Transcript:

Hi, welcome to another episode of "A Little Something About Everything." So, people always ask me, "Indian food, it's very complicated to make." And I tell them, "No, no, no, Indian food is not complicated to make; it is methodical." There's a method. Once you follow the method, it becomes easy.

So, let's start with the tempering. So, in tempering, take a little bit of oil. And the first thing you do is add mustard seeds to it—put it on a high flame, and add mustard seeds to it. Now, why do we add mustard seeds? Because the oil has what is called a smoke point. Now, if you overheat the oil to the smoke point, it starts denaturing the oil. So, when you add the mustard seeds to the oil, and when the mustard seeds start spluttering, you know that the oil is hot enough and you can turn the flame down. So, you prevent the oil going to the smoke point.

So, the first thing you add to tempering is mustard seeds. After that, you add either some dal—so, urad dal—or some peanuts or something. That is to bring the temperature of the oil a little bit lower than what it was when the mustard seeds were spluttering. Why? Because the next thing you add to the tempering is curry leaves and green chilies.