Kitchen equipment questionsરસોડાનાં સાધનના સવાલ
Half of good cooking is the vessel and the flame. These ten questions are about that half — which metal suits which job, what has to be seasoned, what has to be thrown out, and where the gas is actually going.
Everything sticks to my new loh tavi. How do I season it?
A new iron tavi sticks because it is bare, rough metal with nothing in its pores, and the fix is to put oil into those pores using heat. Wash and dry the new tavi, set it on a low flame, rub a teaspoon of oil over the whole surface with a cloth or half an onion, let it heat until it just begins to smoke, wipe off almost all of it and let it cool. Do that three or four times and the grey surface starts going dark and slick. After that the cooking seasons it; the first four or five rotla or thepla may stick, and that is normal. Day to day, heat the tavi before anything touches it, never scrub it with steel wool or soap, wipe it with a cloth or with salt and hot water, and dry it on the flame for a few seconds so no water sits on it. Acid and standing water undo seasoning fastest, so do not cook tomato or lemon on it and do not leave it wet.
When does a non-stick pan actually have to be replaced?
Replace a non-stick pan when the coating is scratched through to the metal underneath, or is flaking or bubbling, because at that point it has stopped doing its job and flakes come away into the food. A coating that has gone patchy will not come back with oil or seasoning the way iron does. Expect two to four years of ordinary household use, less if it is the pan you reach for every day. Two things shorten that life more than anything else: heating the pan empty on a high flame, which it is not built for, and metal spoons and steel scrubbers, which cut the surface. So heat it on a low to medium flame with the oil already in, use wooden or silicone, wash it with a soft sponge, and never put a hot pan under cold water, since the sudden change lifts the coating off the metal. Keep the iron kadai for high-heat frying and the non-stick for eggs, dosa and delicate things.
Which metal kadai is best for deep frying?
For deep frying, use a heavy iron or carbon steel kadai, and the reason is heat rather than tradition. Frying depends on the oil staying hot when cold food goes in; a thick heavy kadai holds that heat, so the temperature dips a little and recovers, while a thin pan loses it at once and the food sits in lukewarm oil and drinks it. Iron and carbon steel also take 180 degrees and above without trouble. Stainless steel works if it has a thick sandwich base, though food sticks to it more. Aluminium is light and spreads heat well, but a thin aluminium kadai warps and develops hot spots that scorch one patch of your puri. Non-stick is the wrong choice for deep frying, because a full kadai of oil on a high flame goes past what the coating is made for. Shape counts too: a deep round-bottomed kadai needs less oil to reach frying depth than a wide flat pan does.
How do I clean a badly burnt pot?
Soak it, do not scrape it. Cover the burnt base with hot water, add two spoons of baking soda or one lemon's worth of acid, simmer it on a low flame for ten minutes, then switch off and leave it an hour or overnight. The water works into the burnt layer and lifts it off the metal, and after that a wooden spatula and a scrubber take most of it away in one go. Scraping a dry burnt pan only polishes the carbon onto the surface and scratches the vessel. For a steel pot you can repeat this twice; for aluminium skip the baking soda, which darkens it, and use water with a little salt or tamarind instead. Never do this to a non-stick pan — just warm water with a drop of soap and nothing abrasive. What prevents all of it is a heavy-bottomed vessel and a smaller flame, since scorching is nearly always a thin base over a big burner.
How do I grind in the mixer without straining the motor?
The motor strains when the jar is too full or the mixture is too dry, and both are easy to fix. Fill a mixer jar no more than two thirds for liquids and about half for a thick batter or chutney. Add water a spoon at a time until the blades catch and the load starts turning instead of sitting there as a lump. Run it in short bursts of twenty to thirty seconds with a pause between, and give the mixer a few minutes' rest after three or four minutes of total running, because a household motor is not built for continuous grinding. A burning smell means stop at once and let it cool completely. Use the small chutney jar for small quantities, since a spoonful of masala in the big jar just circles the blade and never gets ground. Dry spices and sugar go in the dry jar only. Soaked dal and idli-dosa batter are really wet grinder work; in a mixer they need both patience and more water.
