On tempering

In my last email, I wrote about a new online course I’m working on, focused on vegetables, and asked for help with a short survey. Thank you for your enthusiastic response and for taking the time! (And to those who dropped me messages with your responses because the initial link was faulty - I am so grateful!)

Today’s newsletter is all about tempering, an Indian technique that I feel has really elevated my own vegetable cooking. If you bake, you might be familiar with this term in the context of tempering eggs or chocolate, but this Western pastry technique is not to be confused with tempering in Indian cooking.

Tempering goes by many names - baghar, tadka, chaunk, phodi, phodni… just to name a few- but it essentially means to add spices to hot oil (basically frying to put it simply). Apart from spices, other ingredients that are commonly tempered are lentils (channa dal or urid dal), herbs (curry leaves), and alliums (garlic and onion).

Raita with tempering (Image: Serious Eats)...

There are two reasons why tempering is important, particularly when it comes to vegetarian cooking.

1) It adds depth of flavour. When spices, herbs, and lentils are added to hot oil, their flavours bloom and become more complex. The hot fat is able to extract and retain the aroma of these ingredients and then carry this essence with it to the dish it is added to. Think of fat as a vehicle that transfers flavour from the spices to the dish; tempering really maximizes this property of fat.

2) It adds a good amount of fat to the dish. I received many questions regarding how we can make vegetable-focused meals filling, and a big part of that is incorporating enough fat. Vegetables are so lean, compared to meat, and so adding fat to compensate for that goes a long way in making one feel satisfied. I know that many people shudder at the thought of using fat, but not all fat is bad. Fat, such as ghee and coconut oil, can be really delicious while providing beneficial nutrients to the body.

Tempering can happen at the start or end of the cooking process, and sometimes, a dish can it occurring twice or more in the cooking process! A few examples from our Deepavali edition to illustrate this:

Ghee rice:

1. Tempering - cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, cashews, and raisins are tempered in ghee.

2. Rice is added and tossed through the aromatic fat, before being cooked in a ricecooker.

Pumpkin kootu:

1. Dal and pumpkin are cooked together until tender.

2. Tempering - dried chillies, urad dal, and cumin seeds are tempered in ghee.

3. The tempered spices are ground with grated coconut and added to the dal.

4. The dal is dished out into a serving platter

5. Tempering - mustard seeds and curry leaves are tempered in ghee. The hot fat and the toasted seeds and leaves are poured all over the dal.

Tempering is not complicated, though there are a few things you have to bear in mind:

Choosing the right fat: Using fat with a high smoke-point is a must - ghee, coconut oil, and peanut oil are all good options. Olive oil is not the best choice. My favourite is ghee! It adds such a beautiful rounded flavour to the final dishes.

Using a pan with higher sides, or a pot: Some cooks have a dedicated pan for tempering (tadke ka bartan). These are small 1- or 2-cup capacity pans with high walls. This helps to contain the spices during the tempering process, because it is not uncommon for seeds or curry leaves to splutter when they hit the oil. Some cooks even use iron ladles for this - the moment the tempering is done, the whole ladle is dunked into the pot containing the dish (e.g. a dal), and a lid is put on to trap the aromas. That said, you can certainly temper your spices with any cookware that you have.

Tadka pan (Image: Milled)

Prepare before you temper: Tempering is a very fast process - spices can burn extremely quickly. Thus, having your ingredients prepped and ready before starting to cook is extremely important, as spices are added to the hot oil in quick succession, with no time for opening jars. For this reason, the masala dabba is commonly seen in many Indian homes. If you don’t have a masala dabba that allows you to access the spices readily, mise en place is key! This means that you assemble all the spices that you need and make sure the jars or containers are open, and that you know exactly how much is required for the recipe.

Masala dabba (Image: Tiipoi)

Do it on the spot: Tempering is never a prep-ahead step; it cannot be prepared in advanced and store in the refrigerator like a compound butter for later use. If you do that, the aroma, which is such an important part of tempering, will be lost. Prepare the dish, and when your guests show up, make and add the tempering.

