Pantry Glossary

Brief, straightforward explanations for the flours, spices, chutneys and staple ingredients mentioned across the recipes and technique notes in this collection.

Ajwain (Carom Seeds): Small seeds carrying an intense, thyme-like bite, kneaded into pastry doughs for samosa and kachori casings. Beyond the flavour they bring, they're credited with easing digestion of fried food and adding a background warmth.
Amchur (Dried Mango Powder): Green mango, dried and ground to a powder. It carries sourness into chaat masala and into fillings where fresh citrus won't work, with a fruitier edge than tamarind or lime.
Atta (Whole Wheat Flour): Whole wheat, milled fine, the everyday flour for flatbreads and, in some regional kitchens, for puris. Keeping the bran and germ in place gives atta a denser chew and a faint nuttiness that maida lacks.
Besan (Gram Flour): Ground from skinned, split chickpeas (chana dal). Pakora and bhajiya batter, dhokla, khandvi, sev and boondi all start here. Add water in a slow stream while whisking to keep the batter lump-free, and give it a quick dry roast first when a recipe calls for steaming rather than frying.
Besan Batter Consistency Terms: Three working bands cover besan batter thickness in this library: ribbon-consistency, where it runs off a spoon in one slow, unbroken ribbon; coating-consistency, where it leaves a thin film on the back of a spoon; and pouring-consistency, flowing as freely as heavy cream. Judging by these cues beats trusting a flour-to-water ratio alone.
Besan ka Sev: Simply sev with its flour spelled out — the name exists mainly to separate gram-flour sev from similar fried, noodle-shaped garnishes made from other flours.
Boondi: Seasoned gram-flour batter, dripped through a perforated spoon into hot oil to fry into small round droplets. Sweet boondi goes into desserts, while the salted kind tops chaat and stirs into raita.
Chaat Masala: Dried mango powder and black salt anchor this tangy spice blend, rounded out with roasted cumin, coriander and other spices. It's a finishing sprinkle only — over chaat, fruit or roasted snacks — never an ingredient cooked into the dish.
Chana Dal (Split Chickpeas): Chickpeas, split and skinned — a different ingredient from the whole chickpeas used for chole. Some fillings call for it ground, and South Indian tempering sometimes uses it whole for a nutty crunch.
Curry Leaves: Leaves from the curry tree, fried briefly in hot oil as a tempering step common to South and West Indian cooking. Fresh or dried both work, and despite sharing a name, they have no connection to curry powder.
Dahi (Yogurt): Thick plain yogurt, whisked until smooth and, depending on the dish, lightly sweetened or salted before it's spooned over dahi puri, aloo tikki chaat or papdi chaat. Full-fat, well-set yogurt keeps its texture better than thinner versions.
Date-Tamarind Chutney: Tamarind simmered with dates (or jaggery) and spices into a thick, cooked chutney, built to supply the sweet counterpoint that keeps chaat's heat and tang from overwhelming the plate.
Dhania (Coriander): One word, two ingredients: the dried seed, used whole or ground into spice blends, and the fresh leaf, used as a garnish and as the backbone of green chutney.
Dhokla Batter: Besan batter, either naturally fermented or quickly leavened, steamed into a spongy cake and topped with a mustard-seed-and-curry-leaf tempering. The gram flour batter technique guide walks through getting this step right.
Garam Masala: Cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and black pepper typically anchor this warming spice blend, among other spices depending on the household. It goes in near the end of cooking, since extended heat dulls its aroma.
Garlic Chutney (Dry): Garlic, dried red chillies and, often, desiccated coconut, pounded coarse rather than blended smooth. Most people know it as the dry chutney packed inside a Mumbai vada pav.
Ghee (Clarified Butter): Butter simmered until the water cooks off and the milk solids separate, leaving behind a shelf-stable fat with a nutty aroma and a high smoke point — useful for tempering and worked into some doughs.
Ginger-Garlic Paste: Fresh ginger and garlic, roughly equal parts, ground together into a smooth paste. It's the base aromatic behind marinades like chicken tikka and behind a number of gravies.
Green Chutney (Coriander-Mint Chutney): Coriander leaves, mint leaves, green chillies and a souring agent — lime or raw mango — blended raw into this chutney. It appears across nearly every chaat and a long list of fried snacks.
Gud / Jaggery: Sugarcane juice or palm sap, boiled down into an unrefined block sugar. Chutneys and some spice pastes lean on it for a deeper, faintly mineral sweetness refined sugar can't match.
Haldi (Turmeric): Turmeric root, dried and ground, added in small amounts for colour and a faint earthy bitterness. It belongs early in the cooking process — stirred in at the last moment, it tastes raw and chalky instead.
Hing (Asafoetida): A sharp, pungent resin, most often sold pre-ground and cut with rice flour. Hot oil mellows it into something savoury and almost umami within seconds, which is why a pinch usually opens a tempering — particularly in garlic-free dishes.
