Special Thanks to Swati P Siddharth for this wonderful list
Here you go … a fairly exhaustive list below … obviously each recipe will give you details of what to use where! For tempering mainly we use brown mustard seeds (Rai) and or cumin seeds (jeera). Other whole spices Cardamom - green (elaaichi) Cardamom - black (badi elaaichi) Red chilly (whole - different levels of heat!) Cinnamon (daalchini) Clove (lavang) Coriander (dhania) fennel (saunf), fenugreek (methi) mace (javitri) Nigella (kalonji) nutmeg (jaiphal) Pepper (kalimiri) poppy seeds (hard to get as it’s banned in many countries - comes under “drugs”!) pomegranate seeds (anaardaana) Basic Spice powders Asafoetida,
coriander, cumin, dry mango (amchur), Turmeric Herbs Bay leaf (dry) Fenugreek - dry (kasuri methi) Curry leaf, coriander and mint - ideally fresh always. Besides there are the premixed powders - Garam masala (almost all North Indian dishes!), Rasam powder, Sambar powder (South Indian food) Black salt / rock salt (sendha namak) Dry ginger (saunth) Coconut is normally used fresh grated or as fresh made coconut milk - especially South Indian cooking. Dry grated coconut (copra) is also used a fair bit ! The difference between this dry version and dessicated coconut is that the copra is grated with the brown peel on!
Oils - normal cooking oil is fine. Bengal uses a lot of mustard oil, Kerala uses a lot of coconut oil … but in general any cooking oil (not olive!) works fine for Indian cuisine.
And yes of course - green chillies l, garlic and ginger fresh and any vegetable you can think of! Except perhaps artichoke, avocado, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, asparagus and lettuce! These are not part of any traditional Indian food - they are all importees!
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