The Pantry

Every ingredient in the atlas — what it is, what it is called, and where on the map it belongs.

• Ajwain carom seed
  Tiny seeds with a thyme-like punch: a little transforms breads and fried snacks.
• Almond badam
  Blanched and ground, it thickens and enriches a Mughal gravy; slivered, it crowns a sweet.
• Amaranth Seed latte ko biu · rajgira · ramdana
  A tiny pale seed that pops like miniature corn in a dry pan and tastes toasted and nutty.
• Amchur dry mango powder
  Dried unripe mango, ground: a souring agent that adds tartness without any liquid.
• Amla Indian gooseberry
  Indian gooseberry: fiercely sour, exceptionally high in vitamin C, used dried for tang and colour.
• Anardana dried pomegranate seed
  Dried pomegranate seeds: a tangy, fruity souring agent for chana, chutneys and stuffed breads.
• Arhar Dal Toor dal · tuvar dal · pigeon pea
  The split yellow pigeon pea that is simply what dal means across most of India.
• Asafoetida hing
  A pinch of dried resin, raw and acrid, that turns savoury and allium-like the moment it hits hot fat.
• Aubergine baingan · begun
  Glossy purple begun, grilled to smoke for bharta, or fried and simmered.

• Bajra pearl millet · bajri
  Pearl millet: the drought-hardy grain that grows where wheat struggles, ground for dense, earthy flatbreads.
• Banana blossom mocha · banana flower
  The purple flower-bud of the banana plant: fibrous, faintly astringent, cooked down into ghonto.
• Basmati rice
  Long-grain aromatic rice from the Himalayan foothills, aged for scent, prized for biryani.
• Bathua chenopodium greens
  A winter leafy green: mild and earthy, cooked down into saag, raita and parathas.
• Bel Bael · wood apple · stone apple · Bengal quince
  A hard-shelled fruit from Shiva's tree, cracked open for a sticky orange pulp that becomes summer's drink.
• Bhee lotus stem · lotus root · kamal kakri
  The crunchy, hole-riddled stem of the lotus, sliced into wheels and simmered until it gives, a Sindhi signature.
• Bitter Gourd karela · bitter melon · khatem
  A ridged green gourd, genuinely bitter, which salting tempers and nothing removes.
• Bitter Orange narenj · naranj · Seville orange · sour orange
  The sour, perfumed orange whose peel is candied for a wedding rice and whose bitterness sharpens a winter pot.
• Black cardamom badi elaichi · kali elaichi
  Smoke-dried pods, resinous and camphorous: a savoury spice, not a sweet one.
• Black peppercorn kali mirch · gol morich
  The original heat: Malabar's 'king of spices,' pungent warmth before chillies arrived.
• Black salt kala namak
  Sulphurous pink-grey rock salt, faintly eggy: the signature note of chaat.
• Bottle Gourd Lauki · ghiya · dudhi · calabash
  A pale mild gourd that takes on whatever it is cooked with, and must never taste bitter.
• Buckwheat Flour phapar ko pitho · kuttu ka atta
  Pale grey flour from a seed, not a grain, with no gluten and no patience for rough handling.

• Cashew kaju
  Ground to a paste it makes a gravy luxuriously smooth and pale: the richest thickener.
• Chaat masala
  The tangy, sulphurous street-food seasoning: amchur and black salt at its heart.
• Chana dal split chickpea lentil
  Split Bengal gram: nutty and firm, holding its shape in dals, stuffings, and sweets.
• Chanachur Bengali savoury mix
  Bengal's savoury fried snack mix: the eastern cousin of Bombay mix, over muri or by the handful.
• Chhurpi churpi · chugo · durkha
  Cheese pressed from buttermilk, eaten soft and crumbly or dried into bricks hard enough to break a tooth.
• Chickpea chana · chhola
  The nutty pulse of chana and chhola: whole, split, or ground, in curries and street food.
• Chironji charoli
  Small almond-like kernels: the quiet nutty richness in a Mughal sweet or gravy.
• Chura Chira · poha · chiura · flattened rice
  Parboiled rice rolled flat into papery flakes that soften in minutes without cooking.
• Cinnamon dalchini
  Warm, sweet bark: most South Asian cooking uses the stronger cassia, not true cinnamon.
• Clove laung · lobongo
  Dried flower buds, intensely warm and numbing: a few perfume a whole pot.
• Coconut nariyal · narkel
  Fresh, grated, or dried: the rich, sweet body of coastal and Bengali cooking.
• Coconut milk
  Pressed from grated coconut flesh: the rich, sweet liquid body of a coastal curry.
• Coriander seed dhania
  Round, citrusy seeds: the mild, warm bulk of a ground masala.
• Cumin jeera · jira
  Earthy, warm seeds: whole in a tempering, ground in a masala, toasted for depth.
• Curry Leaf Kadi patta · meetha neem
  A glossy aromatic leaf that gives up everything in hot fat and almost nothing dried.

