Indian Spices: Madhur Jaffrey’s Essentials for Indian Cooking

Born in Delhi, Madhur Jaffrey moved to London as a young adult to study acting, but, like many international students before her, she longed for the food of her homeland. “That wonderful food that was cooked in our house on a daily basis suddenly vanished,” she says. “But those tastes were in my head—the flavor of cumin, the flavor of ginger,” Madhur says. “I was able to recreate a lot of the dishes that I used to get at home, and I found that discovery absolutely wonderful.”

Madhur compiled these recipes to form the basis of An Invitation to Indian Cooking (1973), which transformed the West’s understanding of Indian flavors and feasts. In the decades since, her friendly affect and clever recipes have been a constant companion to home cooks (and aspiring professionals) around the globe.

“It’s not what spices you use, it’s how you extract the exact flavor that you want from them.” — Madhur Jaffrey

Indian food calls for many spices, but Madhur says you don’t need to go full throttle at the grocery store straightaway. “Go consult a recipe and just get those spices,” she says. “Next time you make another dish or another two dishes, get the spices for just those dishes.” Consider adding the following to your own pantry to establish a strong foundation (and to make
most of Madhur’s recipes):

1. 1. Asafetida/asafoetida (hing): This pungent resin has a savory, musky, garlicky flavor. It’s a common element in a tadka (spices bloomed in oil or ghee for garnish). Madhur buys hers ground, usually mixed with a little wheat flour. If you’re allergic to wheat, you can typically purchase it ground with rice flour. Try it in Madhur’s cauliflower and potatoes, besan cheela, and moong dal and red Lentils with browned onions.
2. 2. Cardamom: Two varieties of cardamom are popular in Indian cooking: green cardamom (chhoti elaichi) and black cardamom (motti elaichi). Cardamom is a layered spice: sweet, spicy, floral, with a peppery aftertaste. Madhur’s take on garam masala (“warming spice mix”) features green cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, black pepper, and cumin. Other versions might include fennel seeds (saunf) or star anise.
3. 3. Cinnamon: Cinnamon is the bark of the cassia tree and is rich and spicy in flavor. It’s used both whole and ground in many rice, meat, and vegetable dishes. Try it in Madhur’s aloo gosht (goat curry) recipe.
4. 4. Cloves: The dried buds of a plant native to Indonesia, cloves are intensely sweet and bitter in flavor. A little goes a long way in rice and meat preparations. Try them, along with ground black peppercorns (kali mirch), in Madhur’s masala chai recipe.
5. 5. Coriander seeds: Whole, the seeds of the cilantro plant are floral, light, and citrusy; ground, coriander powder is nutty. It adds earthy and lemony notes to dal. Always grind coriander seeds yourself using either a mortar and pestle or a coffee grinder. “If ground coriander is left to sit around, it turns to sawdust faster than most spices,” Madhur says. Try it in Madher’s lemony chicken, okra with shallots, aloo paratha, and chickpeas in a simple Northern style.
6. 6. Cumin seeds (jeera): Whether used whole, roasted, or ground, cumin imparts an earthy, musky, and peppery flavor. Madhur always keeps roasted cumin powder on hand for flavoring cucumber raita and chaat.
7. 7. Fenugreek seeds (methi): These tiny yellow seeds are bitter and highly aromatic. You’ll find them in many South Indian dishes, from pickles to spice blends, like sambar powder, and chutneys. (You can also use the fenugreek leaves in tadka, as you would bay leaf or curry leaves.)
8. 8. Mustard seeds: You can use two kinds of mustard seeds interchangeably in Indian cooking—brown and black. They reach peak mustard-y flavor when heated and are often the foundation for a tadka. Try them in Madhur’s Potato a Thousand Ways, cherry tomato and cucumber salad, South Indian mixed vegetable kurma, Punjabi-style pickles, and pickled green chilies.
9. 9. Nutmeg (jaifal): Nutmeg is gentle and sweet and found in many Mughal and Kashmiri dishes. Buy whole nutmeg and use a nutmeg grater or a Microplane as needed. Mace (javitri) also comes from the nutmeg plant.
10. 10. Saffron (kesar): Earthy and grassy, floral and sweet, saffron adds complex flavor notes to a finished dish. A pinch adds brilliant color, aroma, and flavor to plain basmati rice, pulao, or lamb biryani.
11. 11. Turmeric: This nutty, delicately aromatic yellow powder comes from a cleaned, boiled, dried, and pulverized rhizome (similar to ginger). Indian cooks use turmeric as a coloring agent and to lend flavor to meats, vegetables, rices, and dals. It’s also the main ingredient in “curry powder,” a yellow-orange mixture of ground spices used in many Western-style interpretations of Indian curries. Turmeric also has anti-inflammatory health benefits according to Aryuvedic medicine: “It is considered to be a very important antiseptic for both outside and inside the body,” Madhur says. Try it in her Goan shrimp, Kerala-style fish, eggplant bharta, and moong dal cheela.

Explore the different styles of Indian cuisine with more recipes from Madhur:

1. 1. Butter chicken: Learn how to make authentic North Indian butter chicken at home—no tandoor oven required.
2. 2. Chapatis: “The word ‘chapati’ is actually quite interesting,” Madhur says. “It means ‘to slap.’ There is a little slapping—or a lot of slapping—in the making of a chapati,” a bread common throughout India.
3. 3. Green chutney: Spicy and herbaceous, this green chutney is the perfect pairing for chaat, kebab, samosas, chapati, and more.
4. 4. Shami kebab: Shami kebabs usually involve shaping minced lamb into hamburger-like patties and then sautéing them in a frying pan, or molding the meat around a skewer and cooking it in a tandoor. In her shami kebab recipe, Madhur bypasses those steps and presses the meat into a sheet pan. Madhur adds white poppy seeds to the meat mixture.
5. 5. Tamarind chutney: Madhur’s tamarind chutney recipe incorporates red chili powder, such as cayenne, for heat and a little sugar for sweetness.

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