Under €2

Aachi Chicken Curry Masala is a rich, full-bodied spice blend for classic Indian chicken curry. Made with coriander, cumin, pepper and warming spices, it creates a deeply flavourful gravy every time.

• Rich spice blend for authentic chicken curry
• Balanced coriander, cumin and warm spice base
  

Priya Instant Rava Idli Mix is a semolina-based idli mix that needs no overnight fermentation, so the batter rests for a few minutes and goes straight into the steamer. The idlis come out soft with the slightly grainy bite that rava idli is known for.

Best for

• A quick breakfast idli with coconut chutney
• Idli with sambar
• Lunch boxes and last-minute tiffin

How to cook it

Mix the powder with thick curd and water to a spoonable batter, adding the water a little at a time, and leave it to stand for ten to fifteen minutes so the rava swells. A tempering of mustard seeds, broken cashew and curry leaves stirred through at this point is traditional. Grease the idli plates, fill them three-quarters full and steam for ten to twelve minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Rest the plates for two minutes before unmoulding, or the idlis tear.

Pack and storage

200g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening.

Haldiram's Golden Mixture is a fine-cut namkeen of thin sev, fried split lentils, peanuts and small crisp flakes, seasoned with a mild everyday masala. The pieces are smaller than in a Punjabi or Bombay mix, which makes it easy to eat by the spoonful and just as easy to scatter over food.

Best with

• Tea-time snacking
• Topping chaat, dahi or poha
• Filling small bowls for guests

Pack and storage

150 g pack. Keep in a cool, dry place and seal the pack after opening.

Banana is called kela in Hindi and Banane in German. This is the common yellow dessert banana, with soft, sweet flesh once ripe and a thick peel that is removed before eating.

Beyond eating them plain, ripe bananas are used in Indian cooking for banana halwa or as an offering in pooja, while slightly under-ripe ones are sliced and fried into banana chips or cooked as a vegetable in some regional dishes.

How to use

• Leave at room temperature to ripen; a fully yellow peel with a few brown spots means it is ready to eat.
• Once ripe, they can be moved to the fridge to slow further ripening, though the peel will darken.
• Use within a few days of ripening for the best texture.

Haldiram's Boondi Plain is gram flour boondi fried crisp and salted, with none of the masala coating. Because it is simply seasoned it takes on whatever you put it with, which is why it is the version cooks keep for raita and rice.

Best with

• Stirring into boondi raita
• Topping curd rice, dal or khichdi
• Plain snacking for anyone avoiding spice

Pack and storage

200 g pack. Store in a cool, dry place and seal the pack after opening.

Townbus Cornflakes Mixture is a namkeen built on crisp cornflakes rather than gram flour, with fried lentils, peanuts and spices mixed through. The flakes stay light and shatter easily, so it eats as a lighter mixture than a sev-heavy one, and the seasoning is salty with a mild chilli edge. Children usually take to this one first.

Best with

• Tea and coffee
• A party or guest snack bowl
• Chaat, as a crunchy topping
• Lunch boxes and after-school snacking

Pack and storage

150g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Cornflakes go limp faster than fried snacks do, so transfer the mixture to an airtight jar as soon as the pack is opened.

Priya Sambhar Masala is the ground blend for South Indian sambar, so a pot needs only dal, tamarind and vegetables alongside it. It is rounded and mildly hot, with the roasted note that separates a sambar powder from a general-purpose curry powder.

Best for

• Sambar with drumstick, pumpkin or mixed vegetables
• Idli and vada sambar
• Kootu and other dal-and-vegetable dishes

Using it

Cook toor dal until it is soft enough to mash. Separately boil the vegetables with tamarind water and salt until tender, then add one and a half to two teaspoons of the masala for four servings and let it simmer for five minutes so the powder loses its raw edge before the dal goes in. Finish with a tempering of mustard seeds, dried red chilli, curry leaves and a pinch of asafoetida in oil, poured over the pot off the heat.

Pack and storage

100g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening.

TRS Amchur Powder is dried green mango, ground to a pale beige powder. It is a souring agent — sharp and fruity, with none of the wetness that lemon juice or tamarind would add to a dish.