• Daikon mooli · labu · white radish
  A long white radish that turns glassy and mild when simmered, and sharp as mustard when raw.
• Dalle Khursani dalle · akbare · cherry pepper
  A round red chilli the size of a cherry, as hot as a habanero, usually met in a jar of brine.
• Dried Mint na'na · podina
  Spearmint dried and crumbled, the green finish on Afghan yoghurt sauces, soups and doogh.
• Dried red chilli sukhi lal mirch
  Sun-dried whole chillies: smoky, deeper heat, cracked into hot oil or ground to powder.

• Elephant apple ou tenga · chalta
  Ou tenga: a large, hard, sour fruit that sours the fish curries of Assam and the delta fringe.
• Elephant Foot Yam Ol · suran · jimikand · oal
  A vast rough corm with dense speckled flesh that must be handled with acid or it bites back.

• Fennel seed saunf · mouri
  Sweet, licorice-scented seeds: a spice, a mouth-freshener, and a digestive in one.
• Fenugreek seed methi dana
  Hard amber seeds, bitter and maple-scented, tempered whole or ground into blends and pickles.
• Fiddlehead Fern niuro · ostrich fern tips
  The coiled tip of a young fern, picked in spring, tasting green and faintly bitter.
• Finger Millet kodo · ragi · mandua
  A tiny dark grain, milled to a purplish-brown flour that cooks into a stiff dense mass.
• Fresh coriander dhania patta · cilantro
  Bright green fresh herb, citrusy and clean: the near-universal finishing scatter.

• Gandana Afghan leek
  A flat-leaved Afghan allium, between a leek and a chive, cut again and again through the growing season.
• Garam masala
  A warm-spice blend, ground and added late: no single recipe, a hundred household versions.
• Garlic lasan · rosun
  Pungent cloves crushed into the base of a gravy: sweetens and deepens as it cooks.
• Garlic Chives Chinese chives · gau choy · jiucai · nira · buchu
  Flat-leaved chives that taste of garlic, the closest shop-bought stand-in for Afghan gandana.
• Ghee clarified butter
  Butter cooked until the milk solids brown and are strained away: nutty, high-smoke, long-keeping.
• Ginger adrak · ada
  Fresh pungent root, warm and citrusy, half the base paste, and a note of its own.
• Ginger-garlic paste
  Ginger and garlic ground together: the two-in-one base paste of countless gravies.
• Gram flour besan
  Ground chickpea flour: the batter of a pakora, the body of a sweet, a thickener besides.
• Green cardamom elaichi · choti elaichi
  Perfumed green pods that scent a Mughal korma and a Bengali payesh alike: whole or as seed.
• Green chilli hari mirch · kancha lanka
  Fresh green heat, slit into a dish: a New World fruit now central to the plate.
• Green pea matar
  Sweet green peas: winter's pop of sweetness in pulaos, gravies, and stuffings.
• Green Tea chai sabz · shin chai · qehwa
  Unoxidised tea leaves, brewed light with cardamom after every Afghan meal and boiled dark for the pink tea of special occasions.
• Gundruk gundruk ko saag
  Leaf mustard fermented sour, then sun-dried hard, and dry-roasted before it meets water.

• Hilsa ilish
  The oily, bony river fish Bengal waits all year for: the centrepiece of the delta.

• Indian bay leaf tej patta
  Indian bay: a cassia-family leaf, warmer and more cinnamon-like than the Mediterranean kind.

• Jaggery gur
  Unrefined cane sugar: deep, molasses-rich sweetness quite unlike white sugar.

