out and become more like papad. Now dust off all the excess dusting flour from the chappati by carefully lifting up the chappati. The extra dusting flour makes the chappati dry and burns in to leave the red patches in chappti.
6. Now heat the tawa/griddle/pan on the maximum heat. When it is hot, carefully put the chappati. After 10 seconds, flip sides. Wait. After 20 seconds flip sides again and then lighly press with a kitchen cloth. The roti will begin to puff up. At this time, turn the flame to low. 
7. Flip sides quickly and lightly press with the kitchen cloth and by this time the roti will be done. Remove from flame. I do not use anything like a wire mesh and always prepare on my non-stick tawa. Repeat for all the dough. Enjoy soft chappatis with anything.

Making basic roti dough

I have shared so many recipes and foods on my blog, but because a lot of people have problems in doing some of the basics in kitchen, I decided to help by posting some basic things in the kitchen. Here's posting the dough-making method for basic chappatis and parathas.

Making food is an art. And a large part of Indian households consists of making chappatis. For making the perfect, round chappatis, you need to have a nicely done dough.

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour
Water as required

1. The first step is to make the dough in a wide vessel (but not a deep one), specially if you are a beginner or your dough and chappatis never turn out good. I usually make in a small vessel, like a bowl because I rarely make a lot of dough at once. 
2. Add the flour to the vessel you are making the dough in. I do not add anything at all, no salt and nothing else because the less salt we eat, it's better, and you really don't need that much salt. But if you are used to adding salt, try reducing the amount you add. 
3. Do not add any ghee/oil to the dough. Yes, it does make the task easy and makes the dough less sticky, but that's really not the right way of doing it. Also it is not really needed to consume those extra calories the ghee/oil has.
4. Now begin by slowly adding a little water to the flour and mix well. Begin adding more water, bit by bit and begin kneading when the dough is not too dry. I use one hand to knead and the other to hold my bowl; but you can use both hands too. 
5. Be careful not to add more water at any stage and add very patiently. When you have a big wide bowl, you can knead in parts and start keeping aside the parts which you did knead a bit. Repeat for all the dough.
6. Now you will have roughly kneaded dough in parts. Combine them all together and knead a little again. Now wet your hands just a bit (not adding water, just wetting hands) and pat the dough gently. It should not be sticky at this stage if you did the kneading adding little water. 
7. Now again press on the whole dough with knuckles and roll it, knead a bit more. Repeat this step if the dough is not soft and smooth enough at this stage. Do not repeat again after two times as adding more water (even with the bit of water on hands) can make the dough sticky and we clearly don't want that.
8. At this stage the dough must be ready and soft. When you poke a finger in the dough it must be soft and not hard and not feel sticky. (If it is sticky, unfortunately now you cannot make it really nice, but add a very little flour and try to balance and try not to add more water, not more than a bit). 
9. Transfer to an air tight container (if not covered, the upper layers of the dough will begin to dry out and that eventually will need to be trashed) and keep in the refrigerator. I refrigerate overnight and it makes all the difference. When I make chappatis or parathas from instantly made dough, they never come out as good as they do even if I refrigerate for 2 hours. 
10. Hoping this helps some. Happy kneading !!

How to make the perfect boiled rice (without rice cooker)

Making rice the perfect, grainy way.. with the long grain separated.. yes this is the problem I have seen with a lot many people who fail to achieve the perfect results for the same, and end up either overcooking or under cooking the rice, which turns out to be either too soggy to eat, mostly in presentation, or it is a little bit uncooked, which becomes difficult to eat. A lot of people asked me how I always achieve the perfectly cooked rice, so today I'm sharing my method.

I am using long-grained basmati rice for this results. The results will depend on the brand and type of rice you are using.

1. Wash the rice thoroughly and soak in water for about 10 minutes before preparing.
2. Drain water and add 4 times the water of the quantity of rice taken, that is, 4 cups of water for a cup of uncooked rice (I do this to remove starch from the rice, you could take twice the water if you don't wish to remove the starch; in that case 1 cup rice + 2 cups water).
3. Put the container on the highest heat uncovered and bring it to a rolling boil (when the water boils completely and you see the white starch being formed on the top).
4. Turn off the flame (I use an induction cooking range which stays hot for quite a lot of time, but if using flame stove top, turn the heat to the lowest).
5. Remove the boiling rice container from the heat and carefully drain the foamy white water on the top, this is the starch. Handle this water carefully because it has boiling water in a super hot container. Don't let any rice fall through, use a sieve if required. If you are not wanting to remove the starch, simply turn off the heat (for induction cooking range) or turn the heat to lowest (for flame stove tops) and let cook uncovered till all the water is absorbed.
6. After removing the starch, most of the water will also be drained through. Now keep the container back on the heat (turned off/ minimum flame cooking range) and cover. Let cook for 3-4 minutes. Remove from cooking range. Serve hot as Jeera Rice, make Indian fried Rice or just any other rice variety, or serve as it is with any chicken curry/vegetable curry.

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How to make perfect hard-boiled eggs

Making perfect hard boiled eggs have always been a challenge for me in the past. I have always liked to eat hard boiled eggs for breakfast, but they never came out perfect. Sometimes the shell was broken, sometimes they became runny and sometimes simply too hard, and uncooked at a lot of times. So I thought maybe it is really very difficult to do them perfectly. And I was totally convinced, until I discovered this wonderful method of doing the hard boiled eggs perfectly, and realized how wrong I actually was !!

Here I shall show a really simple method of making the perfect hard-boiled eggs. The first thing I did after the success of boiled eggs was to prepare Punjabi Egg curry.

1. Add the eggs to the pan in which boiling, single layer. I boil 4 at a time, but if boiling more, you will need more water, hence more time. 
2. Fill up the container with water so all the eggs are fully immersed in water.
3. Add a bit of salt, 1/2 tsp. should be okay. This keeps the egg shells from breaking and also becoming runny.
4. Heat this vessel on the highest temperature and bring the water to a rolling boil. This should take 6-7 minutes for about 6 eggs.
5. Turn off the heat and cover with a lid. Leave for 10-12 minutes. This might vary with temperature of the place you live in, the vessel used and the number of eggs done together. 
6. I use induction cooking range so it stays hot for quite sometime. If using stove-top, cover and simmer the heat to a minimum for 2 minutes, then turn off the heat and leave for another 12 minutes. 
7. The eggs should be done within 12 minutes. To be extra safe, wait another 2 minutes. Or if doing a large batch, try and break open a single egg to check. If it is not done, boil for another 2 minutes. This method can never overcook eggs even if left covered for 20 minutes.