Cooking in the kitchen is not always easy. Sometimes small mistakes or oversights can affect the taste and texture of your dish. Especially, when you use curd in curries, you need to be extra careful. If not taken care of properly, creamy curries can turn grainy and watery in an instant, as the curd curdles.
It’s not your fault, but it’s the result of a slight chemical reaction. When curd suddenly gets excess heat, sourness or cold, it curdles. This experience has happened to all of us at some time or the other. But there is no need to worry. By adopting some simple tricks you can prevent curd from curdling during cooking. Let us know some useful hacks-
When you are going to add curd to your dish, beat it well first. Beat it in such a way that it becomes completely smooth. If you want, you can also add 1-2 spoons of gram flour or flour to it. By whisking curd, fat and protein get mixed evenly. Gram flour provides a consistency, which prevents the curd from curdling when heated.
Never add curd straight from the fridge to your dish. Keep it outside for 15-20 minutes first. Mixing cold curd with hot curry causes ‘thermal shock’. Whereas curd kept at room temperature gets mixed easily and does not curdle.
This is a small but important tip. Whenever you add curd to your dish, first reduce the flame of the gas. Also, while adding curd to the curry, keep stirring continuously. Heating slowly reduces the chances of the curd curdling. Continuous stirring helps in spreading the heat evenly, which prevents the curd from curdling.
– Mithali Jain