Idli Rava: A coarse rice grit, parboiled and milled specifically for idli and dosa batters — not the same product as semolina (sooji), which comes from wheat rather than rice.
Imli (Tamarind): Sour pulp from inside the tamarind pod, available as a block, a concentrate or a ready paste. Simmered with jaggery and spices, it becomes the sweet-sour chutney sitting at the center of most chaat.
Jeera (Cumin Seeds): Whole cumin seeds are usually the first thing into the pan — bloomed briefly in hot oil or ghee to release their aroma before any other ingredient joins the tempering.
Kala Namak (Black Salt): Its naturally occurring sulphur compounds give this mineral salt a distinctive smell, and that smell is exactly why chaat masala and spiced chaat water depend on it. A little goes a very long way — it never replaces everyday table salt.
Kasuri Methi (Dried Fenugreek Leaves): Fenugreek leaves, dried and crushed between the palms right before use. Stirred in close to the end of cooking, they bring the slightly bitter, hay-like note familiar from North Indian gravies and some tikka marinades.
Khoya / Mawa: Whole milk, simmered slowly until it reduces to a dense, slightly grainy paste of milk solids. It belongs more to festive snack variations and sweets than to everyday chaat.
Kokum: Deep purple fruit rind, dried and used as a souring agent in parts of Western India, with a gentler, fruitier sourness than tamarind. It turns up now and then in regional chutney variations.
Lal Mirch (Red Chilli Powder): Dried red chillies, ground fine, supplying both colour and heat. Different regional blends land at very different heat levels, so treat the amounts in these recipes as a starting point to adjust, not a fixed target.
Maida (Refined Wheat Flour): A finely milled, low-protein white flour, closer to cake flour than to bread flour. Samosa and kachori pastry rely on it, and so does bhature dough — whole wheat flour swapped in gives a denser, less flaky or puffed result.
Momos Dough: Just refined flour and water, kneaded into a simple unleavened dough and rolled thin to wrap steamed dumpling fillings. It has to stay pliable enough to pleat without splitting, yet dry enough not to stick to the hands.
Moong Dal (Split Mung Bean): Split mung beans, sold skin-on or skin-off, that turn up in savoury pakoras, certain dhokla variations and lighter snack batters.
Mustard Oil: Oil pressed from mustard seeds, sharp and pungent in its raw state. Tradition heats it past its smoke point before use specifically to tame that bite — standard practice across parts of North and East Indian cooking.
Paneer: Hot milk curdled with an acid, then pressed into a fresh cheese that holds its shape under heat instead of melting. It's cubed for paneer tikka or crumbled into stuffed snacks, with no culturing or ageing step involved.
Papdi: A flour-semolina-oil dough rolled thin and fried into a small, flat, crisp disc — the base layer under papdi chaat and sev puri. It should shatter on the first bite, never bend.
Poha (Flattened Rice): Rice that's been parboiled, pressed flat and dried, so a quick rinse and a brief steam is all it takes — no boiling required. Beyond the breakfast dish sharing its name, poha also shows up folded into chivda mixes.
Puri (Chaat Shell): Semolina or wheat dough, rolled into small rounds and fried until they puff hollow — the crisp shell behind pani puri and dahi puri. A separate, unrelated puri — puffed wheat bread served at meals — shares only the name.
Rai / Sarson (Mustard Seeds): Black or brown round seeds that crackle the instant they meet hot oil. South and West Indian tempering usually opens with them, frequently alongside curry leaves and urad dal.
Rava / Sooji (Semolina): Durum wheat milled to a coarse grain, used for pani puri shells, upma and instant rava dosa. Fine-grade and coarse-grade rava behave differently in a batter, so a recipe's grade note is worth following rather than guessing.
Rice Flour: Rice milled to a fine flour, called for in some dosa and idli batter variations and as a thickener in certain chutneys or batters. It doesn't behave like wheat flour, so it isn't a drop-in swap in gluten-based doughs.
Sabudana (Sago / Tapioca Pearls): Small pearls processed from tapioca root. Being grain-free makes it a fasting-day staple, and it's the backbone of sabudana vada. The pearls hydrate through a long soak, not a boil.
Sev: Thin gram-flour noodles, extruded through a perforated press and fried until crisp. Works as a stand-alone snack and as the crunchy finishing scatter over bhel puri and sev puri.
Tadka / Tempering: A short, hot-oil-or-ghee fry of whole spices, sometimes with aromatics added, meant to unlock their flavour right before the mixture gets stirred into a finished or near-finished dish. The dedicated technique guide covers the method step by step.
Urad Dal (Split Black Gram): A starchy, dense pulse that, once soaked and ground, gives idli and dosa batter their lift and medu vada its body. Whole and split-skinned forms don't behave the same way in a batter, so one can't simply replace the other.