Once you are comfortable with tempering, you can apply it across so many dishes to make them more flavourful. You can drizzle the flavoured fat over raita, popcorn, dal, cornbread, and roasted vegetables, just to name a few examples. (This technique will also enhance meat dishes such as fried chicken!) Have fun tempering! :-)

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Dal tadka is one of the simplest things you can make, and the variations are endless. Like its name suggests, it only has two components - dal and tadka. ‘Tadka’, also known as tempering, is a technique where spices are added to hot fat. The spices get roasted in the fat, and they infuse the fat with flavour. It can be used at the start of the recipe or at the end, to finish a dish. Depending on what you use in the tadka, the flavour of the finished dish changes. The actual work that goes into this dish is minimal but you get a really versatile, nutritious, and quick dish to put on the table on a weekday night.

Dal Tadka
Serves 2-3

250g split moong dal
850g water
1 ½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
2 heaped tablespoons ghee
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
4 dried red chillies
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped roughly
60g chopped onions
2g curry leaves
15g chopped green chillies
85g tomatoes, chopped
2 teaspoons mild of Kashmiri chilli powder
Salt to taste
15g fenugreek leaves
Handful of chopped coriander
10g cold butter

Rinse the dal and soak it for 1 hour. The soaking helps to reduce the cooking time of the dal, but you can choose not to soak it – the cooking time will just be longer. Drain the moong dal and combine in a pot with the water, salt and turmeric powder. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 30-40 minutes, stirring from time to time, until the mixture resembles a loose porridge.

Prepare the tadka right before serving. Heat the ghee in a saucepan. Add the mustard seeds and when they crackle, add the cumin seeds, dried chillies and chopped garlic. Cook for a few minutes before adding the onions, curry leaves, green chillies. When the curry leaves crackle, add the chopped tomatoes and chilli powder. Cook for a few more minutes. Add all of the dal to the pan and season with salt to taste. Add the fenugreek leaves and cook just until the leaves wilt. Turn off the heat. Add the coriander and cold butter and swirl to combine. Serve with roti or rice.

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Kadhi is a yogurt sauce that is thickened with chickpea flour, while pakora are fritters made from chickpea flour. There are a few tips I picked up from the net about making good pakoras: 1) A pinch of baking soda serves as a leavening agent as it reacts with the liquid in the batter to create gas bubbles that are responsible for adding lightness to the final fried product. 2) Adding hot oil into the batter right before deep-frying enhances crispness. 3) Oil has to be hot enough or the pakoras will fall apart when you drop them in oil.

Kadhi Pakora
Serves 4 

For the pakora:
90g chickpea flour (besan)
½ teaspoon salt
1 tsp coriander powder
½ teaspoon turmeric powder
½ teaspoon ajwain
½ teaspoon red chilli powder
½ teaspoon garam masala
1 chopped green chilli
165g chopped onions
90g water
Pinch of baking soda
2 tablespoons hot oil   

Mix all the ingredients except water, baking soda and hot oil. Add water as needed to form a thick and gloppy mixture. Add baking soda and hot oil at the very last minute. Deep-fry spoonfuls of batter on medium heat until brown.

For the curd slurry:
375g yogurt
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon garam masala
2 teaspoon turmeric powder
¾ teaspoon red chilli powder
45g chickpea flour (besan)
720g water 

Combine all ingredients.

For the kadhi:
2 tablespoons ghee
½ teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
10 fenugreek seeds
Generous pinch of asafoetida
50g chopped onions
2 dried chillies
2 sprigs curry leaves
½ tablespoon ginger garlic paste 

Heat the oil and add the spices, onion, dried chillies, curry leaves, and ginger garlic paste. Saute until fragrant. Add the curd slurry. Heat until thickened, stirring constantly, then allow to simmer on low heat for 15 minutes. Add the pakoras. Allow to stand for 10 minutes. Transfer to a serving dish.

For finishing:
2 tablespoons ghee
3 dried chillies
½ tsp cumin seeds
½ teaspoon red chilli powder
Coriander leaves 

Heat the ghee, add chillies, followed by cumin seeds. Once the seeds crackle, turn off the heat and add the chilli powder. Pour over the kadhi. Scatter over coriander leaves.