Best for

• Chana masala, chaat masala and aloo chaat
• Dry vegetable stir-fries and stuffed parathas
• Marinades, and samosa and pakora fillings

Using it

Add it near the end of cooking rather than at the start — long heat dulls the sourness. Half to one teaspoon will sharpen a family-sized dish. Because it is dry, it is the right choice for anything that must not go watery, such as a paratha stuffing or a dry sabzi. A squeeze of lemon can stand in, but the flavour is fruitier, not the same.

Pack and storage

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

Priya Tomato Pickle is a cooked tomato pickle in oil, made without garlic. Unlike a cut-fruit pickle it has no firm pieces to bite through; it spreads like a thick chutney, sour and hot together, with the tomato cooked down until it darkens.

Best for

• Idli and dosa
• Curd rice and plain hot rice
• Chapati rolls and sandwiches

Serving

Because it is soft, it can be spread rather than spooned, which makes it the easiest of the pickles to use in a roll or on toast. Take it out with a dry spoon every time, and level the surface so the oil settles back over the pickle before the jar goes away. Do not return an unused portion from the plate to the jar. A teaspoon is enough alongside a full meal.

Pack and storage

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

Townbus Avalakki Mixture is the Karnataka-style snack mix built on roasted flattened rice, or avalakki, with fried lentils, peanuts, curry leaves and spices through it. It is lighter than a gram-flour mixture because the poha stays airy rather than dense, and the seasoning is savoury and mildly hot. Every handful comes out slightly different depending on what you pick up.

Best with

• Tea or coffee in the afternoon
• A snack bowl for guests
• Topped over curd rice or a plate of chaat
• Long journeys and desk drawers

Pack and storage

150g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Flattened rice softens quickly in damp air, so decant the mixture into an airtight jar once the pack is open.

Townbus Aloo Bhujia is the fine, tangled noodle namkeen made from gram flour and potato, fried crisp and seasoned with salt and mild spice. The strands are thin enough to break apart in the hand, which is why it works as well scattered over something as it does eaten by the handful. It is savoury and lightly hot rather than fiery.

Best with

• Tea or filter coffee in the afternoon
• Scattered over chaat, bhel or a plate of curd rice
• A bowl put out for guests alongside other namkeens
• Sprinkled on upma or poha for crunch

Pack and storage

150g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Bhujia loses its crispness quickly once air gets in, so press the air out of the bag and clip it shut, or tip the contents into an airtight jar.

Bad Reichenhaller Iodized Salt 500g

Haldiram's Cookie Heaven Coconut Cookies are sweet, crisp biscuits baked with desiccated coconut running right through the crumb — a bakery cookie, not a savoury snack.

The coconut keeps them short and buttery rather than hard, so they snap cleanly and melt quickly.

Best with

• Masala chai or filter coffee
• Lunchboxes and everyday snacking
• Serving alongside sweets at festivals

Pack and storage

180 g. Reseal and keep in a cool, dry place to stay crisp. Contains dairy.

MDH Chicken Masala is a straightforward everyday blend for chicken cooked in an onion and tomato gravy. It is balanced rather than specialised, with enough chilli to register and coriander and warm spices filling out the body.

Best for

• Home-style chicken curry with onion and tomato
• Chicken cooked with yoghurt or coconut milk
• Chicken keema and dry chicken fry

Using it

Brown the onion well, add ginger and garlic, then the masala, and fry it in the oil for thirty to forty seconds before the chicken goes in. Around two and a half teaspoons suits half a kilo of chicken. Let the chicken take colour in the masala before you add water, then simmer covered for fifteen to twenty minutes and reduce uncovered at the end.

Pack and storage

100g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening.

Cucumber, called kheera in Hindi and Gurke in German, is a smooth green vegetable with crisp, watery, mildly sweet flesh, most often eaten raw.

In Indian kitchens it is sliced into raita with yogurt, chopped into a kachumber salad with onion and tomato, or eaten plain with a little salt and chilli powder. In German cooking it is common in a simple vinegar salad (Gurkensalat) or on bread.

How to use

• Peel if the skin is thick or waxed, otherwise it can be left on and washed well.
• Slice just before serving, as cut cucumber releases water and softens.
• Keep in the fridge and use within about a week.

Telugu Foods Sakinalu is the Telangana festival snack: rice flour worked with sesame seeds and ajwain, piped into loose coils and deep fried until hard. This is the spicy version, so there is a clear chilli warmth behind the sesame. It is a substantial, brittle snack that shatters rather than crumbles, and the sesame is what people recognise it by.

