A steamed dumpling-like cake of sour, slightly fermented rice and lentil flour served with a light curry sauce, usually for breakfast.
Mowra butter. A soft yellow oil which is extracted from the seeds of the Indian butter tree. It is used for cooking purposes.
An elaborately twisted fritter consisting of threads flour, milk powder and yoghurt batter, deep-fried and served, either hot or cold, in syrup.
Tamarind. A sour-sweet fruit, sometimes known as the Indian date, used as a souring agent. It comes in long, dry brown pods which look almost like dried broad bean pods. Inside is a long, segmented fruit, like a long brown caterpillar. Each segment contains a hard, shiny black seed. As the pods dry the fruit becomes sweeter. A visitor from Mauritius suggested shaking the tamarind and, if you could hear that the fruit had detached and was rattling a little inside the pod, you would find that the fruit was sweet. All you need to do is to remove the pod and then chew the fruit, discarding the seeds. It is also available mashed and formed into a pulpy block or as a juice. In this form it is used like lemon juice.
