KITCHEN PRACTICE 2 — A Finishing Tadka, Poured Over Plain Lentils
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Chapter: Indian Cookery 3 — Tempering (Tadka/Chaunk)

TASK
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Cook a simple pot of plain lentils or rice, then make a separate
finishing tadka and pour it over the top just before serving. Taste
before and after the pour.

WHAT TO DO
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1. Cook a small pot of plain lentils or rice with nothing more than
   water and a little salt — deliberately bland, no spices at all.
2. Once cooked, spoon out and taste a small amount on its own before
   doing anything else.
3. In a small, separate pan, heat ghee or oil, test with a mustard
   seed, then add mustard seeds, cumin, and curry leaves in that
   order, exactly as in Kitchen Practice 1.
4. The moment the tadka is ready, pour the entire contents of the
   small pan — oil and spices together — directly over the pot of
   plain lentils or rice.
5. Stir briefly and taste again.

WHAT TO EXPECT
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- The plain lentils or rice, tasted first, should taste genuinely
  bland — a deliberate, honest baseline.
- Once the tadka is poured over and stirred through, the dish should
  taste dramatically more flavourful and aromatic, with real,
  distinct pops of whole spice throughout.
- The transformation should feel almost immediate and disproportionate
  to how little time the actual tadka itself took to make.

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
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Tasting the plain base first is what makes the tadka's own real
impact undeniable — the same handful of spices, bloomed for well
under a minute in a completely separate pan, can genuinely transform
an otherwise bland dish. This is the exact technique Chapter 6's dal
depends on, practiced here on a deliberately simple base so the
tadka's own contribution is as clear as possible.