Ingredient Glossary

Consider this the footnotes page: a running list of the pantry items, techniques and spice names mentioned in passing throughout the rest of the site, defined here in one place instead of repeated in every entry.

Ajwain (Carom Seeds): These small seeds smell intensely of something close to thyme, and cooks fold them into the pastry for samosas and kachori, along with similar fried casings, partly as a traditional aid to digestion and partly for the warm undertone they leave behind.
Amchur (Dried Mango Powder): Unripe mango, dried and ground fine, brought in wherever a dish wants sourness but fresh citrus won't do the job — chaat masala relies on it, as do fillings where lemon juice would make things soggy. Its particular brand of tartness doesn't taste like tamarind or lime at all.
Atta (Whole Wheat Flour): The everyday flour behind daily flatbreads, and behind puris in certain regional kitchens. More bran and germ survive the milling than they do in maida, leaving a heavier bite and a faint, nutty taste.
Besan (Gram Flour): Chickpeas, skinned and split, ground down into the flour that props up pakoras, bhajiya, dhokla and khandvi, plus crisp toppings like sev and boondi. Pour water in too fast while mixing it and lumps form instantly; a quick dry roast beforehand is common whenever it's headed for a steamed batter.
Besan Batter Consistency Terms: Across this library, batter thickness gets described in three ways: ribbon-consistency, falling from a spoon in a slow, continuous fold; coating-consistency, clinging thin to a spoon's surface; and pouring-consistency, running freely like heavy cream — terms that hold up better in the kitchen than any flour-to-water ratio could.
Besan ka Sev: Another name for Sev, used to specify that gram flour, rather than some other base, is what went into this particular fried, noodle-like garnish.
Boondi: Seasoned gram-flour batter, dripped through the holes of a special spoon so it lands in hot oil as tiny round droplets and fries up that way. Sweet versions go into desserts; the salted kind tops off chaat or gets stirred into raita.
Chaat Masala: Black salt and dried, powdered green mango carry this tangy spice mix, with toasted cumin and coriander filling out what's left. Nothing about it gets cooked — it's finished with a dusting over chaat, fruit, or anything roasted.
Chana Dal (Split Chickpeas): Chickpeas that have been split and had their skins removed, distinct from the whole chickpea (chole), used in assorted fillings and sometimes tempered whole in South Indian cooking for the nutty bite it adds.
Curry Leaves: Leaves from the curry tree, briefly fried in hot oil as a core part of tempering throughout South and West Indian cooking. Fresh or dried both work, and despite the name's suggestion, they have no relation to curry powder.
Dahi (Yogurt): Thick dairy yogurt, plain to start, whisked until silky and sometimes touched with a bit of sugar or salt before it finds its way onto a plate of dahi puri, or gets spooned over aloo tikki or papdi chaat. The fuller-fat, firmly set kind resists breaking down the longest.
Date-Tamarind Chutney: Tamarind meets dates, or jaggery, simmered slowly with a few spices until the whole mixture reduces thick, delivering the sweet-sour balance that keeps chaat's spice and tang from running unchecked.
Dhania (Coriander): One word, two different ingredients: the dried seed, which goes into spice mixes either whole or powdered, and the fresh leaf (cilantro), which does garnish duty and also forms the bulk of green chutney.
Dhokla Batter: Besan batter, lifted either by fermentation or a quick chemical reaction, goes into the steamer here and comes out a soft, spongy cake, topped off with mustard seed and curry leaf fried in oil; full handling notes live in the gram flour batter guide.
Garam Masala: Warmth rather than heat defines this blend — cardamom, cinnamon, clove and black pepper feature most often alongside whatever else a particular household adds — and it's stirred through late in the cooking, letting the aroma stay bright instead of burning off.
Garlic Chutney (Dry): Garlic, dried red chilli, and frequently desiccated coconut, pounded together into a coarse, dry mixture rather than any kind of smooth paste — instantly recognizable as the stuff a Mumbai street stall packs into a vada pav bun.
Ghee (Clarified Butter): Simmer butter long enough and the milk solids and water cook away, leaving behind a fat that keeps at room temperature, tolerates serious heat before smoking, and carries a toasty, nutty smell — put to work in tempering and plenty of doughs.
Ginger-Garlic Paste: Equal measures of fresh ginger and garlic, ground down together until smooth, forming a base note in marinades (chicken tikka leans on it heavily) and running through a long list of gravies besides.
Green Chutney (Coriander-Mint Chutney): Blended raw rather than cooked, this one combines coriander and mint leaf, green chilli, and something sour, lime juice or raw mango usually, and shows up on practically every plate of chaat and most fried snacks on the side.
Gud / Jaggery: Unrefined sugar produced by slowly reducing sugarcane juice or palm sap, carrying a deeper, faintly mineral sweetness into chutneys and certain spice blends that refined white sugar simply can't replicate.
Haldi (Turmeric): Dried, ground turmeric root, measured out in small amounts for its color and a gentle earthy bitterness. It belongs early in the cooking process — stirred in at the end, it tastes raw and slightly chalky instead.
Hing (Asafoetida): Sold ground and usually cut with rice flour, this pungent resin turns savory and faintly umami the moment it meets hot oil for even a few seconds. A pinch is standard practice at the start of a tempering, particularly when garlic isn't part of the dish.
