Assorted Cooking Methods

Roasting: This method is generally used to roast herbs, spices and nuts before grinding them into a powder or paste to be used during cooking or for seasoning after cooking. For e.g cumin seeds (jeera) roasted is often used in Raita or butter milk. Today we have also resorted to roasting papad instead of deep frying.

Saute: Basic sautéing is done when vegetables half cooked have to be cooked further with just a dash of oil(especially olive oil). Boiled vegetables sautéed in olive oil was a pinch of salt and pepper powder, along with an accompaniment of mint/coriander chutney can substitute for a nice light lunch for those who watch and count their calories..

Shallow Fry: This is a popular cooking method in our most of the traditional Indian cooking as well. Food is normally cooked on medium flame on a flat frying pan with adequate oil. In North India, Aloo ki Tikki is one perfect example of stir frying.

Deep Fry: Come festivals and our cooking is incomplete without deep frying. Cooking is done only with oil on high flame. All assortments of pakoras are dished out by deep drying. Especially in monsoons and winters consumption of deep fried food is comparatively on the higher side.

Steaming: It is a method of cooking using steam wherein first the water is brought to boil, which evaporates into steam that carries heat to the food that has to be cooked. Once again a cooking method preferred by health conscious people, because in this method no oil is needed. This method also retains the nutrition level of the food because lesser nutrients are destroyed in the water, which we normally throw away after normal boiling. In south India idlis are cooked using this method in a steamer which has a lid that is placed on the top of the container during cooking and this allows the steam to cook the idlis.

Blanching : To make the food a little tender to use, blanching is the method, where slight cooking is done before using it further. This method comes very handy in case of tomatoes when the skin has to be peeled off , in case of preparation of tomato soup. Leave the tomatoes in boiling water for 5 mins and the skin peels off easily. Blanching can be also done in case of Palak when you wish to retain the green colour without over cooking while making Palak Soup.