hi, i just purchase and begin to use microwave oven.but the time consumed for cooking in microwave is more than conventional method.i think there is some error in my way cooking in microwave.so kindly help me to overcome this problem.Sent cooking instructions to me

Microwave Chicken Korma Ingredients: Chicken 500 gms. Onions(sliced) 2 nos. Oil 2 tbsps. Salt to taste FOR THE PASTE: Poppy seeds(roasted) 2 tsps. Cashewnuts 10 nos. Coconut(grated) 2 tbsps. Coriander leaves(chopped) 2 tsps. FOR MARINATION: Yoghurt(curd) 1 cup Ginger-garlic paste 1 tbsp. Chili powder 1 tsp. Coriander powder 1 tsp. Garam masala 1 tsp. Pepper powder ½ tsp. Instructions: 1.Mix all the ingredients for marination. 2.Wash and marinate the chicken in the marinade for atleast 2 hours. 3.Grind coconut, coriander, poppy seed and cashewnuts to a fine paste and keep aside. 4.Take oil in a casserole, add sliced onions and micro cook for 5 minutes. 5.Add the marinated chicken, mix and micro cook covered for 12 minutes. 6.Add the ground paste and salt and mix well. Micro cook covered for 5 minutes. 7.Serve hot garnished with coriander leaves.

You can in goggle for south Indian recipe in microwave oven or attend some classes for micro oven cooking. There are nice books also.

idli batter should be made a little more watery than for convenctional steaming . Put it in plastic steamers and 3/4 mts on high and piping hot idlis are ready instead of the 15/20 mts in the steamer. Rice cooks in the micro in 8/10 mts. For every cup of rice 2 cups ofwater is the thumb rule. You have to adapt the recipes you normally make to incorporate the micorowav in it to reduce cooking time. Always make your tadkas on the stove top while the dals/rice cook in the microwave. Then mix them and put the vessel back in the microwave for the flavours to blend. This cuts down on the cooking time Just browse through this site it will give you ideas as to how recipes are adapted for microwave cooking. Good luck http://www.indianmirror.com/cuisine/cus3.html

Mysore Sambhar One of my favourite cookbooks DAKSHIN, by Chandra Padmanabhan had been lying on the counter- top without being used for a long time. I got this as a gift from my MIL 2 years back and have tried various recipes from this book with wonderful results each time. This recipe for Mysore sambhar always caught my attention, since this was a new recipe to me. The only reason I had not tested this was because there was no tamarind in the list of ingredients and sambhar sans tamarind……hmmm? Yesterday, however I decided to go for it. I couldn’t help but add a little bit of tamarind never-the-less. I was quite impressed with the outcome. Though, the tamarind did add that little bit of taste that I like, I am pretty sure the recipe would have been as good if not better even without it. -Tur Dal - 3/4 cup uncooked -Water - 3 cups -Beans - 1 2/3 cups -Potato - 1 medium -Green peas - 1 tbsp -Tamarind - 1/2 lime sized ball -Turmeric - 1/2 tsp -Salt to taste For the paste: -Dhania - 1 tbsp -Grated coconut - 6 tbsp -Hing - 1/2 tsp -Methi (fenugreek) seeds - 1 tsp -Mustard seeds - 1 tsp -Raw rice (soaked) - 1 tbsp -Red chillies - 6 nos For tempering: -Mustard seeds - 1 tsp -Cumin - 1 tsp -Red chilli - 1 -Curry leaves - 5-6 nos. Method:- Cook the dal and soak the rice in water for about 15 minutes. Cut vegetables to about 1 inch size and boil in water. Add the tamarind and salt when the vegetables are half cooked and let it boil up together till the vegetables are fully cooked. Make a fine paste of all the ingredients listed with minimum water. The original recipe did not have methi (fenugreek) seeds, but I decided to add some for the flavour. Add turmeric and the paste to the veggies and let it simmer up for about 5 minutes on medium flame. Next add the dal and cook the sambhar for another 3-4 minutes. Temper with Mustard, cumin, red chilli and curry leaves and serve hot with rice. Idlis I am a working mom and there are days when I get back from work just to start another 8 hour shift. There will be more than a few of you who can relate to my schedule. Apart from weekends, I usually indulge in short-cuts to cook up a supper that is both nutritious and easy to put together. Hailing from the south, we usually had either idli or dosai batter at home on any given day and my mom, who was a working mom herself, found it convenient to get a stock of batter ready for the week lest her kids should come home from school rubbing their tummies. I am sure all of you would agree with me that the best batter is delivered by the wet grinder. I was devoid of this precious commodity until last year when my in-laws gifted me one. Before then, I made idlis the ‘no-grinding’ way. Though, it was not the perfect idli, it was very close and definitely better and economical than the ready to make idli mixes. The ingredients are available at any indian store. -Rice pwd 1 cup -Udad pwd 1 cup -Idli rava 1 cup -Fast rising yeast 1 1/2 tsp -salt to taste Method:- Just mix these ingredients in warm water to the idli batter consistancy. Place it in the oven or any warm place overnight to rise and thats that! Its that easy. Though I dont make Idlis this way any more since i have graduated and have been awarded the ultra grinder, I thought this recipe could be useful to some of you who are yet to graduate. ENJOY!!

South Indian curries, especially the vegetarian curries are lower in fat than the north Indian curries. These curries when prepared in traditional way, involve prolonged frying of plenty of onion, garlic, ginger, tomato and other spices in generous amounts of fat. This method can be modified to make the curries healthier. Ground onion , garlic and ginger need more oil or ghee while frying to prevent them from burning. So, use them finely chopped and if a smooth gravy is desired, grind them after frying. When frying these ingredients with less fat, the heat should be low. So, leave it on a low flame and let them cook slowly to soften and mellow the flavors, stirring occasionally. Alternately, combine them with little fat and microwave without covering. If the wattage of the microwave oven is 100 and above, use only medium hi, or 70% power. Another way is to lightly fry them in little oil and then pressure cook with tomato and spices.