• Kachri wild melon tenderiser
  A wild desert melon, dried and ground: a natural meat tenderiser with a tangy, sour edge.
• Kashmiri chilli powder
  Deep red, mild heat, high colour, used as much for its glow as its warmth.
• Kasundi Bengali mustard sauce
  Bengal’s fermented mustard sauce: sharp enough to sting the nose, like a subcontinental wasabi.
• Kasuri methi dried fenugreek leaves
  Dried fenugreek leaves, crushed to a maple-hay scent: the finishing note of a Mughal gravy.
• Kewra kewda · pandanus water
  Distilled screwpine flower: a drop perfumes a biryani; a spoon ruins it.
• Khoya mawa · reduced milk solids
  Whole milk simmered down to soft solids: the rich, quiet base under a great many sweets.
• Kidney bean rajma
  Red kidney beans: a New World bean now the heart of a Punjabi comfort dish.
• Kinema chembihik · hokuma
  Soybeans fermented sticky and stringy in a bamboo basket, pungent and deeply savoury.
• Koi fish climbing perch
  Climbing perch: a small, prized Bengali fish with firm flesh, cooked as tel koi.

• Mace javitri
  The lacy red aril around nutmeg: warmer and subtler than the seed it wraps.
• Makhana Phool makhana · fox nut · gorgon nut
  The puffed seed of a thorny water lily, grown in the ponds of Mithila and roasted white.
• Malai clotted cream top
  The clotted cream skin from simmered milk: richness for lassi, sweets and gravies.
• Masoor dal red lentil
  Red lentils: the quickest-cooking dal, everyday and forgiving.
• Meetha attar sweet ittar
  Sweet edible perfume: a drop or two scents an Awadhi biryani or sweet; a floral note, used by the drop.
• Melon seed magaz
  Pale seeds ground into a paste: a subtle thickener for rich pale gravies.
• Mint pudina
  Cool, bright herb: the green of a chutney, a raita, and a biryani's fresh lift.
• Moong dal mung lentil
  Mung lentils: light and easily digested, from everyday dal to sweet payesh.
• Mung Bean Starch green bean starch · laping starch
  Pure starch washed out of mung beans, which sets into a clear springy gel and nothing else.
• Mustard greens sarson ka saag
  Peppery mustard leaf, cooked down long into the north's beloved sarson ka saag.
• Mustard oil sarson ka tel · shorshe'r tel
  Pungent golden oil heated to smoking, then cooled: the defining fat of the River Delta.
• Mustard seed rai · shorshe
  Tiny pungent seeds: nutty when popped in oil, fierce when ground with water.

• Nettle sisnu · stinging nettle · bichhu buti
  A stinging weed that turns, after a minute in boiling water, into a dark iron-rich green.
• Nigella kalonji · kalo jeere
  Matte-black seeds with an oniony, faintly bitter bite, on the bread and in the tempering.
• Nolen gur date palm jaggery · khejur gur
  Winter-only date-palm sap sugar, smoky and caramel: the reason Bengali sweets taste of a season.
• Nutmeg jaiphal
  The warm, sweet seed twinned with mace, grated fresh in a breath, never by the spoon.

• Okra bhindi · dherosh
  Green ridged pods, faintly mucilaginous, cut and cooked dry to a tender bite.
• Onion pyaz · peyaj
  The base of half the subcontinent's gravies, sweated, browned, or fried to a sweet brown crisp.

• Panch phoron the Bengali five-seed
  Five whole seeds (mustard, fenugreek, nigella, cumin, fennel) bloomed in hot oil, never ground.
• Paneer Indian fresh cheese
  Fresh, non-melting acid-set cheese: mild and firm, made to soak up whatever it meets.
• Papdi
  Crisp fried dough discs: the crunchy base and scoop of papdi chaat.
• Parwal Parval · potol · pointed gourd
  A small striped gourd of the eastern plain, cooked as a vegetable and, remarkably, as a sweet.
• Pearl barley jau
  Hulled, polished barley: the chewy grain thickening haleem and hearty dishes.
• Pistachio pista
  Green, faintly sweet nuts, slivered over sweets and rice for colour and richness.
• Potato aloo · alu
  New World tuber, absorbed utterly: aloo, from the everyday to the festive.
• Puffed rice muri · mudi
  Light, airy puffed grains: the base of jhalmuri and bhel, muri by the handful.

• Qurut quroot · kashk · qurt
  Yoghurt strained, salted and dried into hard white balls, kept for winter and softened back into a sour sauce.

