Can't Get the Ingredient? What to Use Insteadવિદેશમાં જે વસ્તુ ન મળે તેનું શું?
Not the ingredient you ran out of this evening — the one your shop has never stocked. For each, what job it does in the dish, what comes closest, and where the substitute falls short.
What can you not get?
Souring and aroma
Kokum
Kokum does two jobs in one petal. It sours, slowly and roundly rather than sharply, and it stains the pot a dusky purple-brown that you can see in Gujarati kadhi and in a shaak made with it. Tamarind only does the first.
What to use instead- Tamarind pasteAbout half a teaspoon of thick tamarind paste for two or three kokum petals. Add it early so it cooks in, then taste.You get the sourness and almost none of the colour, so the kadhi stays pale yellow instead of going dusky. Tamarind is also fruitier and flatter, and it thickens very slightly.
- Amchur (dried mango powder)Start with a quarter teaspoon stirred in near the end of cooking, taste, and add more.Sharper and more immediate than kokum, and it arrives as a top note rather than from underneath. No colour at all, and in a thin kadhi a heavy hand leaves a faint powdery cloudiness.
- Lemon juice, off the heatA teaspoon at a time after the pot is off the flame.Workable in a pinch and wrong in character: a bright, citrus-forward sourness that sits on top of the dish and fades as it stands. Reheating turns it slightly bitter.
Don't attemptDo not attempt kokum sharbat with tamarind or lemon. The drink exists for the petal's own dark fruity sourness, and tamarind water gives you a flat brown glass that nobody finishes. Dry petals keep for years; order them instead.
Any Indian grocer keeps dried kokum petals in a packet, and because they are dry and light they post well, so mail order is a real option.
Ajwain
Ajwain is the sharp, thyme-like, slightly bitter smell in a methi thepla, a puri or bhajiya batter. It works against fat and plain flour, and the seeds also crack between your teeth, which is half of why they are there.
What to use instead- Dried thyme leaf, crumbledRoughly twice as much thyme as the ajwain called for; fry one small test thepla before you commit the whole dough.The smell reads close enough to be recognisable, but the leaf dissolves into the dough. You lose the crunch and the sharp edge, and the dough can taste faintly herby and European.
- Dried oreganoThe same quantity as the dried thyme above, or a little less; it is the louder of the two.Rougher and more pungent than thyme, and it pulls a thepla towards a pizza smell if you are heavy-handed. Acceptable in a bhajiya batter, where the besan and the frying cover a lot.
- Nothing, with the cumin raised a littleAbout half a teaspoon of cumin seed per two cups of flour in place of the ajwain.This is not a substitute, it is a different seasoning that keeps the dough from tasting empty. Cumin is warm and earthy where ajwain is sharp, so nothing cuts the oil.
Don't attemptDo not make ajwaini puri or an ajwain khakhra without it. There the seed is the whole flavour and the crack of it between your teeth is the point; thyme dust gives you a plain puri with a herb smell.
Every Indian grocer has it, and it keeps for years in a jar. Look for carom seed or bishop's weed on the label if ajwain is not written.
Kasuri methi
Kasuri methi is a finishing smell, not a cooked-in one. You crush it between your palms over a gravy after the heat is off and it gives a dry, hay-like bitterness on top. It is dried leaf, so it carries no moisture and no bulk.
What to use instead- Fresh or frozen methi leaves, dried yourselfSpread the leaves on a tray in the coolest oven you can set, or on a plate out of the sun, and leave them until they crumble between your fingers.This is the real thing, home-made. Your own batch is greener and gentler than a shop packet, which is usually older and more bitter, so use a slightly heavier hand and store it airtight.
- Fenugreek seed, toasted and groundA quarter teaspoon of powder at most for a pan of gravy, stirred in at the end.Seed gives you the bitterness without the hay and without the leafy top note, and it turns harsh very fast. Past a small pinch the gravy tastes medicinal rather than seasoned.
Don't attemptDo not build methi-nu-shaak or methi muthiya on it. Those need two bunches of leaf as a vegetable, and a handful of dried flakes gives you the bitterness with nothing green to carry it.
One of the easy ones. Indian grocers stock boxes of it, and a large supermarket's world-food aisle often has a small packet too.
Fresh methi
Fresh methi is a vegetable and a bitter at the same time. In thepla the chopped leaf goes into the dough wet, so it brings bitterness, moisture and the green flecks that keep the thepla soft for days. In muthiya it is the bulk.
What to use instead- Frozen chopped methiOne standard frozen block stands in for roughly one bunch. Thaw it and squeeze the water out hard, or the dough goes slack and you end up adding flour.Much closer than anything dried. The bitterness and the colour survive the freezer well; what you lose is the texture of whole leaf, so muthiya come out a shade smoother and thepla a shade flatter.
- Methi leaf grown from the spice seedsSoak a handful of ordinary fenugreek seeds overnight, scatter them on damp soil in a tray, and cut the leaf when it is a few inches tall.Genuinely the same plant, and one windowsill tray gives you enough for a single thepla session. Young leaf is milder than a market bunch, so use more of it, and the supply is slow.
- Spinach with a little ground fenugreek seed, for muthiya onlyChop spinach to the same volume, and add a quarter teaspoon of ground fenugreek seed per large bunch of spinach.You get green bulk and a hint of the bitterness. Spinach is wetter and sweeter, so squeeze it and cut the water elsewhere; nobody who knows methi muthiya will be fooled.
Don't attemptMethi thepla. Kasuri methi in the dough gives you a plain thepla with a bitter aftertaste, not a methi thepla. With no fresh or frozen leaf, make masala thepla or dudhi thepla instead and call it that.
Indian and some Middle Eastern grocers sell fresh bunches, which wilt within a day or two. The frozen blocks are in the same shop's freezer and are the dependable supply.
Curry leaves
Curry leaves are not really eaten; they are used on the oil. Dropped into a hot vaghar they release a resinous, citrus-peel smell that goes through the whole dish and through the kitchen. That smell lives in the oil of the fresh leaf.
What to use instead- Fresh leaves bought in bulk and frozenBuy the biggest bag you can find, freeze it on the stalk in a sealed bag, and use the same number of leaves as fresh, straight from frozen.This is the answer, not a compromise. Frozen leaves spit a little more in the oil and look dull on the plate, but the smell they throw stays close to fresh for months.
- A curry leaf plant on a windowsillPick a few leaves at a time and let it recover; a small plant will not carry daily cooking.Slow, but it is the only supply that does not depend on a shop. The plant sulks in a cold room and drops its leaves in winter, so treat it as a supplement to the freezer bag, not a replacement.
- Dried curry leavesThree or four times as many as the recipe asks for, added to the oil and given a moment longer.Worth knowing so that you do not waste money on them. The volatile oil is mostly gone; you get a faint tea-like note and bits of brown leaf. They do least badly in a long-simmered dal.
Don't attemptCurry leaf chutney and curry leaf podi, or anything else where the leaf is the flavour rather than a note in it. Dried leaves there taste of dust, and nothing else on a spice shelf smells remotely like them.
Indian and Sri Lankan grocers keep fresh bags near the chillies and coriander. Garden centres and online nurseries sell small plants in spring.
Raw mango (kairi)
Kairi is hard, pale and violently sour, and the sourness is only half of it. The flesh holds its shape: grated into chhundo, shredded into sambharo, cut into chunks that soften in dal without collapsing. A powder gives you sourness and no flesh.
What to use instead- Amchur powder, for the sour jobs onlyStart with a teaspoon in a pot of dal that would have taken two or three pieces of kairi, taste, and add more.Fine in dal, kadhi and a sour shaak, where you only wanted the sourness. Useless anywhere the fruit was the substance, and the sourness lands flatter and dustier than fresh fruit.
- The hardest, greenest mango you can findPress the fruit; if it gives at all it is too ripe. Add lemon juice or amchur to push the sourness up to where kairi would have been.Year-round green mangoes are bred to ripen sweet, so they are firm but mild. Shredded for sambharo they work well enough; in a long-cooked pickle they go soft and sweet.
- Hard green cooking apple, for sambharo and sour shaakSame weight as the mango, shredded or cubed, with lemon juice or amchur added for the sourness.The crunch and the tartness are both in the right place, which is more than a powder gives you. The flavour is unmistakably apple, it browns quickly, and it mushes sooner in the pan.
Don't attemptChhundo and methia keri. Both depend on firm sour shreds holding together in sugar or oil for months; apple or a sweet mango turns to jam in a week and will not keep. Buy kairi in season or wait.
South Asian, Caribbean and South-East Asian grocers sell hard green mangoes, the first two mainly in spring and early summer, the last for green mango salad most of the year.
Hing (asafoetida)
A pinch of hing in hot oil gives dal, kadhi and a vaghar a savoury, onion-like depth underneath everything else. The catch abroad is that most jars are a compound: a little resin cut with a lot of flour, usually wheat.
What to use instead- More of the compounded powder you already haveA recipe's pinch may need to be a quarter or even half a teaspoon from a flour-heavy jar. Add it to the oil, smell the pan, and judge from there.The honest first move, since the jar is weak rather than wrong. Read the ingredients panel to see how little resin you bought; past a certain point you taste cooked flour instead of hing.
- Lump hing, crushedA chip the size of a grain of rice, crushed with the back of a spoon, for a family pot. Far less than any powder.This is close to undiluted resin, so the smell is the one you remember and a little goes a long way. It does not dissolve as smoothly, and it is easy to overdo on a first try.
- Onion and garlic, finely chopped into the vagharA tablespoon of finely chopped onion or two crushed garlic cloves, browned in the oil before the other spices.This gives savoury depth, but a different one: the dish becomes a garlic dal rather than a hing dal. It also puts the dish outside a Jain kitchen and outside fasting-day cooking.
Don't attemptDo not chase the smell by tipping more and more flour-cut powder into a thin kadhi. You will cloud it and give it a raw-flour taste long before you get the hing back. Order the real strength instead.
Every Indian grocer has small tubs of the powder. The ingredients panel tells you how much is flour; lump hing is rarer and usually easier to find by mail order.
Sendha namu (rock salt)
Sendha namu is mined rock salt, coarse and slightly mineral. It salts food like any salt, but in many Gujarati households it is the salt used on fasting days, which is why farali recipes name it rather than asking for salt.
What to use instead- Plain rock salt from a supermarketCrush the crystals fine, then measure. Coarse crystals pack less salt into a spoon than fine salt, so taste rather than trusting the number.The coarse pink or white crystals sold in grinders are mined rock salt, which is what sendha namu is. Whether a particular product suits your household's practice is for your household to decide.
- Ordinary salt, when the practice is not the pointUse a little less than the recipe says, because fine salt measures saltier by the spoon, and taste.Sendha namu also turns up in chaat, raita and sambharo simply for its coarse, mineral taste. There table salt is a fair swap; you lose a faint sweetness and the crunch of a crystal.
Don't attemptIf you are using it for the fasting practice, no swap answers that; order a packet. And do not reach for kala namak: it is a different, sulphurous salt and it will wreck sabudana khichdi.
Indian grocers stock it as sendha namak or rock salt, usually with the fasting-day flours. Check the packet is white or clear crystal, not the dark kala namak.
Green garlic
The whole young garlic plant, soft bulb and leaves together. It is grassy and sweet rather than sharp, it does not turn acrid raw, and it is what makes winter food taste like winter — the chutney, the undhiyu masala.
What to use instead- Spring onions with a little crushed garlicFor one small bunch of green garlic, a bunch of spring onions plus two or three crushed cloves.The greens give the leafy bulk and the cloves give the garlic, and together they get you most of the way in a cooked masala. What is missing is the sweetness; cured garlic brings a hard edge instead.
- Garlic chives from a Chinese grocerThe same volume of chopped leaves, stirred in near the end of cooking rather than at the start.The aroma is the closest of anything here, which makes this the better choice for a chutney. There is no bulb, so no body and no sweetness, and in hot oil the leaves wilt away to almost nothing.
