Basic Elements

If you love the versatility of store-bought bouillon or stock cubes, but want to avoid onions and garlic in your cooking, here’s a lovely alternative you can make yourself.

Yoghurt is one of those things that is not only much cheaper to make at home, but is also quite easy to make. If you do decide to try making yoghurt at home I highly suggest that you invest in a food thermometer to make sure you get good yoghurt results every time. Also, as with most things in cooking, good quality ingredients are essential to a good product.

The best way to use basil is to avoid cooking it too much. If adding it to pasta, toss it in while the pasta is still hot, but not still cooking, so the heat can release some flavour from the basil, but is not hot enough to kill the basil completely. Same goes for pizza, if making pizza with basil I suggest placing the basil on the pizza just as it comes out of the oven so it gets a little heat but not too much.

Plain Basmati rice is a great accompaniment to many meals and is delicious to sometimes eat on its own. Plain rice is the cornerstone to many Indian vegetarian meals and making rice is essential to Indian vegetarian cooking.

Ghee is used regularly in many Indian recipes and is an essential part of many Hindu religious ceremonies. Recently, ghee has also gained a large fan base among the foodie population. I personally use ghee instead of vegetable oil in many different recipes...not just Indian food.

Paneer is a homemade, non-aged cheese made by adding an acidic curdling agent to milk. This cheese is not suitable for melting and has a delicate yet extra delicious flavor. Paneer can be used in many, many different dishes in a variety of ways.

Paneer is often made with lemon juice but I really like to make it with buttermilk, as it seems to make a softer and creamier paneer. Also, if you accidentally put too much buttermilk it will just convert to more paneer, whereas if you put too much lemon juice, your paneer will taste sour.

The perfect touch for topping your pumpkin pie, or any special dessert.