Cooking@TheZeal.com: Priya Madhan's Recipes

Recipe and Cooking Tips

Ingredients Glossary:

Use the ingredients glossary if you have any questions about the ingredients. If you still do not find what you wanted, please feel free to email me questions.

Fresh Ingredients:

Always use fresh ingredients wherever possible. Fresh ingredients provide a definite better flavour than bottled/preserved ones (especially, ground ginger and/or garlic, lime/lemon juice)

Spice Level:

You can alter the spice in any of the recipes according to your taste. The ones provided in the recipes are just my recommendations. You should choose what will work out for you.

Cutting Vegetables:

How the vegetables are cut is called out in most recipes - while it is of importance to some dishes, for some it is not. But, it indeed plays a role in how quick the vegetable gets cooked, what type of dish it is used for, the consistency and appearance of the dish etc.

Please do not think that I am being being too fussy about the cutting. These are intended to just tips/guidelines - For example, when I say slit the chillies half-way through, the intent is to not allow too much of the spice get into the dish, but facilitate just the right amount of spice.

Diced/Chopped	Cut into small roughly equal sized pieces
Sliced	This applies to mostly onions and green chillies - means the pieces need to be thin and have a broader surface area)
Finely cut	Akin to sliced but thin and long
Slit	Mostly for green chillies or some veggies - where the recipe calls for them not being fully sliced but just half-way or 3/4th way
Chopped roughly	Need to chop them, but not necessarily equally or to a pattern

Pressure cooking vs. microwave cooking and Timing:

In most of the recipes, I have recommended pressure cooking contents. Depending on the vegetables/meat you are using, you can choose to microwave them as well, if you have the specifics of how to do that. Also, I have not mentioned how much time you need to pressure cook items (it varies with the contents and also with the cooker you use, so if you have specific questions/doubts, please feel free to email me

Other tips:

Most poriyals can be done without onions.
Adding mustard seeds, urad dal as a start to most Tamil Nadu recipes has been a tradition and it does impart a flavor (but you can do without these as well if that is your preference)

Requisite Amount of Water for cooking/When to know veggies are done:

Amount of water to cook the veggies/meats - The required amount of water for cooking the veggies differs with different vegetables. For some that do not require much water to cook, I have noted those in the recipes specifically. Some tips on when to know veggies are done - Radish, Pumpkins, Chayotes, etc are watery vegetables and they turn almost transparent when fully cooked. For most of the others, you mostly need to feel the texture or with experience, will be able to tell when they are done.