ThinkDigit Chefs

[MetalheadGautham]

There were three threads before like this but they have been closed ages ago...

Anyway, many of us here live alone or are stuck in hostels or just get hungry at random times when there is no source of good food.

So here is a thread dedicated to everyone who can cook or who wants to try to cook.

Share your recipes, pictures of food YOU cooked and links to nice websites which have good recipe contents

[Charan]

I can prepare some, but not much

Maggie, Bread Toast/Omelet, Really good Tea, pretty bad coffee, Dosa using Ready made batter, Masala Soda, Steamed Rice, Cake

Want to start preparing Gravy/Dall. I will leave non veg items to the experts ( my mom )

[MetalheadGautham]

I can cook enough to keep myself happy. I think hardest to make are gravys and south indian stuff like sambhar. French, Italian and Chinese cuisine is a joke seriously

Well today I made chop suey sauce. I made it multi purpose. Morning added some water and macaroni and kept in microwave to make pasta. Lunch added soya bytes to it and microwaved to get "instant soya machurian". Dinner doing the same with noodles to make normal chop suey

[ico]

Take Malai in a bowl....add tomato, onion and salt to it and mix.

Apply the mixture on both sides of a bread and heat on tawa.

Tastes 10000x better than Pizza.

[Faun]

Mix Mashed bananas in cold milk. Add some vanilla extract. Add honey to the taste. Ready ! Serve cold !

[MetalheadGautham]

Try this:

garlic white sauce

Take 4-6 cloves of garlic and chop them fine. Fry them in a few spoons of butter. Add Maida to it which is equal or slightly lesser in volume to the butter. Mix everything in low flame. Add a couple of glasses of milk while stirring rapidly to dissolve everything. Add salt and white pepper (if you don't mind the color chilli powder will do) keep stirring in low flame. You get a thick white sauce. This is garlic white sauce, a variation of normal white sauce (which has no garlic).

You can add this, or normal white sauce to pizza instead of tomato sauce. Also use with sandwiches and burgers. Seriously awesome and has saved me a few times when I set out to make pizzas and was out of tomato sauce and was in no mood to make fresh tomato sauce.

[Sarath]

Chef. I hardly qualify as a cook. During my stay alone, I could:

Boil water
Heat up milk and make >Corn flakes, coffee (err) or most likely drink it plain
Make noodles
Make an omlette (not actual omlette, just threw the eggs on to a pan)

That's all Man I suck!

I visioned (esp after watching Masterchef for a while) that in a few months I would be:
Cooking Rice, Dal
Basic curries
The most difficult, stuff like Sambar etc
Ofcourse a chicken curry

But now since I am back with my family I have realised that, food cooked by Mom is a direct gift from the heavens

[gopi_vbboy]

i like to cook but lazy

[JojoTheDragon]

Cheese Omlet:

I don't know if this recipes is popular or something but its just plain simple. Tear a slice of cheese and mix it with the yolk and cook it like a normal omlet. Yummy!

[Charan]

Originally Posted by JojoTheDragon

Cheese Omlet:

I don't know if this recipes is popular or something but its just plain simple. Tear a slice of cheese and mix it with the yolk and cook it like a normal omlet. Yummy!

Omelette Du Fromage , classic Dexter

[Skud]

Used to cook before marriage. After that, have handed over to a much expert person. These days its only needed when my wife goes to her maike.

Nice thread, btw.

[MetalheadGautham]

There is one rather weird dish that I found is popular in tamil nadu fast foods.

Anybody heard of this thing called "chilli parota" ?

[azzu]

Quite a Good cook here..
can cook Chicken (with gravy) quite well...
(well aleast my frnds think so.. )

[Krow]

Can cook:

Rice
Dal (Tour, chan, moong, mix, etc)
Vegetables (Potato, Beans, Lady's Finger, Cauliflower, Cabbage, etc)
Idli/Dosa (with readymade batter)
Sandwich (easy lol)

Gonna learn:

Pasta

[gopi_vbboy]

i want to cook dokla....i love it...any good sites for guide to cook indian recipes?