Best with

• Tea or filter coffee
• Sankranti and other festival snack plates
• An evening snack with something plain alongside
• Sending to family, since it travels well

Pack and storage

130g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Sakinalu are fragile, so keep the pack somewhere it will not be knocked about, and move them to a rigid airtight container once opened to hold the crunch.

Beyond Kerala Banana Chips are raw banana slices fried in coconut oil and finished with rock salt — the chip sold by weight outside every bakery and bus stand in Kerala, where it is called kaya varuthathu or upperi.

Coconut oil is what sets these apart from an ordinary crisp: it gives the chip a distinct, faintly sweet aroma and a hard, clean snap rather than a greasy one. The rock salt is scattered on at the end, so the seasoning sits on the surface and hits first.

Eaten on their own with tea, packed for journeys, or served as part of a sadya spread. 100g. Keep the pack sealed and finish it within a day or two of opening — fried chips lose their crispness fast once air gets in.

Britannia Good Day Pistachio & Almond Cookies are butter cookies from Britannia's long-running Good Day range, made with visible pieces of pistachio and almond mixed into the dough. Good Day is one of India's most widely recognised biscuit brands.

The cookies have a rich, buttery taste with a crisp, crumbly texture, and the pistachio and almond pieces add a nutty flavour and light crunch to each bite.

How to use

• Ready to eat straight from the pack, on their own or with tea or coffee.

Pack size: 72g. Store in a cool, dry place and reseal the pack after opening to keep the cookies crisp.

Vegetables 

Priya Gongura Red Chilli Pickle is the sour roselle-leaf pickle with red chilli worked into it, so it runs hotter than the plain version while keeping the same distinctive leaf sourness underneath. It is made without garlic.

Best for

• Hot rice with a spoon of ghee
• Dal and rice, or ragi sangati
• Curd rice, which balances the heat

Serving

Start with half a teaspoon, since the chilli is noticeably forward here and it is easier to add a second spoon than to sit through the first one. Use a dry spoon and level the surface so the oil covers the pickle again before the jar goes away; pickle left above the oil line spoils first. Serve something plain alongside rather than another strongly spiced dish.

Pack and storage

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

Haldiram's Minute Khana Phulka Roti is a frozen thin wheat roti, rolled fine and part-cooked so it puffs on the pan in under a minute. It is the plainest bread in the range and made without dairy, which makes it the everyday one for a weekday meal.

Best for

• Everyday lunches and dinners with dal and sabzi
• Feeding a family without rolling dough
• Wrapping leftovers

How to cook it

Cook from frozen, never thawed. Heat a tawa over medium to high heat, lay the roti on the dry surface and cook about thirty to forty seconds a side, pressing with a cloth until it puffs up. Stack the cooked rotis in a covered container or cloth so they stay soft, and brush with ghee if you like.

Pack and storage

360 g pack containing 12 pieces. Keep frozen at -18°C. Do not refreeze once thawed.

MDH Meat Curry Masala is a dark, robust blend for slow-cooked mutton and lamb, where the spicing has to hold up over a long simmer. It is heavier and warmer than an everyday sabzi masala, with pepper and toasted whole-spice notes coming through.

Best for

• Mutton or lamb curry with onion and tomato
• Goat curry cooked in a pressure cooker
• Beef and other slow-braised meat dishes

Using it

Brown the meat first, then add the masala to the fried onion, ginger and garlic and cook it in the oil for a minute before any water goes in. Three teaspoons suits half a kilo of meat. Pressure cook for four to five whistles, or simmer covered for an hour, then reduce the gravy uncovered at the end so the spices concentrate.

Pack and storage

100g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening.

Priya Chicken 65 Masala is the blend for the South Indian fried chicken of the same name: hot, sharply red and tangy, with chilli well forward. It is a marinade mix rather than a curry powder, so it is used before the frying, not after.

Best for

• Bite-sized boneless chicken fry
• Paneer 65 and gobi 65
• Prawn 65

Using it

Cut boneless chicken into bite-sized pieces and marinate with two to three teaspoons of the masala, thick curd, a spoon of cornflour, salt and a squeeze of lemon for at least an hour. Fry in hot oil in small batches so the temperature does not drop, until the pieces are deep red and cooked through. Finish by tossing them in a hot pan with curry leaves and slit green chillies for under a minute, and serve straight away while the coating is still crisp.

Pack and storage

50g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening.