Tiffany Shelton - Indian Instant Pot Cookbook: Try Healthy and Easy Asian Meals for Everyday

India is a large country with a unique culture and traditions. We can divide India into four regions: North, South, East, and West India. There are several states in every region and each state has its exclusive recipes and methods of cooking. Its impossible to describe all the diversity of Indian food at once, but we always can try to get it to know it better. At first, lets see the most popular and traditional ways of cooking food all over India.

Tadka or Baghar

It is the process of tempering. It includes blooming spices in hot ghee to get deeper flavor and taste to food. This method is used to enrich the flavor of vegetables, daals, rice, dhoklas, and other dishes. Depending on the type of food, you need to adjust the cooking time. For example, for vegetable dishes, tadka is done at the beginning, whereas with daal, it is added on top at the end.

Each region of India has its own version of tadka, but almost always there are whole mustard and cumin seeds. You can recognize the region thanks to the ingredients used. You see onion and garlic? It may be Northern India. There are shredded coconut and curry leaves? Probably, Southern India, spices commonly added include asafoetida and chillis.

How do you cook tadka? At first, heat and melt the ghee, then reduce the heat and add spices. As they bloom, they will turn another color and fill your kitchen with a rich fragrance. You need to add things in the correct order to make a tadka: alliums, whole spices, herbs, powdered spices.

Dum

In Indian dum means breathe in. The main principle is cooking food in its own steam. It can be realized by covering a round, heavy-bottomed pot with a lid and slow-cooking over a low flame. In such a way of cooking, each spice and herbs give the dish their full taste and flavor.

Using a cast-iron oven with a heavy lid in modern cooking is an easy way to seal this sort of dish and simmer it. The old, traditional Indian style of cooking involves sealing a clay pot with wheat flour dough. It helps to trap the steam inside, saving the fragrance of the flavors.

Bhunao

It is similar to Asian stir-frying because you also need to cook at medium-high heat, stirring occasionally. But the main goal is the creation of a thick and spiced paste, which you can use as a base for gravy. Melt the ghee into the pan and add your ingredients (meat or vegetables) with spices. Brown every side, and then pour in some liquid to deglaze. Repeat several times. It helps to not burn all the spices and ingredients. In this way the flavor becomes deeper and aromatic.