100th Post - Basic Tampering

100^th Post and Some Cooking Basics:

I am so happy to post, my 100^th post and at the same time I feel very sorry because I took almost 1 year to complete Century.

I am planning to write Indian Cooking basics and cooking terminology translations for long time and I am starting it today with Basic South Indian Popu/ Tampering/ Tadaka/ Seasoning or what ever you call. For Many of South Indian dishes we need to make tadaka either at the beginning of the preparation or at the end. And for some dishes tadaka gives a nice aroma and it enhances the taste also.

First of all let’s see Tadaka Ingredients:

Though we have lot of tadaka Ingredients listed above, we have to use different combinations of tadaka ingredients for each dish.

For example:

Tadaka for Tamarind Rasam:

For this dish we use Mustard seeds, Cumin seeds, Red chilli Whole, Curry leaves, Turmeric and last but not least Asafetida. And asafetida is the leading or important ingredient which gives you unique aroma. We do this tampering at the end.

For Sambar and Pappu pulusu we do add Urad split, and Crushed Garlic (optional) also along with the above ingredients, and for sambar we do seasoning at the beginning and for Pappu Pulusu we do it at the end.

Tadaka for Dals:

For Dhals, we use Urad split, Mustard seeds, Red Chilli whole, Curry Leaves, Turmeric, Asafetida and Crushed Garlic (optional).