Sweet lime. The nearest thing India has to an orange. It has a green skin and sweet, juicy, bright orange flesh.
Mango. The best varieties have a wonderfully perfumed and flavoured flesh, but lowlier varieties can be fibrous and dry. They are described as turpentine mangoes because of their flavour. The Alphonso mango is highly valued in India. In Sri Lanka dumpara mangoes, which are small and fibrous, are valued for their sweet honeyed juices. They have to be kneaded gently to soften the fibres, to allow the juices to be sucked out.
Cumin seeds. The white seeds are commonly used. It is a musty smelling spice, the flavour of which is improved by roasting or frying.
Dill. An herbaceous plant which grows practically all over India. It is about 1 meter (3 ft) in height, with wispy leaves bearing clusters of small yellow flowers and oval, pod-like fruits. The fruits are left to ripen on the plant until they have dried. The fragrant seeds are then extracted, threshed and dried. It has an aroma slightly reminiscent of caraway, warm, aromatic and tingly.
Velvet tamarind. It is similar to tamarind, a sour-sweet fruit, sometimes known as the Indian date, and is used as a souring agent.
Black peppercorns, the fruit of a perennial vine with large leaves and white flowers. Green peppercorns are the unripe fruits picked early and pickled. Black peppercorns are picked just before they ripen and white peppercorns are the ripe, black peppercorns with the black skin flaked off. They are best kept whole and ground when required. Historically, pepper was one of the world's most important spices. Columbus sailed West, not East, in search of pepper in the East Indies. Instead he found the Americas and allspice.
Papaya. There is great discussion about the difference between papaya and paw paw or papaw. In fact papaya is Carica papaya, xxx and paw-paw is a different plant related to the custard apple This being said, the papaya also goes by the name of pawpaw. Australia exports its papayas under the name of pawpaw as an example. Since the real pawpaw and the papaya have a similar external appearance, it would be good if supermarkets could label them by the Latin name, as the Spanish do fish. The size of a large avocado, the papaya has soft-textured, fragrant, apricot-coloured flesh with small black seeds which must be stripped out. It is a great breakfast fruit. If you have an unripe papaya which you wish to ripen overnight, pierce it with a sharp knife several times. It should be cut lengthways as this facilitates the removal of the seeds.