• Raisin kishmish
  Dried grapes, sweet and plump, scattered through pilaf and sweets for bursts of sugar.
• Red Pumpkin Kaddu · lal kaddu · sitaphal
  The orange-fleshed pumpkin of the northern plain, cooked sweet-and-sour and fed to crowds.
• Rohu rui
  Rui: the everyday freshwater carp at the centre of the Bengali fish-and-rice table.
• Rose water gulab jal
  Distilled rose petals: a floral perfume for sweets and drinks, powerful by the drop.
• Rugra Rugda · putka · khukhdi
  A wild forest puffball that surfaces for a few weeks after the first monsoon rain and is sold by the roadside.

• Sabja basil seed · tukmaria · tukh malanga · falooda seed
  Tiny black basil seeds that swell in water into soft, jelly-cloaked pearls: the texture in a glass of cooling sharbat.
• Saffron kesar · zafran
  The hand-picked crimson stigmas of a crocus: the costliest spice on earth, used in threads.
• Sattu Sattu · chana sattu · roasted gram flour
  Roasted gram ground to a flour that needs no cooking: the protein the eastern plain runs on.
• Semolina sooji · suji
  Coarse wheat, toasted golden: the grain of upma, halwa, and a crisp coating.
• Sesame Til · gingelly · benne
  One of the oldest cultivated oilseeds, and the winter sweet-maker of the northern plain.
• Sev
  Crisp fried gram-flour noodles: the crunchy scatter that finishes a chaat.
• Shahi jeera black cumin · caraway
  Dark, slender 'royal cumin': sweeter and more complex than ordinary cumin, for Mughal dishes.
• Shatkora Assam citrus
  The knobbly Sylheti citrus whose thick rind gives beef curries their sour, bitter perfume.
• Silver leaf varak
  Edible beaten silver, laid on sweets for celebration: decorative, tasteless, and worth a label check.
• Sinki
  Radish taproot fermented in a pit and dried, pale and fibrous where gundruk is leafy and dark.
• Sour Cherry alu balu · albaloo · morello cherry
  A small, sharp, deep-red cherry, too sour to eat fresh, that cuts the richness of lamb.
• Spinach palak
  Tender greens cooked down to saag: the base of palak dishes and winter greens.
• Spring Onion scallion · green onion · hariyo pyaj · negi
  An allium pulled before it bulbs, giving two vegetables on one stalk: a mild onion at the white end, a sharp herb at the green.
• Star fruit carambola · kamrakh · kamrak
  The ridged tropical fruit that cuts into a five-pointed star: tart and juicy, pressed into a cooling drink.
• Sukuti shakam · sukhayeko masu
  Meat air-dried hard in the winter cold, salt-cured and never smoked or sweetened.

• Tallow rendered mutton fat · charbi
  Rendered animal fat: the cooking medium of a dry, meat-eating country, richer and more savoury than oil.
• Tamarind imli · tetul
  Sticky sour pod-pulp: the subcontinent’s great souring agent, tart with a dark-fruit depth.
• Timur thingay · thingey · Nepal pepper · Sichuan pepper
  A dried husk, citrus-sharp, that numbs the tongue rather than burning it.
• Tomato tamatar
  New World fruit, now the tang and body of countless gravies, cooked down, not shortcut.
• Tsampa ngamphey · roasted barley flour
  Barley dry-roasted whole, then ground, so the flour is cooked before it meets water.
• Turmeric haldi · holud · manjal · pasupu
  The boiled, dried, ground rhizome that colours half the world: earthy backbone, not a showpiece.
• Tutti-frutti candied papaya
  Candied raw papaya, dyed and diced: the colourful sweet bits in zarda, breads and ice cream.

• Urad Badi Badi · bori · vadi · vadiyoo · sun-dried lentil dumpling
  Ground urad paste dried into hard nuggets that keep for a year and fry to a savoury crumb.
• Urad dal black gram
  Black gram: creamy and glossy, the body of dal makhani and the base of papads and batters.

• Vermicelli seviyan
  Fine wheat noodles, toasted: the strands of sheer khurma and Bengali payesh.

• Walnut charmaghz · akhrot · gerdu
  The Persian walnut, eaten with raisins and fresh cheese, set into milk fudge and boiled into tea.
• White pepper safed mirch
  The same berry, ripened and hulled: milder, earthier, used where black specks aren't wanted.
• White poppy seed posto · khus khus
  White poppy seeds, ground to a nutty paste: the body of Bengal’s posto dishes.

• Yellow split pea matar dal
  Yellow split peas: a sturdy pulse, the base of the curried-pea street dish ghugni.
• Yogurt dahi · doi
  Set curd, cooling on the plate, tenderising in a marinade, sweetened into Bengali mishti doi.