Re: the time has come....
One of my old posts:
As long as you have some basic concepts of desi cooking and use Shan Masala you will be in good shape. I never boiled an egg before Hijrat to USA. But I had learned the basic concepts of cooking just by overhearing the conversation of my mother , sister, bhabies etc. So for a man I can cook anything now and my wife and my kids love it when I make something over the weekends.
The basic rules of Desi cooking are:
1. You have to watch whatever you are cooking till it is ready to serve. For example if you are cooking Biryani and making masala for it you have to constantly stir and watch till it is fried and you can see the oil on top and around the masala.
2. How to fry the onion till they are brown same thing keep watching them till they are almost brown and take them down a couple of minutes before they are brown otherwise they will go black.
3. If you are making something which will have thick curry or thick masala e.g karahi gosht do not put water in it the meat will dehydrate and will provide enough water for thick curry or masala for it.
4. If you are cooking rice do not put too much water in it the rule of thumb is to put the rice in pot you want to cook it in then put your finger in the layer of rice and pour water in the pot make sure the water is one finger joint higher than the layer of rice.
5. While cooking vegetable never put water . The vegetables have enough water already in them to cook themselves in.
6. If something goes bad or does not taste good just put some chaat masala and cook for few minutes the taste of the chat masala will takeover the bad taste of whatever you cooked. I have salvaged my or my wife's prepared dishes this way.
7. IF everything else fails pickup the phone and call someone to get the instructions before you start to prepare a desi dish and keep calling them after every step till you have that perfect dish ready to serve.
8. Don't serve anything new you cook before you taste it yourself and like it.