Under €2

Coriander leaves are called dhania or hara dhania in Hindi and kothimbir or kothamalli in other Indian languages, known in German as Koriander. The delicate green leaves have a bright, fresh, slightly citrusy flavour and are used raw rather than cooked for long.

They are used as a finishing garnish over dals, curries and chaat, blended into green chutney, and mixed into salads and raitas.

How to use

• Wash well in a bowl of water to remove grit, as it grows close to the soil.
• Chop just before use, including the tender stems, which carry a lot of flavour.
• Wrap loosely in a damp cloth or paper and store in the fridge; use within 3 to 5 days.

Drumstick is the long, ridged green pod of the moringa tree, known as murungakkai in Tamil, munagakaya in Telugu, and sahjan or saijan in Hindi; it has no widely used German name. The pod is fibrous and inedible on the outside, with soft pulp and small seeds inside that are scooped out and eaten while the tough outer fibre is discarded.

It is best known as an essential ingredient in sambar, and is also cooked into a moringa curry or added to avial and other mixed vegetable dishes.

How to use

• Trim the ends and cut into finger-length pieces before cooking.
• Simmer until soft, then eat by scraping the pulp out with your teeth, discarding the fibrous shell.
• Keep in the fridge and use within a few days, as it dries out and toughens over time.

Mint is called pudina in Hindi, sold in German as Minze. The small, bright green leaves have a strong, cooling, sharp flavour and are almost always used fresh rather than cooked for long.

It is blended into mint chutney served with samosas and snacks, added to raita, and used in drinks such as mint-flavoured lassi or lemonade.

How to use

• Pick the leaves off the tougher stems before chopping or blending.
• Add towards the end of cooking, or use raw, since heat dulls its flavour quickly.
• Store wrapped in a damp cloth in the fridge and use within a few days, as it wilts quickly.

TRS Mustard Seeds Brown are the small reddish-brown seeds used across South and West Indian cooking. Raw they taste of almost nothing; the flavour only appears once they hit hot oil and pop, turning nutty and gently pungent.

Best for

• Tempering for dal, sambar and rasam
• Poriyal, thoran and other South Indian vegetable dishes
• Pickles, and Bengali fish curries

How to cook it

Heat the oil until it shimmers, add the seeds, and cover the pan — they jump. Once the popping slows, add curry leaves, dried chilli or urad dal and pour the lot over the dish. If the seeds sit in lukewarm oil without popping, the tempering will taste raw; if they blacken, start again.

Pack and storage

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

Haldiram's Bhujia Plain is the classic fine gram flour bhujia — thin, brittle strands seasoned simply with salt and spice, with no potato or nuts in the mix. It is the everyday namkeen most kitchens keep on hand, crisp enough to eat by the handful or scatter straight over a plate.

Best with

• Everyday tea-time snacking
• Topping khichdi, dal or curd rice
• Building bhel and chaat at home

Pack and storage

200 g pack. Keep sealed in a cool, dry place away from steam and sunlight.

Haldiram Aloo Bhujia is fine, brittle bhujia made with potato and gram flour, seasoned with a warm everyday spice blend. The potato gives the strands a softer bite and a rounder, less sharp flavour than plain bhujia, which is why it disappears so fast from the bowl.

Best with

• Chai in the afternoon
• Sprinkling over dal, khichdi or curd rice
• Adding crunch to sandwiches and wraps

Pack and storage

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

TRS Cinnamon (Dalchini) is whole cinnamon bark in quills — warm, woody and sweetly aromatic, and firmer and stronger in flavour than the soft rolled Ceylon type. It is one of the whole spices that goes into the oil at the start of a biryani or a korma.

Best for

• Biryani, pulao and korma
• Garam masala and whole-spice blends
• Masala chai, and slow-cooked meat curries

How to cook it

Break off a two or three centimetre piece and fry it in hot ghee with bay leaf, cardamom and cloves for a few seconds until it swells and smells sweet. Remove before serving. For chai, a small piece simmered with the tea and milk is enough; the bark is hard, so grind it in a spice mill rather than a pestle.

Pack and storage

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

TRS Coriander / Dhania Powder is ground coriander seed — mild, citrusy and faintly sweet. It is used in larger quantity than most ground spices because it does the thickening as well as the flavouring in a gravy.

