Lesser-Known Spices To Spice Up Your Food

Typically, kalpasi, a deep purple flower, is combined with other ingredients to create masalas, such as the well-known Chettinad masala in southern India and godi masala in Maharashtra. The herb kalpasi, also known as "patthar ka phool" or "black stone flower," imparts a smokey flavour and woodsy scent to meals. 

Kokum is a fruit, but Konkan regions utilise it as a spice. It is primarily grown in Maharashtra, Goa, Kerala, and Karnataka. The meals it is added to gain the acidic, tart, and salty flavours from it. The fruit's peel is used as masala and is dried, salted, and pounded into a powder. 

By being a component of the unique paanch phoron spice mixture, Radhuni is to be attributed with adding even more flavour to Bengali cuisine. Though it resembles carom seeds, radhuni tastes and smells more like a herb. But in reality, it is a dried fruit that only grows in Asia's southern regions. 

Dried pomegranate seeds, or anardana, contain a medley of sweet, fruity, and acidic tones that give meals rich flavours. In addition to being used as a sweet spice in north India, anardana is also utilised as a natural preservative to prepare chutneys and pickles in place of other natural preservatives like lemon juice. 

Most commonly, this dried plant is used to give food a natural colour. As you ascend the country towards the hilly districts of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, Ratanjot becomes more well-known. It is ratanjot, with its distinctive red colour and mild heat, that enlivens the well-known Kashmiri cuisine rogan josh.