- Young garlic or scapes from a farmers' marketOne for one with green garlic, bulb and stem both used.Essentially the real thing. The problem is timing, not flavour: it shows up in spring here, not in winter, so it will not be around for the cooking you want it for. Chop and freeze it when it appears.
Don't attemptLilu lasan ni chutney for bajri no rotlo. It is green garlic, chilli, salt and oil, so there is nowhere for a substitute to hide, and pounding cured cloves into it gives you something hot and acrid instead of sweet.
Indian grocers in winter, Chinese shops as young garlic, farmers' markets in spring. It freezes well chopped, so buy far more than you need.
Gol
Cane sugar with the molasses still in it. It sweetens, but it also puts a dark, slightly smoky weight under the salt and chilli of kadhi, dal and shaak, and it melts to a syrup that sets in a way sugar does not.
What to use instead- Indian jaggery, block or powderAs written. Powder dissolves faster than a block; a block grates in seconds and is easier to weigh.No change, and it is worth buying a kilo while you are in the shop. It keeps for months in a sealed jar, and in a damp kitchen it goes sticky rather than bad.
- Panela or piloncilloThe same weight, but grated or soaked in a little warm water first rather than dropped in whole.Much the same thing, boiled-down cane juice, often sold as hard dry cones. Added in lumps it will not dissolve in the time a dal takes, so you get sweetness at the bottom and none on top.
- Palm or coconut sugarStart with about three-quarters of the jaggery and taste, because it reads sweeter.It dissolves faster than jaggery and smells caramel-floral rather than smoky, so kadhi comes out sweet and perfumed where it should be earthy. On a high flame it darkens and catches quickly.
Don't attemptSukhdi, gol-papdi and chikki, where the jaggery is the recipe and not an ingredient in it. Brown sugar never firms up, so sukhdi stays a crumbly paste, and palm sugar sets soft and sticky instead of snapping.
Indian grocers as blocks or powder, Latin American shelves as panela or piloncillo, East and Southeast Asian shops as palm sugar.
Pulses, flours and dairy
Tuvar dal (toor, pigeon pea)
Tuvar dal is the dal of a Gujarati kitchen. Cooked soft and whisked, it gives a pourable body that carries the khatu-mithu balance of jaggery and kokum without thinning out or collapsing into paste.
What to use instead- Yellow split peasMeasure for measure, but soak them two hours and allow half again as long in the cooker.Closest in body — it stays loose and whisks smooth instead of dissolving. The taste is starchier and flatter, so lean harder on the jaggery, the kokum and the vaghar to cover the gap.
- Moong dal (split, yellow)Same measure, a quarter less water, three whistles instead of four — it is soft well before tuvar would be.Cooks beautifully but makes a lighter, sweeter dal that sits thin on rice. Good when you wanted it for khichdi anyway; it will not stand up to a heavy vaghar.
- Masoor dal (red lentils)Same measure, a third less water, no soaking — twenty minutes on the hob and it is done.The easiest to find and the furthest from tuvar. It breaks down completely into a thick brownish puree, so you get soup rather than something you pour over rice.
Don't attemptDal-dhokli. The dhokli need a dal thin enough to simmer in and starchy enough to cling; masoor turns to paste around them and they cook unevenly, gluey outside and raw at the centre.
Indian grocers always have it; Caribbean and African shops sell the same dal as pigeon peas. The oil-coated kind needs two warm-water rinses before soaking.
Besan (gram flour)
Besan does two jobs. In dhokla and khaman it sets the crumb and holds the air; in a bhajiya batter it is what grips a slice of onion and fries into a rough, crisp shell.
What to use instead- Chickpea or garbanzo flour, with the water held backStart with about a quarter less water than the recipe says, rest the batter fifteen minutes, then let it down to the consistency you know.Most are milled from pale kabuli chickpeas and ground finer, so they drink more water and come out paler. The flavour is cleaner and less nutty — you notice it in khaman, less in bhajiya.
