By Bornika Das
Spices are the must haves of the Indian kitchen. They contain a plethora of flavours and enhances the dishes from ordinary to extraordinary. The spices available in the Indian kitchen are in the form of ground, powdered, dried, soaked, or used whole.
It is a small dried fruit of wild celery. It is a flowering plant that is widely grown in South Asia, It is often confused as with ajwain. It is widely used in Bengali cuisine..
It is a type of lichen with a light woody scent. This spice is most commonly found in Chettinad and Maharashtrian cuisines. It has no taste of its own.
It is a distinctive flavoured Meghalayan spice. It is most commonly called Szechuan pepper. It has a slight lemony overtones and create a tingly numbness.
It is the seed of Cleome Viscosa, it is a little-known wild edible plant of the Indian Himalayas. It has a beautiful earthy aroma and distinct flavour. It is a tiny, dark brown, granular seed.
This is generally grown in Himacha Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Ratanjot is a natural food colouring that gives the famous Kashmiri dish Rogan Josh its signature crimson colour.
This is a high curcumin turmeric native to Meghalaya, and is regarded as one of the finest turmerics in the world.
It is a sun dried fruit used in Kerala to flavour curries. This add a pleasant sourness to the curries.