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 Ghee is a type of clarified butter, originating from South Asia. It is commonly used for cooking, as a Traditional medicine of India, traditional medicine, and for Hinduism, Hindu religious rituals. Description Ghee is typically prepared by ...

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 Curry is a dish with a sauce or gravy seasoned with spices, mainly derived from the interchange of Indian cuisine with European taste in food, starting with the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch and British, and then thoroughly internatio ...

or similar dish, or it may be added to a dish at the end of cooking, just before serving (as with a

dal Dal is a term in the Indian subcontinent for dried, split pulses. Dal or DAL may also refer to: Places Cambodia *Dal, Ke Chong Finland * Laakso, a neighbourhood of Helsinki India * Dal Lake, in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India * 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 Cumin (, ; ; ''Cuminum cyminum'') is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae, native to the Irano-Turanian Region. Its seeds – each one contained within a fruit, which is dried – are used in the cuisines of many cultures in both whole ...

seeds,

black mustard ''Rhamphospermum nigrum'' (syns. ''Brassica nigra'' and ''Sinapis nigra''), black mustard, is an annual plant native to cooler regions of North Africa, temperate regions of Europe, and parts of Asia. It is cultivated for its dark-brown-to-black se ...

seeds In botany, a seed is a plant structure containing an embryo and stored nutrients in a protective coat called a ''testa''. More generally, the term "seed" means anything that can be sown, which may include seed and husk or tuber. Seeds are the ...

fennel Fennel (''Foeniculum vulgare'') is a flowering plant species in the carrot family. It is a hardy, perennial herb with yellow flowers and feathery leaves. It is indigenous to the shores of the Mediterranean but has become widely naturalized ...

seeds, '' kalonji'' (nigella seeds), fresh green chilis, dried red chilis,

fenugreek Fenugreek (; ''Trigonella foenum-graecum'') is an annual plant in the family Fabaceae, with leaves consisting of three small Glossary_of_leaf_morphology#Leaf_and_leaflet_shapes, obovate to oblong leaflets. It is cultivated worldwide as a semiar ...

seeds,

asafoetida Asafoetida (; also spelled asafetida) is the dried latex (Natural gum, gum oleoresin) exuded from the rhizome or tap root of several species of ''Ferula'', perennial herbs of the carrot family. It is produced in Iran, Afghanistan, Central As ...

, cassia,

clove Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, ''Syzygium aromaticum'' (). They are native to the Maluku Islands, or Moluccas, in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring, or Aroma compound, fragrance in fin ...

urad dal The black gram or urad bean (''Vigna mungo'') is a bean grown in South Asia. Like its relative the mung bean, it has been reclassified from the genus ''Phaseolus'' to ''Vigna''. The product sold as black gram is usually the whole urad bean, wher ...

curry leaves Curry is a dish with a sauce or gravy seasoned with spices, mainly derived from the interchange of Indian cuisine with European taste in food, starting with the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch and British, and then thoroughly internation ...

, chopped

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classifie ...

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...

, or

tejpat ''Cinnamomum tamala'', Indian bay leaf'','' also known as tejpat'', ''tejapatta'','' Malabar leaf, Indian bark, Indian cassia, or malabathrum, is a tree in the family Lauraceae that is native to northern India (Assam and the Western Himalayas), ...

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 Odia cuisine is the cuisine of the Indian state of Odisha. Compared to other regional Indian cuisines, Odia cuisine uses less oil and is less spicy, while nonetheless remaining flavorful. Rice is the staple food of this region. Mustard oil i ...

and

Bengali cuisine Bengali cuisine is the culinary style of Bengal, that comprises Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, and Assam's Karimganj district. The cuisine has been shaped by the region's diverse history of Bengal, history and climate. It is k ...

, mixtures of whole spices called

pancha phutaṇa Pancha may refer to: *Pancha (garment), an item of male clothing worn in South Asia *A clan of the Bharwad people of India *Pancha Carrasco (1826–1890), Costa Rica's first woman in the military *Pancha Merino (born 1973), Chilean actress and tel ...

panch phoron Panch phoron (Pānch phoron (), Panch phoran ( Bhojpuri:𑂣𑂁𑂒 𑂤𑂷𑂩𑂢), pānch phodan or pāncha phutaṇa (), is a whole spice blend, originating from eastern part of India, used as a prominent ingredient in the cuisines of ...

, 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 Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

* () 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 Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

* () 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 Bhojpuri may refer to: * Bhojpuri language, an Indo-Aryan language of India and Nepal * Bhojpuri grammar, grammatical rules of the language * Bhojpuri nouns, nouns of the language * Bhojpuri people, people who speak the language * Bhojpuri region ...

* () in

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India **Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...

*''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 Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabis, Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a ...

* () 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 Caribbean Hindustani () is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Caribbean people and the Indo-Caribbean diaspora. It is a koiné language mainly based on the Bhojpuri and Awadhi dialects. These Hindustani dialects were the most-spoken dialec ...

*''čhaunk'' ( چھونک) in

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

Rajasthani Rajasthani may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Rajasthan, a state of India * Rajasthani languages, a group of Indic languages spoken there * Rajasthani people, the native inhabitants of the state * Rajasthani architecture, Indian ar ...

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

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

* () in

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of South India ** Telugu literature, is the body of works written in the Telugu language. * Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Tel ...

* () in

* () 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 Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 ...

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 Levantine Arabic, also called Shami (Endonym and exonym, autonym: or ), is an Varieties of Arabic, Arabic variety spoken in the Levant, namely in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and southern Turkey (historically only in Adana Prov ...

(literally meaning "pouring"), or ''tasha'' () in

Egyptian Arabic Egyptian Arabic, locally known as Colloquial Egyptian, or simply as Masri, is the most widely spoken vernacular Arabic variety in Egypt. It is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, and originated in the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt. The esti ...

. And other languages use roots that developed from

onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia (or rarely echoism) is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetics, phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias in English include animal noises such as Oin ...

: * () in Nepali * () in

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