[Charan]

Originally Posted by azzu

Quite a Good cook here..
can cook Chicken (with gravy) quite well...
(well aleast my frnds think so.. )

Are your friends still alive?

Just Kidding .. Wassap Azzu

[JojoTheDragon]

Originally Posted by Charan

Omelette Du Fromage , classic Dexter

How did you know? It was Dexter who inspired me to make this in the first place.

Anyway,
I want to learn Raman noodles, next.

[doomgiver]

crush and make maggi
let it cool a bit
cut the edges off a bread
put some maggi at one edge of the bread
roll and make a joint(lol)
eat, and enjoy!!!
also, put a bit of ketchup on it for added yum.

this is for those rare times when there is only one maggi packet left and you and your hungry sibling are fighting it out for the honor of nomming that delicious bowl of noodles.
it will end both your hunger pangs

[axes2t2]

I can only make bread butter,jam bread

[avichandana20000]

can make tea,omlet, bull's eye egg

cook rice, daal and fry.

[JojoTheDragon]

Originally Posted by doomgiver

crush and make maggi
let it cool a bit
cut the edges off a bread
put some maggi at one edge of the bread
roll and make a joint(lol)
eat, and enjoy!!!
also, put a bit of ketchup on it for added yum.

this is for those rare times when there is only one maggi packet left and you and your hungry sibling are fighting it out for the honor of nomming that delicious bowl of noodles.
it will end both your hunger pangs

Wow,nice recipe and quite easy. I'll try it out.
Thanks.

[vamsi_krishna]

I can cook rice.

Take a cup of rice in a pressure cooker.. add 2 cups of water to it. Close the lid. Let 2 whistles blow. Wait for the pressure to be absorbed. And Ta-Da.

[MetalheadGautham]

Presenting MetalheadGautham's Kitchen Special

The Do Everything Trick with Chinese Food - Hot n Sour Sauce

Here is something which can act as the mother dish to cook a lot of different types of items. Its the Hot n Sour Sauce. And surprisingly, its really easy to make.

Note that the vegetables are not all compulsory. You just use what you find at home.

And sauce materials are not exact quantity. You may often end up adding more of different sauces to change the composition and feel of the sauce.

Vegetables:

Cauliflower (chopped into tiny bits, 2 cups)
Carrots (tiny squares, 2 cups)
Beans (chopped, 2 cups)
Capsicum (chopped, 1 cup)
Sweet Corn (2-3 cups - get the easy to use packet from reliance fresh its already separated from the cob)
Onions (chopped, 2.5 cups)
Cabbage (chopped, 2 cups)
Mushroom (chopped, 2 cups)
Spring Onion (chopped, for garnishing don't cook)

Sauce Materials:

Garlic (5-7 cloves, chopped)
Ginger Garlic Paste (a tablespoon, can be substituted for above)
Soya Sauce (use as needed I use a table spoon or two)
Red Chilli Sauce (green will also do - use as needed constant tasting helps)
Tomato Sauce (1 cup will do most of the time)
Refined Vegetable Oil - 1 tablespoon
Corn Flour - 2 table spoon nicely dissolved in 1 cup of luke warm water
Vinegar (2 table spoons)
Sugar (to taste)
Salt (to taste)
Red Chilli Powder (optional emergency item)


Vegetable Preparation:

Take sweet corn. Put it into a microwave bowl and add water and a teaspoon of salt. In max of your oven, microwave it for 7 minutes.

Take a microwave safe bowl (preferably the glass type) and grease its bottom with a couple of tablespoons of refined vegetable oil. Add onions and microwave for 2 minutes.

Now add remaining vegetables, the sweet corn, a pinch of salt to taste, a few teaspoons of oil and mix everything together nicely. Microwave for another 7-9 minutes.

Now add mushroom and microwave for another 1 minute.

Vegetables are ready.

Sauce Preparation:


Add oil to a huge kadai and wait for it to heat. Add garlic and let the garlic fry.

