Getting the kitchen game right

The fast pace of our contemporary lifestyle has most of us burning the candle at both ends. With limited time, we are constantly on the lookout for tips on how to reduce the time we spend in the kitchen. As we enter a new year, many of us will be prioritising our resolutions, cultivating new hobbies, and putting in place a roadmap to living a more fulfilling 2018. The best way to free up more time for these pursuits is to spend less time in the kitchen. For this, it is crucial to have the right cooking tools and gadgets to make life easier.

Cooking becomes a much more pleasurable experience when we take away the laborious and time-consuming element from the preparation work. Today, kitchen appliance brands are listening to their customers and paying heed to their needs by coming out with a plethora of products to help the home chef. Kitchen tools high on innovation and packed with features is the answer to your problems.

What are some of the interesting tools out there that can help you speed up your cooking?  Here are some essentials.

Every Indian kitchen needs a vegetable cutter, as vegetables are an important part of our diet. A vegetable cutter ensures that the vegetables are chopped in a fine manner and saves the time and effort of the cook and significantly reduces the preparation time.  

It is also crucial that every kitchen has an electric chopper to make light of tedious tasks like chopping onions, mincing meat and cutting fruits.

Rotis, a staple in every Indian home, are tedious to prepare. A roti-maker can help you make fluffy and round rotis. The roti-maker kneads the dough as well, thereby saving a lot of effort and taking away the hassle of kneading the dough yourself.  

The key to saving time and effort is to opt for kitchen gadgets that can multi-task. Normally,   we use multiple cookwares like kadais, handis or pressure cookers to cook a complex dish. But go for an appliance such as a clip-on pressure cooker, which offers the options of sauteing, steaming, frying, boiling and pressure cooking all in one pan itself. Indeed, the humble pressure cooker has undergone a huge transformation.

The rice cooker is another such gadget that should have a place of pride in every Indian kitchen. From rice to porridge, soup, stew, pulao, idlis and steamed vegetables, this multi-functional gadget truly takes away the hassle of cooking.

And if you happen to be a novice cook, then consider a microwave pressure cooker that offers an exceptionally speedy experience. Enjoy delicious home-cooked food with zero effort. The microwave pressure cooker can be used for cooking, heating or even steaming, thus allowing an escape from the hassle of the morning rush. All you need to do is put the contents in the cooker, place it in the microwave and set the timer.

Make 2018 your best year ever and ensure that you have plenty of time to pursue new endeavours by making sure your kitchen gadgets work for you.  

(The author is executive  vice president, TTK Prestige Ltd.)