Spice Up Your Life: What Indian Herbs and Spices Do

Indian herbs and spices are not interchangeable heat — each one does a specific job to the flavour of a dish, and most of them are not hot at all. This is a plain guide to the spices an Indian home kitchen actually keeps: what each tastes like, when it goes into the pan, and what happens if you leave it out.

What is a masala dabba?

A masala dabba is the round steel tin, holding six or seven small bowls, that sits in every Indian kitchen. It is the working spice set — the ones reached for daily, not the back of the cupboard. The contents vary by region and household, but a Punjabi dabba is usually haldi, jeera, dhania, rai, mirch, garam masala and often hing.

That tin, and not a jar of curry powder, is what makes Indian food taste Indian. A curry powder is a fixed blend somebody else decided on. A dabba lets the cook decide the ratio for each dish, which is the whole craft.

What does each Indian spice taste like?

Spice	Indian name	What it tastes like	When it goes in
Turmeric	Haldi	Earthy, slightly bitter, faintly musty. Mostly colour.	Early, with the onions
Cumin	Jeera	Warm, smoky, savoury once toasted	Whole, into hot fat, first thing
Coriander seed	Dhania	Citrusy and mild; gives a sauce body	Ground, into the masala
Mustard seed	Rai	Sharp, nutty once it pops	Whole, into hot oil until it crackles
Asafoetida	Hing	Savoury, allium, like cooked onion. Pungent raw.	A pinch, into hot fat, for seconds only
Carom seed	Ajwain	Sharp and thyme-like	Into doughs and batters
Fenugreek	Methi	Bitter, maple-ish; the smell of a curry house	Leaves crushed in at the end
Cardamom	Elaichi	Sweet, floral, cooling	Whole, in rice, chai and richer dishes
Garam masala	—	Warm and aromatic: clove, cinnamon, black pepper, cardamom	Last, off the heat

Turmeric (haldi)

Haldi is why Indian food is yellow. On its own it is earthy and slightly bitter, and it needs fat and heat to stop tasting raw. Almost nobody adds it for flavour alone — it goes in early, with the onions, and disappears into the background of the dish.

Cumin (jeera)

Jeera is the backbone of Punjabi cooking. Whole seeds hit hot ghee first and bloom in about ten seconds, going from dusty to warm and smoky. That sound — the crackle of jeera in fat — is the sound of dinner starting in most Indian houses. Ground jeera is a different thing again: rounder, less smoky, used in the masala rather than at the start.

Coriander seed (dhania)

Dhania does the quiet work. Ground, it is citrusy and gentle, and it gives a sauce body and thickness without adding heat. Leave it out and a masala tastes thin. Coriander leaf, confusingly the same plant, is a different ingredient altogether — bright and grassy, scattered on at the end.

Mustard seed (rai)

Tiny black seeds that pop like corn in hot oil and turn nutty. Rai is more of a southern and western habit than a Punjabi one, but it earns its place in kadhi and in most pickles. If it has not popped, it has not done its job.

Asafoetida (hing)

Hing smells alarming out of the jar and tastes like cooked onion and garlic in the pan. A pinch is genuinely all you need. It is worth knowing that compounded hing is usually blended with wheat flour, which matters if you avoid wheat — allergen information for every dish is on its product page.

Fenugreek (methi)

Methi is the bitter one, and bitterness is a flavour Indian cooking uses on purpose. Dried methi leaves crushed between the palms into a dish at the end give that unmistakable savoury depth. It is also the smell most British people associate with an Indian restaurant without ever knowing its name.

Cardamom (elaichi)

Green cardamom is sweet and floral and belongs in rice, chai and the richer dishes. Black cardamom is a completely different spice — smoky, almost tarry — and swapping one for the other will surprise everybody at the table.

What is a tadka?

A tadka is spices bloomed in hot fat and poured over a finished dish. Ghee or oil is heated until it shimmers, whole spices go in — jeera, maybe hing, a dried red chilli — and within seconds the whole lot is tipped over the dal. It hisses. The point is that fat carries flavour compounds that water cannot, so the tadka tastes several times stronger than the same spices stirred in dry.

This is the step that gets skipped when Indian food is made at scale, and it is the most obvious difference between a home dal and a canteen one.

What does "bhuno" mean?

Bhuno-ing is frying the masala — onion, tomato, ginger, garlic and ground spices — until the oil separates out at the edges of the pan. It takes as long as it takes, usually far longer than a recipe admits. Under-bhuno'd masala tastes raw and sharp; properly bhuno'd masala tastes sweet and deep. Almost every complaint about home-made Indian food tasting "not quite right" comes down to this one step being cut short.

Do you need all of them to cook Indian food at home?

No. Haldi, jeera, dhania and chilli will get you through most of the everyday repertoire, with garam masala at the end and hing if you can find it. Buy whole seeds rather than ground where you can — they hold their aroma for months rather than weeks — and toast them in the pan rather than adding them cold.

Which spices are in Saakshi's Kitchen food?

The ones above. We grind and blend our spices in our own kitchen rather than leaning on one generic curry powder, build the masala from scratch for each batch, and finish dal with a real tadka. The result is milder than a restaurant curry — spiced, not hot — because that is the level a family actually cooks at.

We cook in Brighton, in a kitchen holding a 5-star rating on the FSA food hygiene register, and deliver frozen across UK mainland. Some areas we can't reach, so check your postcode. Keep meals in the freezer, cook or reheat straight from frozen following the pack instructions until piping hot, and don't refreeze once defrosted.

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