Kolkata: With the festive season around the corner, the mood is celebratory & every new dish in the kitchen is the talk of the town! The days leading us to the upcoming festive season involve a lot of cooking, cleaning, baking, and spending time with our family.
Festive cooking takes our everyday menu a notch above the usual, with an array of sweet and savoury accompanying the pulses, fruits and vegetables. Festive cooking is also the time when traditional cookware and serve-ware also make their way on to the table.
Speaking about festive cooking, Brand Ambassador of ITC Nimeasy Chef Kunal Kapur said, “We all love to experiment with different cooking recipes during the festive season. The key to enjoy cooking and family time is to plan ahead. I make sure all my special utensils used for cooking are prepped and washed ahead of time. The large utensils like kadhai, attract grime and grease. I rely on easy to use dish wash like Nimeasy that uses its enzyme technology & lift off action to not only ensure removal of stains and the grease from the utensils, but also helps get rid of germs and bacteria with its natural ingredients.”
Chef Kunal Kapoor’s tips to make festive cooking easy are:
Create a to-do List: Managing work during the festive season can be difficult. A to-do list will help you plan each day and breeze through. Try to allot and segregate days according to your comfort and execute them accordingly. Shopping online can be of tremendous help too.
Plan your Recipes: Create a menu card ahead of time. Deciding what to cook is half the battle won. Whatever your cuisine of choice, bookmark all your favourite recipes online. Check the ingredients needed for the menu, most importantly the quantities. Always check the pantry for the stock before shopping.
Organize & Delegate: Organize all your ingredients as per the cooking and group all utensils and vessels as per the order of necessity. This will keep you relaxed by having a tidy kitchen and help you to have a clear head while starting a new recipe. Share the load with your family members, divide the work according to each and everyone’s skillsets. Kids can be included too and used for easy jobs like drying the washed utensils, wiping the kitchen platform and cleaning the spilled ingredients from the floor.
Cook Forward: Be prepared. A fantastic way to make things easier on the day of the feast is to have the food prepared well in advance. Once prepared, food can be kept fresh by storing it in the fridge overnight. Cold dishes will be ready to serve straight from the fridge while hot dishes can be reheated easily in the oven or microwave.
Remember to not let your vessels and cutleries dry out. To avoid wasting time in scrubbing and washing, you can soak your utensils in water with ITC’s Nimeasy, a Dishwashing Gel with Enzyme technology that gives “Lift-off Action” relieves the removal of greasy, oily, and ghee stuck on the utensils. Try to adopt these changes and this festive season is sure to be memorable and burden free for you.