- Grind your own from chana dalA dry grinder jar at a time, sieved twice; what stays behind in the sieve goes back in.This is the real thing and tastes like it, grind and all. It is twenty minutes of work and a loud kitchen, and a home grinder will never be as even as a mill.
- Fine chickpea flour with rice flour added, for frying onlyTwo tablespoons of rice flour to a cup of chickpea flour.Brings back the grip and the crunch that a fine grind loses, and bhajiya stay crisp longer off the heat. Keep it out of dhokla batter — it makes the crumb sandy.
Don't attemptDo not meet a new bag of chickpea flour on a day you are steaming dhokla for guests. At the recipe's usual water the batter goes slack, and the slab steams dense and wet in the middle.
Baking and world-food aisles sell it as chickpea, garbanzo or gram flour; Indian grocers label the chana-dal grind besan, and that is the one you want.
Bajri flour (pearl millet)
Bajri flour has no stretch at all, so rotlo is patted out between the palms and never rolled. It drinks hot water, smells sweet and faintly bitter off the tava, and cooks thick with a soft middle.
What to use instead- Juvar (sorghum) flourMeasure for measure, with the water brought right to the boil before you mix.The nearest thing in the hand — it pats out and holds together the same way. The rotlo comes out pale and mild, and the dark sweetness bajri gives is simply not there.
- Ragi (finger millet) flourMeasure for measure, adding the boiling water in stages and stopping the moment it comes together.Darker and heavier than bajri, with an earthy edge. The dough is stickier to pat, so keep dusting your palms, and the rotlo tastes of ragi rather than of bajri.
- Pale millet flour from a baking aisleTreat it as a weak flour: a third bajri or juvar in the mix gives it something to hold on to.This is usually a different millet altogether — dry, fine and crumbly. It will make thepla or muthiya quite happily; on its own it cracks while you are still patting.
Don't attemptRotlo with gor and ghee is the whole point of bajri, and a pale baking-aisle millet flour cannot do it — the round splits along the cracks as you pat it and tears when you lift it off the tava.
Indian grocers sell it as bajra or pearl millet flour; buy the smallest bag and freeze it — milled millet turns bitter within weeks in a warm cupboard.
Juvar flour (sorghum)
Juvar flour brings almost no flavour of its own — it is a pale, plain base. It needs water near boiling to come together at all, and the rotla it makes is soft hot off the tava and dry and chalky once cold.
What to use instead- Sorghum flour from a baking aisleMeasure for measure, holding back a little of the water — these mills grind finer than a chakki does.Same grain, so this is the one swap here that is barely a swap. The finer grind makes a stickier dough that wants more flour on your palms; the rotla itself behaves.
- Bajri flourMeasure for measure; it takes slightly more hot water and patting it out is easier, not harder.Sturdier in the hand and more forgiving, but it is a loud flour where juvar is a quiet one. Whatever you serve alongside now has to compete with the bread.
- Half wheat atta, half rice flourEqual parts, mixed with warm water, rolled thin rather than patted thick.Not a rotla and not pretending to be — it rolls, it folds and it keeps soft in a box. Take it as a flatbread for the meal rather than a stand-in for juvar.
Don't attemptThe pale, soft juvar rotla that goes under ringna-no-olo cannot be made from bajri. The plate turns dark and sweet, and the olo you spent an hour roasting disappears behind it.
Indian grocers sell it as jowar flour; Western baking aisles stock sorghum flour, the same grain ground finer. Both keep better in the fridge than in a cupboard.
Rajgara flour (amaranth)
Rajgara flour is used in fasting cooking — puri, thepla and sheero. It has no stretch, so the dough is bound with boiled potato, and it fries sturdy and close-textured instead of puffing up.
What to use instead- Amaranth flour from a health-food shop or baking aisleMeasure for measure, and if the dough feels slack add boiled potato rather than more flour.The same grain under its English name. The grind is often finer and paler, which makes the dough softer to handle but the fried puri a little denser and flatter.
