10 Cooking tips for the family

It's the new year and we're looking at ways to make it easier for you to cook for your family after a day at the office.

Heidi Shamsuddin and Annette Isaac, partners in the Dish Deli restaurant in Solaris Mont Kiara, Kuala Lumpur, share some tips for all parents.

Heidi, a mother of three, says she cooks every day for about half an hour.

“When you're single and have no kids, it's fine to spend more time preparing and cooking the food after work, but when you have kids, they're hungry when they're hungry and you've got to get food on the table as fast as you can,” she says.

Tip #1: Prepare the ingredients the night before.

“Most of the time is spent in preparing the food. If you're quite organised and you do it on a daily basis, it becomes second nature. What I used to do is plan for the week what we're going to eat and the night before, I just prepare the items. I also need to see what I'm doing that day. If I'm going to be busy in the afternoon, I would cook something in the morning or prepare it in the morning so that when I come home, I just have to put things together and cook,” says Heidi.

Tip #2: Always have important raw ingredients handy.

Heidi believes in always having the raw ingredients for the things she knows her kids like to eat, such as chicken, potatoes, carrots and tomatoes.

“As long as I have those items, I can probably put together a meal in half an hour. That doesn't mean they're eating the same thing every week. It has to be chopped and changed, of course,” she adds.

Tip #3: Prepare a sauce and freeze it.

Heidi recommends making a sauce and freezing it. As long as there's no dairy or santan (coconut milk) in it, it can actually keep for about three months. While you might not want to keep it for that long, the point is you can keep it for a few weeks.

You can take out what you need and leave the rest in the freezer.

Isaac explains that things like curries can keep for a long time.

According to Heidi, some dishes like rendang actually taste better when kept in the freezer for a while.

“When you eat rendang on the day it's cooked, it's nice but if you eat it a week later, the flavours have had a chance to come together and it tastes better,” she says, adding that it can be stored in a container but separate from raw foods.

Says Heidi: “I always freeze either plain pomodoro sauce or bolognese sauce just to make sure that in an emergency, I have that. And, with that sauce you can make several dishes, not just pasta. You can make pizza or a pasta bake (boil the pasta, put the sauce in, make a cheese sauce to pour on top, put some breadcrumbs on top and bake it).”

Tip #4: Frozen dinners.

Both Heidi and Isaac say that parents should read the labels carefully if they intend to buy frozen dinners from supermarkets. You need to read the labels carefully for the ingredients, amount of fat, how the food is produced and what preservatives are used.

“Not all of them are healthy. Distributors tend to go on taste rather than whether the food is healthy or not, unless you get something from Weight Watchers but that's quite expensive.

“However, if you're buying home-prepared frozen meals, it should be okay, especially if no preservatives are used. It's like cooking and freezing your own food. I might cook a batch of curry, eat one portion for dinner and keep the rest for later on in the week. So, why not?

“Freezing it will stop any kind of bacterial proliferation. If you leave it in the fridge, rather than the freezer, there is a risk of heating it and eating and putting it back in the fridge and reheating it and eating it again, which is not that healthy,” says Heidi.

Tip #5: Buy curry pastes and rubs.

Isaac recommends making your own curry paste and rubs as you will know what goes into it. On the other hand, you could also buy the prepared curry pastes and rubs from suppliers who genuinely have 100% natural ingredients.

“Those can be bought from the market. Some are also manufactured on a large scale but you have to read the labels for those. The ones from the market are even prepared for the different meats.

“You can freeze it and then just take out what you need to use. Or you could grind your own rubs as well and whenever you want to cook, just get the chicken, put the rub on, wrap it in foil and bake it,” adds Isaac.

Tip #6: One-tray cooking.

This is where you apply a rub to your meat (chicken, fish, etc) and stick it on a tray. Add some potatoes, tomatoes and/or carrots and herbs to the dish, then sprinkle oil as needed. Then stick it in the oven.

Says Heidi: “My most recent one, which the kids love, is a form of tandoori chicken. Just blend the spices (you can look it up on the Internet to see what you need), rub it on the chicken, I use a bit of yoghurt and oil to coat it. Let it marinade in the fridge all day and when I come home in the evening, just stick it in the oven. And, you've got home-made tandoori chicken!”

Tip #7: Slow cooker.

This is where you cut everything the night before or in the morning, throw everything into a slow cooker, add your spices and water and then switch it on. The food will be cooked by the next morning (if you switch it on at night) or by the time you get home (if you do it in the morning).

“You can look up recipes online. And, put it on auto and just let it cook all day. By the time you come home, it'll be done. You can pre-cut everything the night before and with the slow cooker you can use the cheaper cuts, not the expensive cuts you would use for steaks, and they become softer in the slow cooker.

“You can do mostly soups, stews – liquid form foods,” explains Heidi.

Tip #8: Keep it simple, sweetheart!

Isaac says the trick is to make cooking simple. She recommends parents looking up recipes with just three to seven ingredients.

“It doesn't have to be elaborate. Even for nuggets - you can make your own, rather than buy the frozen ones in the supermarket. At least you know what's going in it. You just need a bit of batter, eggs, breadcrumbs,” she adds.

Tip #9: Cook for the week.

According to Isaac, for the highly-disciplined, there is the option of cooking the main dishes on the weekend for the whole week and then sticking everything in the freezer. Then each weekday, just take whichever dish you want and warm it up.

Tip #10: One roast for several meals.

Heidi recommends something she herself does – roast a chicken on the weekend. Then on the weekdays, use parts of the chicken for different dishes – pasta, sandwiches, salad, or even pizza.

Those are our 10 tips to help you cook for your family even after a day at work. Here's hoping for a year with more home-cooked meals and healthy eating!