Okanagancook
I am delighted to see these. The solid tava or tawa is the kind I was speaking about. The one with the holes is much more interesting. It has the two extra upright rods for certain reasons. First, you can place this tava on an open flame stove or ‘chulha’. Then place your cooking pot on top of it. And behind the two slats you can place a ‘Soop’ or ‘Soopda’ which is a metal thingamijing for shaking the flax off the grains. Do you know what I mean? I can post pictures from the internet but I am not allowed to do that here. The reason for putting the soop behind the vessel is to have the flame concentrate under the vessel. So that is one purpose.
The other purpose for those upright slats is for the time this tava is placed upside down on top of a vessel and some burning coals placed on top of that. It provides the DUM effect for both top and bottom heating. I have seen these slats on only very few pieces so I assume this style is older. Now you can buy a tava with holes without these slats. And I use it to roast papad on an open flame. Or puff rotis on a flame. Such tavas are also very useful if you have an electric ring burner. This allows you to move the roti from the solid tava to a surface that is not as hot as the electric rings and puff the rotis that way. You take off the tava each time and put it back on just when you want to puff the roti or roast the papad.
What fun to see the gadgets all of you have discovered!
Bhukkhad.
