THIS MONSOON, PEEL AWAY YOUR PRE-COOKING BLUES!

Monsoon has nearly arrived and chances are you stumbled upon this article while looking for easy cooking recipes for typical monsoon food. Chances are you don’t know yet that this article is going to make your cooking so much more easy, efficient and energy-saving.

What’s Pre-cooking?
“Pre-cooking takes too much of my time! I think it’s so much more tedious than the actual cooking process. Help!”
Pre-cooking is a thriving art and an essential when it comes to professional cooking. Even with last minute food cooked at home, hurriedly yet carefully, pre-cooking seems to be the norm: chopping onions, mashing potatoes, peeling veggies, pressing garlic, etc.

The Dilemma of Monsoon Cooking
Now that monsoon is here, a lot of us can’t help but fantasize about gorging on some yummy pakoras, chole bhaturas, aloo paranthas -same old monsoon munchies. But we are unable to act upon our fantasies because cooking is a pain in the hand and the neck and the back…No more!

INTRODUCING THREE FNS KITCHEN GADGET ESSENTIALS MONSOON SPECIAL:

Peeler: EVERY vegetable ever needs peeling. And we know, how trivial yet time-consuming it is. Be it those lovely potatoes for your samosas or veggies for some hot and sour soup against the window sill when it’s pouring outside, a peeler in time is a savior!

Potato Masher: Now that you have peeled enough potatoes with the peeler, you have got to mash them. And that will be a task without a masher that ensures perfect grip and lessens the strength you need to put into mash potatoes with a precise consistency. Since, every other monsoon dish involves potato, get your hands on a masher right now!

 

Skimmer: Fried food may be unhealthy but it is tasty as all heaven! And it’s a monsoon special! Ensure that all your bhajia gets all its unwanted oil drained off carefully by using a skimmer that is specially designed to give you a better grip with a long handle.

 

THREE THINGS MY FEISTY GRANDMOTHER WANTS YOU TO KNOW ABOUT ALOO PARANTHAS

“Humans have cooked since the dawn of the time but that has only made it much more special and nuanced, not mundane.”

My seventy-four-year-old grandmother has always been strong-willed, uncompromising and badass. But she only goes full gung-ho when it comes to cooking. In her kitchen, the best ideals are preached and the best tools used to produce the best ever tastes.

Last week, when I visited her after what seemed to be a long while, my grandmother took it upon herself to treat me to her clan-famous aloo paranthas. However, this time, she wanted to walk me through it. (She thinks I’m going to pick up someday.)
Here’s what I learnt:

1. While preparing the dough for paranthas, special care must be taken of the potatoes that have to be mashed for the stuffing. This is important because if the stuffing doesn’t hold right, your parantha will break before it gets under your teeth.

To save you from such disgrace, a perfect potato masher that has rubberized handles for a sturdy grip minimizes the effort that goes into tediously mashing the aloo. Furthermore, it would also save you a lot of time.
Use that to stuff your mouths with more of those palette-pleaser paranthas!

2. When you do finally get around to rolling out a parantha and are ready to heat it in a frying pan, it is important to have a turner around to ensure smooth flips.

‘Top-notch turners are a must have in an Indian kitchen,” my grandmother was very adamant. FnS Turners have strong ergonomics to lend a sure grip.

3. Since my grandmother also loves multi-tasking, by the time she got done with the first parantha, spicy chickpeas were almost ready to be had with them. Much to my surprise, she wasn’t really born with such efficiency. “It’s only smart choices in kitchen tools that can guarantee you mouth-watering results. Nothing else.” This is something she lives by, and it takes no great observational skills to notice that.

Pulling out from her hat, a brilliant looking ladle, she served the chickpeas with it. And for the sweet&sour tomato chutney, she used a smaller service spoon. “Very important to avoid the mess at all costs!” Words of wisdom.

While I savored the taste of those delectable paranthas with chickpeas and chutney, I realized how in addition to talent, little tools are needed the most to ensure supreme quality.

This little visit has been a life-alternating spiritual cookery Carnivale!

WEEKEND KITCHEN WOES!!!!! NOT ANYMORE

 

Weekend had come sprawling limply to Ragini so now was the time to make the most of it. She planned a movie night with friends in the morning and then got busy lazing in the bed and daydreaming.

“It’s twelve already!” gasped Ragini in horror. She had so much left to do.

As she set out to work around the house, she heard the doorbell ring. Esha, dearest sister-in-law, had dropped by uninvited. Icing on the cake that was flavored with disaster.

“I’ve heard a lot about the yummy pasta you cook, Ragini,” announced Esha, “And yes don’t forget about the fruit salad. I love it!”

The tedious task of peeling vegetables and fruits was all that was on Ragini’s mind at the moment.

For obvious reasons, Ragini stormed right off to the kitchen, looking around for inspiration and, almost immediately, her eyes fell on the set of FnS kitchen accessories she had bought last week on a friend’s recommendation: Garlic-Press, Zester, Peeler, Y-Shaped Peeler, Cheese Grater, Apple Corer.