Idli Rava: A coarse grit milled from parboiled rice specifically for idli and dosa batter — a different product entirely from semolina (sooji), which is milled from wheat.
Imli (Tamarind): Sour pulp taken from inside the pod of the tamarind tree, sold as a solid block, as a concentrate, or already made into a paste. Cooked down slowly with jaggery and a few spices, it becomes the backbone chutney that nearly all chaat leans on.
Jeera (Cumin Seeds): Almost without exception, whole cumin is the first thing dropped into hot oil or ghee at the start of a tempering, bloomed briefly so its aroma releases before any other ingredient follows it into the pan.
Kala Namak (Black Salt): This mineral salt owes its unmistakable sulphurous smell to compounds that occur in it naturally, and it's barely optional in chaat masala or a glass of spiced chaat water. One shouldn't substitute it for regular table salt in equal amounts, since a little already goes a long way.
Kasuri Methi (Dried Fenugreek Leaves): Dried fenugreek leaves, crushed between the palms right before they're used, usually go in close to the finish of cooking, bringing a faintly bitter, hay-scented note recognizable in North Indian gravies and a good few tikka marinades.
Khoya / Mawa: Whole milk reduced slowly over heat until only a dense, slightly grainy paste of milk solids remains. It appears in certain festive snacks and sweets, rarely in everyday chaat.
Kokum: This dried purple-black rind does souring duty across parts of Western India, bringing a gentler, fruitier tartness than tamarind manages. A few regional chutneys call for it by name.
Lal Mirch (Red Chilli Powder): Dried red chillies, ground fine, prized as much for the color they lend as for actual heat. Because regional blends vary so widely in strength, any quantity given in a recipe here works better as a starting point than a strict rule.
Maida (Refined Wheat Flour): Milled fine and stripped of most protein, closer to cake flour than bread flour, this is what gives samosa and kachori casings, along with bhature dough, their tender, flaky or puffed quality — something whole-wheat flour alone can't deliver.
Momos Dough: Nothing but refined flour and water, kneaded without any leavening and rolled out thin, ready to wrap around a steamed dumpling filling. Pliable enough to pleat shut cleanly, yet dry enough that it won't stick to itself.
Moong Dal (Split Mung Bean): Small split pulses, available with their green skin on or removed, worked into savory pakoras, certain dhokla variations, and lighter batters for snacks.
Mustard Oil: Pressed straight from mustard seed, assertively sharp before it's ever heated, this oil gets warmed past its smoke point first so that raw bite calms down before anything else goes in — still a kitchen staple across the north and east of the country.
Paneer: Hot milk, split with an acid and pressed into a solid block, becomes this fresh cheese that won't melt under heat — no culture, no aging period needed. Cubed and seared, it's paneer tikka; crumbled, it fills out stuffed snacks instead.
Papdi: A flat, crisp disc fried from a dough of flour, semolina and oil, acting as the structural base under papdi chaat and sev puri. Done properly, it shatters at the first bite instead of bending.
Poha (Flattened Rice): Rice that's already been parboiled, flattened under pressure, and dried, so it skips boiling entirely and just needs a rinse and a brief steam. It lends its name to the breakfast dish built around it, and it shows up in chivda mixes too.
Puri (Chaat Shell): In this context, a tiny ball of dough, semolina or wheat, fried until it balloons hollow and crisp, destined for pani puri or dahi puri. Beyond sharing a name, it has no real connection to the puffed bread that goes by the same word at a regular meal.
Rai / Sarson (Mustard Seeds): These black or brown seeds snap loudly the second hot oil touches them. Hardly any tempering in South or West Indian kitchens skips this step, and they're usually joined there by curry leaf and urad dal.
Rava / Sooji (Semolina): Coarsely ground durum wheat, the stuff that gives pani puri shells their crispness and turns up again in upma and instant rava dosa. A recipe will usually name fine or coarse specifically, since the two grinds don't cook the same way at all.
Rice Flour: Rice milled down into a fine powder, useful for thickening a chutney or a batter and for a handful of dosa and idli variations that call for it specifically. Don't expect it to swap in for wheat flour in anything that depends on gluten.
Sabudana (Sago / Tapioca Pearls): Starchy little pearls drawn from tapioca root, central to sabudana vada and a common choice during religious fasts since no grain goes into making it. Soaking, not boiling, is how it properly plumps up.
Sev: Gram-flour batter, seasoned and extruded through a perforated press straight into hot oil, coming out as thin, crisp strands. Eaten alone it's a snack in its own right, and scattered over bhel puri or sev puri it becomes the crunch.
Tadka / Tempering: A quick fry of whole spices, joined sometimes by garlic or other aromatics, dropped into oil or ghee hot enough to pull their flavor loose before the whole mixture gets stirred into a dish that's done or almost there. See the dedicated guide on this site for the full method.
Urad Dal (Split Black Gram): A dense, starchy pulse responsible for the lift in fermented idli and dosa batter, and for the structure holding medu vada together, once it's been soaked and ground. The whole and split-and-skinned forms don't perform alike and shouldn't be swapped for one another.