Best for

• Curry and korma bases, paired with cumin powder
• Chana masala, rajma and vegetable curries
• Marinades, and homemade masala blends

Using it

Add it after the onions have browned and fry for under a minute before the tomatoes or water go in. Two parts coriander to one part cumin is the usual balance in a north Indian gravy. If a curry tastes too sharp, another spoonful of coriander powder rounds it out better than sugar.

Pack and storage

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

TRS Haldi / Turmeric Powder is ground turmeric root, deep yellow and slightly bitter with an earthy, musky aroma. It goes into almost every Indian savoury dish, usually in small quantity, as much for colour as for taste.

Best for

• Dals, sambar and everyday vegetable curries
• Marinating fish and chicken before frying
• Rice dishes, pickles and spice pastes

Using it

A quarter to half a teaspoon is enough for a family-sized dal — too much turns the dish bitter and muddy. Add it early, with the onions or straight into the cooking dal, so it has time to lose its raw taste. It stains cloth and plastic readily, so wipe spills straight away.

Pack and storage

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

TRS Rice Flour is finely milled white rice — soft, powdery and pure white, with no gluten in it at all. It behaves nothing like wheat flour: it gives crispness rather than stretch, which is why it turns up in fried batters and thin dosas.

Best for

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

How to cook it

For steamed doughs, add boiling water to the flour rather than the other way round, stir with a spoon, then knead once it is cool enough to handle. For batters, keep them thin and pourable — rice flour thickens as it stands, so check again just before cooking. A spoonful added to a pakora batter is the simplest way to make it crisper.

Pack and storage

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

Haldiram's Navrattan Mix is a many-part namkeen — fine sev, fried lentils, peanuts, crisp flakes and raisins in a masala that balances salt against a touch of sweetness. The variety of pieces is the point: every handful comes out a little different.

Best with

• Chai and evening snacking
• Snack bowls for guests
• Mixing into homemade bhel

Pack and storage

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

Red onion is called lal pyaz in Hindi and pyaaz in Urdu, and is sold in Germany as rote Zwiebel. It has a thin purple-red skin over white flesh streaked with purple rings, and a sharper, more pungent bite than yellow onion when raw, mellowing into a sweeter flavour once cooked.

In Indian kitchens it goes into the base masala for curries and dals, into salads (kachumber) and raitas where it is eaten raw, and into biryani where thin slices are deep-fried into crisp birista. It also works well in German dishes such as Zwiebelkuchen or simply sliced into a salad.

How to use

• Peel off the papery outer skin before cutting.
• For raw use, slice thinly and rinse briefly in cold water to soften the sharpness.
• Store in a cool, dry, well-ventilated place, not in the fridge; whole onions keep for several weeks.

Haldiram's Gujarati Mixture is a namkeen mix of fine sev, fried lentils, peanuts and crisp flakes seasoned in the Gujarati manner — a little sweetness set against the salt and chilli. That sweet-salt balance is what distinguishes it from the hotter Bombay and Madras mixes.

Best with

• Afternoon chai
• Snack bowls for guests
• Topping dhokla, poha or chaat

Pack and storage

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

Townbus Thenkulal Murukku is the fine, thread-textured murukku, made from rice flour and seasoned with cumin and pepper. Where a chakli snaps, thenkulal collapses: the strands are thin enough that a piece breaks apart almost as soon as you bite it. That lightness is the whole appeal, and it makes this the gentlest murukku of the range.

Best with

• Filter coffee and tea
• Festival and Diwali snack plates
• An everyday snack, including for children
• Serving alongside a hotter snack for contrast

Pack and storage

170g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Handle the pack gently, as fine murukku breaks up easily, and keep it airtight so the thin strands do not turn soft.

TRS Methi Fenugreek Seeds are small, hard, amber-coloured seeds with a distinct bitterness and a maple-like aroma. A few seeds are all a dish needs — they are a background note, not a main spice.

Best for

• Sambar powder and South Indian tempering
• Mango and lime pickles
• Fish curries, and sprouting

How to cook it

Add them to hot oil at the very start of a tempering, but only for a second or two — they burn quickly and the bitterness becomes unpleasant once they darken past golden. Use a quarter teaspoon for a family dish. For idli and dosa batter, soak a teaspoon alongside the rice; it helps the batter ferment and softens the texture.

Pack and storage

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

Haldiram's Khatta Meetha is the sweet-and-sour namkeen — fine sev, fried lentils, peanuts and crisp flakes tossed with sugar, salt and tangy spice. The sweet and sour hit at the same time, which is why it is the mix people keep reaching back into.

