Bakery & Cooking

TRS Coconut Powder is finely ground desiccated coconut — dry, pale and powdery rather than the shredded flakes sold for baking. Because it is so fine it dissolves into a gravy instead of sitting on top of it.

Best for

• South Indian and Sri Lankan coconut curries
• Chutneys, masala pastes and korma
• Laddu, barfi and coconut sweets

How to cook it

For a gravy, soak two or three tablespoons in warm water or warm milk for ten minutes, then blend to a smooth paste and stir it in near the end — added dry it will stay grainy. Do not let it boil hard once in, or the sauce splits. For sweets, dry-roast briefly first to bring out the aroma.

Pack and storage

300 g. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening.

TRS Rice Flour is finely milled white rice — soft, bright white and free of gluten. It gives crispness rather than stretch, which is why it belongs in fried batters and thin lacy dosas rather than in bread. This is the 1.5 kg pack.

Best for

• Rava dosa, neer dosa and appam
• Kozhukattai, modak and idiyappam
• Crisping pakora batter, and thickening sweets

How to cook it

For steamed doughs, pour boiling water onto the flour, stir with a spoon, and knead once it is cool enough to touch. For batters, keep them thin — rice flour keeps thickening as it stands, so check the consistency again right before you cook. A couple of spoonfuls stirred into a pakora batter is the easiest way to get a crisper finish.

Pack and storage

1.5 kg. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening.

TRS Gram Flour is besan, milled from split brown chickpeas — pale yellow, savoury, and naturally gluten-free. This is the 2 kg pack, the size that makes sense if you fry pakora regularly or cook for a large household.

Best for

• Pakora, bhajia and fritter batters in quantity
• Kadhi, besan chilla and dhokla
• Besan laddu, Mysore pak, and thickening gravies

How to cook it

Whisk the flour into the water gradually rather than the reverse — besan lumps at the first opportunity. Pakora batter wants the thickness of double cream and ten minutes of rest. For kadhi, blend the besan into cold yoghurt and raise the heat slowly, stirring, so it does not split. Either way, cook it a good ten minutes to lose the raw taste.

Pack and storage

2 kg. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening.

Anil Roasted Rava is semolina made from wheat that has been roasted before packing, saving the step of dry-roasting it yourself before cooking. It is commonly used in South Indian cooking to make dishes such as upma, rava idli, rava dosa and rava kesari.

The rava has a light, toasted aroma and a fine, grainy texture, cooking up into a soft consistency for savoury dishes or a slightly firmer one for sweets like kesari, depending on how much liquid is used.

How to use

• For upma, add the rava to hot water or a tempered pan and stir until it softens and thickens.
• For kesari, cook the rava with milk or water and sugar until it comes together into a thick, sweet dish.
• For idli or dosa batter, mix with yoghurt or a fermented batter as per your usual recipe.

Pack size: 1kg. Store in a cool, dry place in an airtight container.

TRS Bajri Flour is ground pearl millet — a grey-green wholegrain flour with an earthy, slightly bitter flavour that is quite unlike wheat. It is naturally gluten-free, which means it will not hold together as wheat dough does.

Best for

• Bajra roti and rotla, the Gujarati and Rajasthani winter bread
• Bajra khichdi and thick porridge
• Blending with wheat atta for a wholegrain chapati

How to cook it

Knead with hot water rather than cold and work the dough while it is still warm — that is what makes it pliable. Pat the roti out by hand between wet palms, or between two sheets of plastic, instead of using a rolling pin, and cook it straight away before it cracks. Bajra flour does not keep as well as wheat, so buy what you will use.

Pack and storage

1 kg. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening.

Weikfield Cornflour (Maismehl) 500g

Udhaiyam Jaggery Powder is unrefined cane sugar in granulated form, so it measures and dissolves like sugar instead of needing to be chipped off a solid block. The colour runs from gold to dark brown and the taste is deeper and more caramel-like than white sugar, which is why it is used where that flavour is wanted rather than simply for sweetness.

Best for

• Payasam, kheer and chakkarai pongal
• Sweets such as ladoo, halwa and adhirasam
• Balancing sourness in sambar, rasam and tamarind gravies

How to cook it

Dissolve it in a little hot water and strain before adding it to milk-based sweets, as jaggery can carry fine sediment and will split hot milk if added dry. Add it at the end of cooking rather than the start, and take the pot off the boil first. In savoury cooking a small piece stirred into a tamarind gravy rounds off the sourness without making the dish sweet.

Pack and storage

1kg jar. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Jaggery draws moisture from the air, so keep the jar closed or the powder will cake.

Telugu Idly Rava is a coarse semolina specially processed for making soft, fluffy idlis. A staple ingredient in South Indian households for quick and easy breakfast preparation.

Schani Natural Kolhapuri Jaggery Block is an unrefined, chemical-free sweetener made from sugarcane juice. This traditional sweetener is ideal for Indian sweets, desserts, and beverages.

Telugu Foods Bombay Rava, also sold as upma rava, is coarse wheat semolina, the granular flour left after the bran is removed. It is unroasted, so it needs a few minutes in a dry pan before it goes into a dish, and it cooks into distinct grains rather than a paste when the water ratio is right.

Best for

• Upma with onion, green chilli and curry leaves
• Rava dosa and rava idli
• Kesari, sheera and halwa

How to cook it

Dry roast the rava on medium heat for four or five minutes until it smells nutty and the grains move freely, then set it aside; skipping this is the usual reason upma turns to porridge. For upma, use one part rava to two and a half parts boiling water, add the rava in a steady stream while stirring constantly to stop lumps forming, then cover and cook on low heat for three to four minutes. For halwa, keep the same ratio but use milk or a milk and water mix.

Pack and storage

1kg pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening, in an airtight container.

Annam Dosa Powder Mix is a pre-ground rice and lentil flour blend that becomes dosa batter with nothing more than water and salt. It removes the soaking, grinding and overnight fermentation, so dosa stops being a weekend project.

Best for

• Plain and masala dosa on a weeknight
• Uttapam topped with onion, tomato and green chilli
• Paniyaram and quick tiffin breakfasts

How to cook it

Whisk the powder into water until smooth and just pourable, slightly thinner than pancake batter, and rest it twenty to thirty minutes so the flour hydrates fully. Heat a tava until water flicked on it skitters, wipe it with oil, pour a ladleful in the centre and spread outward in a spiral. Drizzle oil round the edge and lift when the base is golden and releases cleanly.

Pack and storage

1kg pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening.