Seasoning

Seasoning is the most important part of cooking that gives magical taste to a dish. Knowing this properly will be pretty crucial in making (m)any dishes.

For most of the dishes this is the first part of the preparation. Hence this post by itself does not constitute to be a recipe of a dish.

Ingredients -

• Mustard seeds
• Fenugreek seeds
• Coriander seeds
• Cumin seeds
• Curry leaves
• Dry red chillies / slit green chillies
• Optional: Peeled Garlic pods / Finely chopped Onion
• Optional: Asafetida (used as digestive aid)

Steps -

1. Take a vessel and pour few spoons of cooking oil. You can use canola, coconut, groundnut, or refined oil. Keep on a small flame. Let the oil warm a bit (couple of mins).
2. Put a teaspoonful of mustard seeds, wait for few seconds. Let it pop.
3. Put 8-10 fenugreek seeds and cumin seeds, wait for few seconds.
4. Put 1-2 red dry chillies or slit green chillies
5. Stir lightly with a wooden spoon.

Next step - transfer contents into the main dish you are preparing (refer to other posts).

Few different varieties of seasoning are possible. While other steps being common you can add either peeled garlic pods or finely chopped onion. You could even use a bit (1-2 grams) of asafetida dissolved into a spoonful of water. This acts as a digestive aid.

Tip - Never keep the flame high, seasoning is a delicate process that gets over in minutes, so you have only few mins to get it all right.