- Samo (moraiyo) flourMeasure for measure in thepla; for sheero start with a third less liquid and add more as it drinks.Used in the same fasting cooking and behaves closest of the three. It tastes milder and plainer, so the earthy note that makes rajgara taste of rajgara is simply absent.
- Singoda (water chestnut) flourNot measure for measure — use it for a third of the flour and keep rajgara or samo for the rest.Glassy and brittle on its own, and it sets hard as it cools. Mixed in it adds a clean sweetness; as the whole flour it gives you something that snaps instead of bending.
Don't attemptThepla patted from singoda flour alone split at the edges in the pan and fry up hard and glassy. If singoda is all you have, make a batter-based farali dish with it and leave the thepla.
Indian grocers keep it through Shravan and the weeks before Navratri; otherwise look for amaranth flour, or whole amaranth seed to grind at home.
Dahi (set curd)
Home dahi is mild, barely sour and loose enough to pour. In kadhi and chhash that thin body is the point: whisked cold with besan and water, it thickens only once it is cooked, and the sourness stays in the background.
What to use instead- Set your own from whole milkScald the milk, cool it to finger-warm, stir in a tablespoon of plain live yoghurt per 500 ml, then leave it covered six to ten hours.This is home dahi again, mild and pourable, and kadhi made from it behaves. It needs a day's planning, and in a cold kitchen it wants an oven light or a warm cupboard to set.
- Plain whole-milk set yoghurt — milk and cultures on the label, nothing elseWhisk it with roughly its own volume of water before the besan goes in, and taste before you decide on the jaggery.Read the back: gums, pectin, starch, gelatine or added milk powder all change how it cooks. Unstrained natural, Balkan- or Bulgarian-style pots come closest, though still sourer than home dahi.
- Strained Greek-style yoghurt, let right downStart at one part yoghurt to one part water and keep going until it pours off the spoon in a sheet; whisk it dead smooth while cold.Thicker and sharper, so it reaches the splitting point sooner — a spoon more besan, flame medium. A stabilised one stays slick rather than silky. The same pot makes excellent shrikhand.
Don't attemptKadhi for guests out of a thick, sharply sour strained pot. It grains the moment it boils, and the besan-and-blender rescue gets the taste back but never the silk.
Supermarkets are full of yoghurt and almost none of it is dahi; Indian and Middle Eastern grocers sell set curd in tubs, often made the same day.
Ghee
Ghee does two separate jobs. It takes the heat of a vaghar without catching, and it is a finishing flavour in its own right — spooned over hot rotli, dal or sheero, where you taste it on purpose.
What to use instead- Make it from unsalted butter500 g of unsalted butter on a low flame gives roughly 400 g of ghee in twenty-five to thirty minutes; strain it through muslin.Go until the solids on the base are golden-brown and the fat runs clear and smells nutty. From sweet-cream butter it comes out cleaner and milder than ghee churned from malai; a cultured butter gets closer.
- A jar of ghee from an Indian grocerNo conversion — spoon for spoon, but taste a little on its own before you decide what it is good for.Dependable for a vaghar and easier than standing over a pan. Jars vary a great deal: some are rounded and nutty, others flat and faintly waxy, and the flat ones show up badly in sheero.
- Clarified butter, or a neutral oilSpoon for spoon in any dish where the ghee is cooked into the food rather than tasted at the end.Clarified butter is ghee stopped early — no browned solids, so no nutty smell. Both carry a vaghar perfectly well; neither is worth spooning over anything.
Don't attemptSheero, and ghee spooned onto a hot rotli. These are the places where ghee is the flavour and not the fat; made with oil, sheero tastes of sugar and rava and nothing else.
Unsalted butter is sold everywhere, so ghee is one of the few things you can rebuild in any country; jars also turn up in world-food aisles.
Paneer
Paneer's whole job is to hold its shape. It does not melt or stretch; it sits in a gravy taking on the masala while staying in cubes, and crumbles into bhurji or a paratha stuffing when you want it to.
