Kitchen is the most sacred place of the house where food is cooked for everyone in the family yet it is the most ignored corner of the house. It is the place where lies the source of energy of the entire house. cooking and managing your kitchen is not as easy as eating. Cooking can be done by anyone but quality cooking is something that requires passion for cooking and love for feeding people with high quality, healthy and hygenic food.
So it is easy to eat good food but it takes lots of hardwork to serve good food. And when you are the manager of your kitchen, there are certain things that needs to be kept in mind. Managing kitchen and just cooking food are two different aspects though inter-related with each other.
Know what your food is made up of
When you cook food, it always comes in handy if you possess the knowledge of important vitamins and nutritonal value of different food items. Green leafy vegetables, fruits, yogurt, non-vegeterian items all contain certain amount of important vitamins and has different nutritional value. So if you are the one who cook you must know how to feed balanced and nutritional food to your family and friends.
How to cook healthy food
There are different cooking methods. Sometimes a wrong cooking method can take away important vitamins from the raw food material. For example when you wash potatoes after cutting and peeling then you loose starch in it. If you over cook or over boil any vegetable you loose important vitamins and nutrients from them. So it is very important to know the right cooking method.
Fast food and oily food
Avoid fast food as it can lead to fat consumption and it is unhealthy as it is not high in nutritional value buthigh on cholestrol level and fat storage. Use minimum of oil for cooking and always use less absorbent oil like saffola or fortune.
Also keep your kitchen clean
Cleanliness in kitchen is very important. Maintaining hygiene levels is very important. While cooking your food, take care that you don't throw skin of vegetables or other umimportant part of raw food items here and there in your kitchen. Keep a dustbin with a lid on it ofcourse outside of your kitchen and after peeling vegetables and cutting your raw food items throw away the remaining non-important parts in dustbin.
Use lid to cover your food
Take care that flour or any other food item is not lying open anywhere in kitchen. When your food is ready, do not forget to put a lid on the vessel in which you have stored your food. Never leave any food item open in the kitchen.
Maintaining cleanliness on daily basis
It is very important that you clean your entire kitchen alongwith gas burners and stove with liquid soap and water. This is because if food sticks on any part of the kitchen, it would invite ants, cockroaches and rats in your kitchen. And rats and cockroaches can cause severe health problems. It is very important that after food is cooked specially after lunch and dinner, entire kitchen is sweeped and mobbing is done in kitchen.
The Face-value of kitchen-
It is important that your kitchen is not only clean but also looks beautiful. What I mean here by face value is how your kitchen looks and how anyone who visits your kitchen would appreciate the method in which it is organised.
Add value to your kitchen by putting some flowers in a small glass or a glass vase in one corner of the kitchen sothat it smells good and flowers add beauty to any dull corner of the house. Varied colours should be used in your kitchen in form of utensils. Use colourful utensils, plates and bowls should exhibit vibrancy and so bright colours should be used.
Safety and beauty go hand in hand
Use chimney in your kitchen so that smoke that is released while cooking can be ventilated through it. Keep a huge window in your kitchen, a kitchen without window would be so dull and dark. When you eat food cooked in a dull kitchen with a dull mind it shows in your energy levels. So keep atleast one window in kitchen.
Windows brings light and fresh air in your kitchen. But alongwith the beauty that it adds to your kitchen it is necessary for safety precautions as well. When there is gas in your kitchen and if it leaks someday, you need to turn off gas knob and open door and window of your kitchen. So even for your safety let there be provision of fresh air in your kitchen.
Let cooking be an enjoyable experience
Keep a list of to-do items in a note and stick it in one corner of the house. Maintain the list, add groceries that you need to buy this week or other food items that you think you would need this week should be listed and bought at one go when you go to market. So everytime you find something missing note it down in your list immidiately so that you don't find any important ingredient missing when you start cooking your food. Always try and prepare menu for a week or atleast 2 days in advance so that you know what all you will require for cooking the specific dish. This way you would enjoy cooking new dishes.
Know your spices
Ornamental value of a kitchen is in a way the spices are stored in kitchen. When you use different spices for cooking why not use them as ornaments for your kitchen. Indian food has maximum use of spices, no other food in the world can match taste, colour and healthy value of Indian food. Use of salt, turmeric, coriander powder or chilly powder is very common while cooking any Indian dish. So when you are already using them then add a decorative value to your kitchen alongwith utility. Keep salt, turmeric , chilly powder and coriander powder in a line so that colours look bright and beautiful. White colour of the salt when in combination with yellow of turmeric and red of chilly powder when kept together adds value to your spice box or platform where you keep this spices.
Know your spices because spices also have herbal value and can be used as medicine like when you have burnt your finger, instantly apply ghee on that burn and you will get rid of burning sensation, When you have cut your finger and blood is flowing from it then apply turmeric powder on it. So it as medicinal value as well.
Thus, your kitchen is the place where all the magic of health, happiness and success is hidden.