Best with

• Tea-time and evening snacking
• Snack bowls at parties
• Lunchboxes and road trips

Pack and storage

200 g pack. Store in a cool, dry place and reseal tightly after opening.

Haldiram's Boondi Masala is tiny gram flour droplets fried into crisp golden pearls and coated in a warm, salty spice mix. The boondi is light enough to shatter between your teeth, so it works as much as a topping as it does a snack in its own right.

Best with

• Tea-time snacking
• Scattering over curd rice, dal or raita
• Adding crunch to chaat

Pack and storage

200 g pack. Keep in a cool, dry place and reseal after opening so the pearls stay crisp.

Townbus Masala Peanut is whole peanuts jacketed in a spiced gram-flour batter and fried, so each one has a crisp shell around a firm nut. It is the standard tea-time and bar snack across India, salty and mildly hot, and it is more filling than a crisp or a sev because of the nut at the centre.

Best with

• Tea, coffee or a cold drink
• A bar snack or party nibble
• Tossed with sliced onion, tomato, lemon and coriander as a quick masala peanut chaat
• Long journeys

Pack and storage

170g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Keep the pack airtight; the coating softens first and the nuts inside lose their snap soon after.

TRS Semolina Coarse is durum wheat milled to a coarse grain — the bava or rava grade, noticeably gritty between the fingers. The coarse cut is what gives upma and rava dosa their texture; fine semolina in the same dish turns pasty.

Best for

• Upma and rava khichdi
• Rava dosa and rava idli
• Sooji halwa, and coating for fried fish

How to cook it

Dry-roast the semolina in a pan over medium heat for four or five minutes until it smells nutty and no longer looks chalky — skip this and the upma will be raw-tasting and lumpy. Use roughly 2.5 parts water to 1 part semolina for upma, poured in hot and stirred hard as it goes. For halwa, roast in ghee instead of dry.

Pack and storage

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

Townbus Rice Kodubale is the ring-shaped Karnataka snack made from rice flour and roasted gram, spiced with coconut and chilli and fried until hard and crunchy. It is a denser, tougher bite than a murukku, and the coconut gives it a distinct flavour you will not find in the Tamil Nadu snacks beside it on the shelf.

Best with

• Tea and filter coffee
• Festival snack boxes
• An evening snack for people who like a firm crunch
• Travel, since the rings hold their shape well

Pack and storage

170g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Kodubale keeps better than most fried snacks thanks to its density, but an airtight jar will still hold the crunch longer.

Townbus Banana Chips are raw bananas sliced thin and fried until golden, then salted while still warm. They are firmer and starchier than a potato crisp, with a clean banana flavour underneath the salt and no sweetness to speak of. The slices are thick enough to snap audibly.

Best with

• Tea or coffee
• A South Indian meal, served on the side of the plate
• Sadya-style festival spreads
• Packed lunches and long drives

Pack and storage

170g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Keep them away from heat and sunlight, which turn fried chips stale faster than anything else, and move them to an airtight jar once the pack has been opened.

Aachi Sambar Masala Powder is the general-purpose sambar blend, ground fine and balanced so it works with whatever vegetables are in the house rather than being tuned to one regional style. It is mildly hot with the roasted note that a sambar powder needs and a general curry powder does not have.

Best for

• Everyday sambar with mixed vegetables
• Idli, vada and dosa sambar
• Vegetable kootu and poriyal

Using it

Cook toor dal separately until it mashes easily. Boil the vegetables with tamarind water and salt until tender, then stir in one and a half to two teaspoons of the powder for four servings and let it simmer five minutes before the dal goes in, so the powder cooks out. Adding it at the very end leaves a raw, dusty taste. Finish with mustard seeds, dried red chilli, curry leaves and a pinch of asafoetida fried in oil and poured over off the heat.

Pack and storage

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

Townbus Garlic Mixture is a South Indian snack mix carrying a strong roasted garlic flavour, with fried lentils, peanuts and crisp rice crackers through it. The garlic is the point rather than a background note, so it is a mixture for people who already know they like garlic. It is savoury and moderately hot.

Best with

• Tea or coffee in the evening
• A snack bowl for a gathering
• Plain curd rice, which balances the garlic
• Something to nibble alongside a drink

Pack and storage

170g pack. Store in a cool, dry place, sealed after opening. Keep it in a well-sealed jar and away from other snacks, since the garlic aroma travels and will find its way into anything stored open beside it.