In a matter of only minutes, she peeled the thick skin right off the fruits and vegetable for the scrumptious salad, grated the cheese for the pasta so perfectly, pressed the garlic into fine particles with such ease and precision, it was magic!

Something she bought almost on a whim turned out to be such a help to her. Sturdy and comfortable grips on the gadgets made it possible for her to carry out various activities all at once and razor sharp blades ensured lightening speed. And all of this while chatting Esha up!

Esha was taken by surprise at Ragini’s skillful maneuver around the kitchen, “Only God knows how you accomplished all of this so quickly!”

Ragini smiled meditatively at her and whispered reassuringly, “To tell you the truth, all of this is the doing of FnS gadgets. They have truly made multitasking in the kitchen so easy and efficient!”

As both of them walked out of the kitchen, Ragini’s eyes rested on FnS gadgets once again. The immediate sigh of relief she heaved denoted her reinstated faith in making the most of the wonderful weekend that lay ahead of her.

The fantasy element to your foodgasm

Modernity thrives on healthy food regime, but it also relies on the aesthetics of dining. It is not just about the palate that we tend to gorge on scrumptious delicacies to satiate our gastronomic levels after a tiring day at work but it is also the seduction of the dining ambience filled with the trance of well-crafted cutlery that together has the potential to entice you as well as every other person around you.

 

Cutlery as an embodiment of class

 

It is not only the food that appeals to our ecstasy -seeking -modern souls, indeed it more than that.

A fine Dine table with an eclectic mix of moods in the ever-shifting modern man’s consciousness; Gold- plated flatware with the chimes of stainless steel all round up to bring to

you an exotic culmination of articles to embalm your senses. With the touch of such pristine material and the sight of its sleekness, the connoisseur foodie in you is only a new- age poet.

 

 

What matters: What to eat v/s how to eat

 

The longing in us for fine dining has evolved through civilization and shifts in time as we have certainly realized the sheer Oomph that cutlery adds to the overall “how to eat”. So, it’s not just about WHAT TO EAT, it is also about HOW TO EAT. Cutlery is not just a utilitarian urbane experience but it accessorizes our dining code and is a lifestyle extravaganza. It adds to our elitism and sets the bar for the Epicureanism in our daily lives.

 

 

Cutlery cuts off the added stress

 

Cutlery is not just a modern artifice, it is an experience. The daily drudgery finally

meets pampering with the tender touch of steel that sticks to your familiar spaces in imagination. The range of flatware is suited perfectly for different occasions: daily usable, stylized ones for grand dinner meets, chic items for kitty -parties, a touch of antique to suit meals shared with the old in the family etc. It is a well- known thing how kids fuss over food and how difficult it is to appeal to their moods and tastes. But, a little bit of effort with the sprucing up of fine cutlery in the dining table does the trick and saves time and energy which is possible with the flatware section ‘just for kids’.

 

 

Cutlery makes eating artsy

 

The aesthetics to dining serve as a modern meditation to the urban workaholic of today while food is the word structure;

cutlery is the form as they together weave out an ordinary eating experience into a delightful dining stupor.

This mixture of austere and debonair in the fns flatware is a veritable mix of designs and finish to fit to the variety

of dining experiences across routine, celebrations, dinner dates; turning the mundane into hyperbolic.

 

An epitome of Elegance & Ergonomic, this is the 21^st century table -romance, this is FNS.

Anecdotes from the Great Indian Kitchen

The little things are of utmost significance. Why so? Let’s show you.

 

 

Sweet-tooth, anyone?

Lyra’s Anglo- Indian friend really looked up to having ‘gaajar ka halwa’ after sitting through an episode on TLC. Nothing would make Lyra happier than tripping her friend up on Indian dishes and that too home-made. The idea met with despair as they did not have access to a Grater to make the work easier.

 

A Peel in Time saves just fine.

While Indian ceremonies are big and fat, so is the preparation to pace up the occasion. Three-four women sat together on the kitchen floor chopping vegetables and peeling garlic, onions, etc. It takes forever to peel with a regular knife and to add fuel to fire, the knives sometimes are blunt and demotivating! A stitch in time saves nine. Here, the Peeler!

 

 

Say Cheese!

When it comes to feeding your child’s imagination, God help your patience levels! Rory now likes cheese only if it looks like tiny pieces of snow. Where did he find such a description? He picked that up from school, his friend Nysa always has cheese like “tiny pieces of snow”. So, his mother had to really make sure he got cheese sliced into thin shreds so that Rory takes his tiffin seriously. Also, it looks better this way, cheese trimmed to thin shreds of perfection.

 

Enjoy your Pizza without fights

Every. Single. Time.

When the Pizza is delivered and friends come rushing to hog, it looks nothing less than a carefully plucked out scene from a war- movie (given your heights of imagination)! And while the fight continues to tear the pizza slices from the whole, chunks of chicken from one pizza falls, chunks of cheese from his pizza piece clings to mine and, the battle continues. So much drama over Pizza!

Make sure you HAVE a PIZZA CUTTER. Saves pizza, and relationships!

FnS Kitchen Tools makes you relish your delicacies without the daily hassles. Bring them home. Thank us later!