SPICY TADKA
Play mix and match with tadkas.
Flavour fish fillets with Gujarati vaghar or stir-fry Brussels sprouts in Maharashtrian phodni.
The ghee shimmered in the pan, calm on the surface, intensely hot just below. In went the spices: asafoetida, cumin, garlic. When the sputtering and frothing of bubbles slowed down and the spices gave their souls over to the hot fat in a cloud of aroma, I added a tablespoon of orange zest, took the pan off the flame and poured the contents into split masoor daal. With a last splutter of protest it blended in, carrying the flavours of the spice to every drop of the dish in a sigh of orange-scented steam.
Yes you read right. I just put orange zest in a daal tadka. While working on an article on zest recently, I learnt that we discard the best part of the citrus fruit in India - the skin. Full of aromatic oils, it is incredibly rich in phytonutrients and vitamin C. That makes zest ideal to help the body absorb the iron and protein in daal.
We usually do things a certain way because that's what we have been taught. Adding a tadka, which you may know as chhaunk, bagar, vaghar, phodni, poppu or phoron depending on which part of the country you come from, is one of the first cooking techniques we learn in the Indian kitchen. Applied to just about every dish, except dessert, this technique involves frying a selection of whole spices in hot fat (ghee or oil) to liberate their essential oils and flavours. What is even more fascinating is this unifying concept is incredibly diverse. Yet the tadka hasn't moved beyond its role as a tempering for traditional dishes.
A simple tadka for mattha, a yogurt-based drink, got me thinking about experimenting with tempering.
In the North, yoghurt is considered too cool a food for the winter so its inherent cooling properties are warmed up by tempering it with cumin, garlic and sometimes chilli. As I added cumin, garlic and green chillis to hot ghee to temper buttermilk one day, it struck me that garlic-flavoured buttermilk would be incredible to poach chicken in. I was right. My chicken turned out wonderfully soft, delicately redolent of garlic and cumin and packed a subtle kick of green chilli. It's now a regular on our menu in myriad ways - hot, cold, in sandwiches, wraps or on salads. That successful experiment turned my attention to other spice combinations in tadkas.
These change as you travel through India. And each has potential for new combinations.
A Maharashtrian phodni of asafoetida, cumin, curry leaves, garlic and chillies makes a wonderfully aromatic, spicy start for a stir-fry of Brussels sprouts, taking away the sulphurous smell the sprouts have.
And at the risk of upsetting my Gujarati ancestors, I have to share that the vaghaar of asafoetida, mustard, kokum, curry leaf and chillies used for the legendary Gujju sweet daal is amazing to cook fillets of fish in. Simply temper oil with the spices and lay the fish over, pressing gently so the spices stick. Flip over when the pan facing side is evenly cooked and cook the other side till done. Serve over hot rice so that the flavoured oil of the tadka trickles down to the bottom of the bowl.
South Indian sambhar tadkas can be used to make an exceptionally smoky, spicy stir-fried chicken or sprinkle for potato wedges.
And Bengali paanch phoron, the legendary Bengali five-spice mix of fenugreek, nigella, cumin, fennel and radhuni makes a fabulously crusty rub for lamb. The tadka has evolved as it travelled to adapt itself to what was locally available in the region. Which is why everything from the fat used to the spice combinations varies as one travels through the Indian subcontinent.
And abroad, to places that have Indian diasporas such as South Africa, West Indies and the UK. In fact in Trinidad, pigeon peas are 'chunkayed' (a derivation of the word chhaunk) with sliced garlic and whole jeera (cumin) even today.
However some spices are extremely local and haven't made it to the larger culinary map. Like Uttaranchal's jambu grass. This grass has a chive-like flavour and is used in its dried form in Pahari chhaunks for daals. I use it very successfully to smoke fish and chicken. The result is a hauntingly smoky, garlicky flavour.
Tamils like to temper dishes with channa and urad daal. These daals, when roasted in oil, take on a wonderfully nutty flavour and texture that makes an ideal crust for coating meat and vegetables along with spices prior to roasting. As controversial as my suggestions might sound to purists, my experiments are not about creating bizarre combinations. Experimenting is fun and can lead to delicious discoveries.
But one does not always need to reinvent things to cook well. It is possible to play with flavours without going against traditional practices - a tadka of whole spices added to a meat dish prior to cooking ensures the flavours infuse through the dish as it cooks. It is a practice that no new experiments can better. I don't try to. But I find adding a few sprigs of rosemary to the tadka results in fabulously aromatic results, lacing the smoky spices with dark green notes. That rosemary also helps in digesting meat dishes, especially lamb, beef and pork, makes the herb an even more appealing ingredient.
I am not doing anything that has not been done before. As new ingredients arrived, cooks included them in tadkas. A classic example is the chilli. It's not an indigenous ingredient, arriving in India with the Portuguese in the 16th century. But it was used later to spice tadkas as a cheaper option to pepper. So why stop innovating ? With all the wonderful ingredients we have access to today, there are a host of things that can be added to enhance tadkas.
Take a few leaves from Thai cuisine: use lemongrass or Kaffir lime leaves and zest in a tadka for rassam or even moong or masoor daal. Add citrus zests to tadkas for anything from daals to pulavs and curries to uplift the dish and stir in valuable nutrients.
In short, go forth and indulge in some tadka lagana as spicing up, albeit of a different sort, is known in Bollywood.
----Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal TOICREST September 17, 2011
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