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- Do not put wet ingredients into hot oil. It will splash and sputter and can burn you.
- To check if oil is hot enough, add a little cumin seed, onion, or mustard seed to the oil. Or any other dry ingredient. When it starts to sputter and bubble, the oil is hot. Unless you need the oil to be boiling hot, I usually turn it down to medium at this point so my food doesn’t burn.
- If you burn methi seeds (fenugreek seeds) or garlic, they smell so bad you’d be better off throwing it all out and starting again.
- Use a microwave for steaming vegetables. It’s fast and doesn’t take up room on the stovetop.
- Hard anodized is better than Teflon. You can also use steel cooking spoons with a hard anodized cooking pot.
- Keep your knives sharp. You are more likely to cut yourself on a dull knife. When cutting vegetables, try to hold them so your nails face the knife. That way, if the knife slips, it will come down on the flat of your nails rather than go through your finger.
- When cooking pasta, add a little bit of oil to the water to prevent the pasta from sticking.
