Tempering is a cooking technique used in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

, and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

in which whole

spice In the culinary arts, a spice is any seed, fruit, root, Bark (botany), bark, or other plant substance in a form primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of pl ...

s (and sometimes also other ingredients such as dried chillies, minced

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...

root or sugar) are cooked briefly in oil or ghee to liberate essential oils from cells and thus enhance their flavours, before being poured, together with the oil, into a dish. Tempering is also practiced by dry-roasting whole spices in a pan before grinding the spices. Tempering is typically done at the beginning of cooking, before adding the other ingredients for a curry or similar dish, or it may be added to a dish at the end of cooking, just before serving (as with a dal, sambar or

stew A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been Cooking, cooked in Soup, liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients can include any combination of vegetables and may include meat, especially tougher meats suitable for ...

Ingredients used

Ingredients typically used in tempering include cumin seeds, black mustard seeds, fennel seeds, '' kalonji'' (nigella seeds), fresh green chilis, dried red chilis, fenugreek seeds, asafoetida, cassia, cloves, urad dal, curry leaves, chopped onion, garlic, or tejpat leaves. When using multiple ingredients in tempering, they are often added in succession, with those requiring longer cooking added earlier, and those requiring less cooking added later. In Oriya cuisine and Bengali cuisine, mixtures of whole spices called pancha phutaṇa or panch phoron, respectively, are used for this purpose.

Terminology

Some Indo-Aryan and

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages are a language family, family of languages spoken by 250 million people, primarily in South India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan, with pockets elsewhere in South Asia. The most commonly spoken Dravidian l ...

use a form inherited (through an early borrowing, in the case of Kannada) from the Sanskrit root ''vyághāra-'' "sprinkling over": * () in Gujarati * () in

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

* () in Odia * () in Bengali * () in

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

Some Indo-Aryan languages use a form inherited from the Sanskrit root ''sphōṭana-'' "crackling, cracking": * () in Bhojpuri * () in Bengali * () in Marathi *''phōṇṇa'' () in

Konkani __NOTOC__ Konkani may refer to: Language * Konkani language is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Konkan region of India. * Konkani alphabets, different scripts used to write the language **Konkani in the Roman script, one of the scripts used to ...

* () in Nepali * () in Odia * () in Sinhala Some Indo-Aryan languages use a form inherited from the Sanskrit root ''traṭatkāra-'' "crackles, splits, fizzes": * () in

*''taṛkā'' ( تڑکا) in

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

* () in Garhwali * () in Punjabi * () in Sindhi Another root beginning with an aspirated affricate is found in yet other Indo-Aryan languages: * () in Oriya * () in

*''chunkay'' or ''chaunkay'' in Caribbean Hindustani *''čhaunk'' ( چھونک) in

*''čhonk'' (छोंक/ছোঙ্ক) in Maithili *''čhuṅk'' (छूंक) in Rajasthani

also have various other forms for the same usage: * () in Tamil * () in Telugu * () in Telugu * () in Telugu * () in Telugu * () in Tulu * () in

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

Sino-tibetan languages have many distinct terms, such as in: * () in Meitei In

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, it is sometimes referred to as (), rice cooked in this manner is called , it is sometimes also referred to as ''adha'' or ''qadha'' () in Levantine Arabic (literally meaning "pouring"), or ''tasha'' () in Egyptian Arabic. And other languages use roots that developed from onomatopoeia: * () in Nepali * () in Bengali

References

{{Herbs and spices Uttar Pradeshi cuisine Bengali cuisine Herb and spice mixtures Cooking techniques Bangladeshi cuisine Indian cuisine Pakistani cuisine

Ingredients used

Terminology

See also

References