Now add the sauces while stirring constantly and a couple of glasses of water. Add the cornflour while ensuring that no chunks or blocks of the sauce form. Stir constantly and get a thick sauce. Dilute as required.

And add salt to taste and also some sugar/jaggary if that's your kind of thing. If spiciness is not enough and chilli sauce is already too much, you may cheat by adding the humble red chilli powder. A pinch of ajinomoto also helps but I like avoiding it.

Key to getting good sauce is at this stage itself carefully taste the sauce. It should be just right, and the "just right" is something which varies from individual to individual. You may increase the sourness by adding soya sauce or vinegar. Increase sweetness by adding sugar/jaggery. Increase tanginess by adding tomato sauce. Increase hotness by adding chilli sauce or red chilli powder. Mix and match and experiment with making this to get optimum result. I suggest you make only the sauce and try to get good tasting sauce.

Once sauce seems tasty enough, add the vegetables. Mix the whole thing and let the flavour set into the veggies.

Congratulations! You are done with hot and sour sauce

The above is base ingredient for a lot of recipes. Oh and what happened to the spring onions you ask ? You sprinkle them just before serving any dish based off the hot and sour sauce.

Hot n Sour Soup

The most obvious derivative. To get this, dilute the sauce a bit to reach soupy levels of dilutions. Add more sauces to balance the taste as I had told before. Serve with spring onions on top.

Veg Macaroni

You get Rs. 15/- packets of macaroni. These can be easily made in hot n sour style. Just add macaroni to microwave safe bowl. Dilute sauce 1:1 with water and add it to the macaroni along with some more salt for the macaroni. Mix and microwave for 5 minutes or longer if you have more liquid content. Stir this and you get delicious saucy macaroni. Idea here is you cook macaroni in the sauce, so it absorbs everything really well. You may want to add bit more tomato sauce to add to tanginess sometimes.

Chop Suey

Buy normal noodles. Normal meaning not the instant garbage that we've been spoilt with. These are white in color. Add them to microwave safe bowl, add water and a teaspoon of salt and microwave for 5 mins. Rinse, drain the water, and grease the bowl with oil and add the noodles. Add more oil and a pinch of salt and toss things around with your hand to ensure that noodles is covered in thin layer of oil. Microwave for 5 more minutes (sometimes even 3 will do if its dry enough). Transfer noodles to a plate and cover it with sauce you prepared.

Soya Byte "manchurian"

You get these in most supermarkets. While not too tasty, these are high in protein and healthy. And rather cheap. Cooking these is simple. Take microwave bowl, add soya bytes and sauce as needed. A little bit of water if you wish. Microwave for 5 minutes. You just prepared healthy soya byte "manchurian". Manchurian in quotes because its not exactly manchurian.

[thetechfreak]

This thread looks very interesting
Will post results after I try a recipe

[JojoTheDragon]

@MHG : Boy'O'Boy , that looks really good. You a pro chef?

[Vyom]

There are not much instances where I felt the need to cook for myself. But if I ever do in the future, I will refer to this thread. Thanks for so many recipies guys!
Can't wait to try some of them sometime.

[Charan]

Originally Posted by JojoTheDragon

How did you know? It was Dexter who inspired me to make this in the first place.

I used to watch Dexter a lot , even I tried to make Omelette Du Fromage, Cant remember if I succeeded or not

[JojoTheDragon]

^Try to make one again. And use Britannia Cheese slices(or similar) this time. You will succeed.


[offtopic]
I remember that episode well. Learning French overnight FTW!.
[/offtopic]

[azzu]

Originally Posted by Charan

Are your friends still alive?

Just Kidding .. Wassap Azzu

Very much alive,,: P
my mom asks the same question..
iam great..

Ontopic : so can any of u guys cook "Biryani" ??

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by azzu

Very much alive,,: P
my mom asks the same question..
iam great..

Ontopic : so can any of u guys cook "Biryani" ??

Sort of. Biryani as in the vegetarian type.

Its easy only if do the mixing part with less rice. Otherwise your biryani will end up looking like khichdi