My kitchen knives go blunt quickly. How do I keep an edge?
A knife goes blunt from the board and the sink more than from cutting, so start there: cut on wood or plastic and never on steel, stone, glass or a plate, and wash and dry it by hand instead of leaving it in a wet sink. For sharpening, a cheap pull-through sharpener is quick but takes off a lot of metal and leaves a rough edge; a whetstone or a steel rod gives a better edge that lasts longer. Run the blade over a honing rod a few times before heavy cutting — that straightens an edge which has rolled over rather than cutting a new one, and most knives that feel blunt need only this. Sharpen a daily knife properly two or three times a year. The test is a tomato: a sharp knife breaks the skin under its own weight, a blunt one slides. And keep knives in a block or a sleeve, not loose in a drawer where the edges knock against everything.
Steel cooker or aluminium cooker — which should I buy?
Aluminium heats faster and costs less; stainless steel is heavier, lasts longer and does not react with acid. For everyday dal, bhat and bateta an aluminium cooker does the job and comes to pressure sooner, because aluminium conducts heat better, which is why most Indian kitchens have had one for decades. Steel is the better choice if you cook tomato, lemon, kokum, tamarind or anything khatu in the cooker, because aluminium reacts with acid, pits, discolours, and the food can pick up a metallic taste. Steel cookers almost always have a sandwich base with aluminium or copper inside, which is what stops the dal catching. Whistle counts do not change between the two, but a steel cooker takes a minute or two longer to reach pressure and holds heat longer after you switch off, so the dal keeps cooking. Whichever you have, the parts that matter are the gasket and the safety valve. Replace a hardened gasket that leaks steam rather than forcing the lid tighter.
How big should the flame be, and which burner for what?
Match the flame to the base of the vessel: it should sit under the pot and not lick up the sides, because anything beyond the base heats the air rather than your food and blackens the vessel. Use the big burner for the kadai, the pressure cooker, a pan of frying oil and anything that needs to come to heat fast, and the small burner for the tavi, tea, a vaghar, a milk pan and anything that would scorch. A small pot on a big burner wastes gas and burns the rim of the food; a big kadai on the small burner never gets properly hot and the frying suffers. Watch the colour as well as the size. A good flame is blue, steady and sharp-edged. A yellow or orange flame that flickers and leaves black on the vessel means the burner ports are clogged or the air inlet is blocked, which is a cleaning job, not a cooking problem. Low and slow is for dal and milk, not for a tavi.
How long should a gas cylinder last, and how do I stretch it?
A 14.2 kg domestic cylinder runs a four-person household cooking two meals a day for somewhere between three and six weeks, and the spread is that wide because it depends almost entirely on how you cook. Deep frying, a pressure cooker on a high flame, long-simmered dal and water heated on the gas all burn through it fast. The habits that stretch it are ordinary ones. Keep the flame under the base of the vessel, not around it. Put the lid on, because covered water boils far sooner. Soak dal, chana and rajma for six to eight hours and they need a quarter of the cooking. Cut the vegetables before lighting the burner instead of after. Use the pressure cooker where you can, since the whole point of it is less fuel. And have everything for a vaghar ready beside the stove before the ghee goes in. A yellow flame means gas is being wasted too, so clean the burner.
How do I clean the burners and the platform after frying?
Clean the platform while it is still slightly warm, because cooled oil mist turns into a film that takes real work to shift. Wipe the loose oil off with newspaper or an old cloth first and throw that away; if you go straight in with a wet cloth you spread the oil instead of removing it. Then wipe with hot water and a few drops of dish soap, put a thin paste of baking soda on the sticky patches around the burner, and dry it. For the burners, lift off the grates and the burner caps once a week, soak them in hot soapy water for twenty minutes, and clear each gas port with a pin or an old toothbrush, not with a thick wire that would widen the hole. Dry them completely before putting them back, because a wet port gives a sputtering flame. The sign they need it is a yellow flame or an uneven ring of fire. Never spray water near the knobs or the gas pipe.