What to use instead- Make it from fresh whole milkTwo litres of whole milk gives a block of about 250-300 g: boil it, take it off the heat, add lemon juice a spoon at a time until the whey runs clear.Read the carton first — UHT, long-life and ultra-pasteurised milk have been heated so hard that they give soft grains and cloudy whey instead of a block that knits. Fresh chilled pasteurised milk sets properly.
- A block from an Indian grocer, fresh or frozenCube it as it is; a frozen block wants fifteen minutes in hot salted water before it goes anywhere near the pan.Firmer, drier and squeakier than home-made, which is exactly what you want in a sabzi that gets stirred. It stays a little rubbery, and frozen blocks never fully lose that.
- Halloumi, soaked firstCube it, soak it through two changes of cold water for half an hour, and add no salt to the gravy until you have tasted it.It holds its shape as well as paneer does, which is the hard part solved. It is salty and tangy where paneer is plain and sweet, so a mild matar-paneer ends up tasting of cheese.
Don't attemptDo not start a paneer sabzi by setting milk from a long-life carton. It will not come together into a block, and the grains break up in the gravy and leave you with milky spinach.
Indian grocers sell blocks fresh and frozen, and world-food chillers sometimes carry one. Otherwise it is two litres of fresh milk and an hour.
Vegetables
Surti papdi
The flat green pod undhiyu is built on. Young pods cook soft and go faintly sweet; the plump beans inside stay mealy and starchy, and that pod-plus-bean doubleness is most of what undhiyu tastes of.
What to use instead- Frozen surti papdi from an Indian grocerWeight for weight, straight from frozen into the pot, and two or three minutes less cooking than you would give fresh pods.This is barely a substitute. The pods lose a little snap and the colour dulls towards olive, but the sweetness and the starchy inner bean are both there, which no fresh Western bean gives you.
- Frozen papdi lilva with fresh flat romano or helda beansRoughly one part shelled lilva to two parts flat beans, measured by volume rather than weight.The romano beans do the work of the long soft pod and the lilva supply the mealy centre, so between them both halves are covered. The seam shows if you look for it, but undhiyu holds together.
- Flat romano or helda beans on their ownThe same weight, cut into two-inch lengths and cooked several minutes longer than you would for a stir-fry.They look right and go properly soft, but they stay sweet and green the whole way through with nothing mealy at the centre. Broad beans are worse, not better: the skins turn bitter in a slow-cooked pot.
Don't attemptDo not attempt undhiyu with French or green beans. The muthiya and the masala survive, but what comes out of the pot is a sweet-sour mixed vegetable curry. Papdi-lilva nu shaak has nowhere at all to hide.
The freezer of almost any Indian grocer, whole in the pod or shelled as lilva, sometimes labelled valor papdi. Fresh, outside India, almost never.
Dudhi
A mild gourd that is mostly water held in soft flesh. Grated into muthiya and handvo it supplies the moisture that binds the dough without added water; in dudhi-chana it goes translucent and drinks up the gravy.
What to use instead- The same vegetable under another nameOne for one — it is not a substitute, it is dudhi sold under a different label.Nothing changes, and this is the useful thing to know: dudhi is sold across the world as calabash, opo squash, lauki, long melon or cucuzza. Choose a firm pale one; an old gourd is spongy and seedy.
- Courgette, grated and squeezedThe same grated volume, salted for ten minutes and squeezed hard before it goes into the batter.Fine in muthiya and handvo once the water is out. It carries a green skin flavour dudhi does not have, and unsqueezed it makes the batter slack, so the muthiya steam heavy instead of light.
- Winter melon from a Chinese grocerThe same weight in cubes, cooked a few minutes longer than dudhi would need.Better than courgette for dudhi-chana because it holds its cubes instead of collapsing. The flavour is cleaner and more watery, so the gravy tastes thinner and needs a firmer hand with the masala.
Don't attemptDudhi no halwo. Courgette and marrow release their water into the pan long before the milk thickens, and you end up stirring a loose green mush that will not come together however long you stand over it.
Widely available, often not in the Indian shop. Chinese, Caribbean, Middle Eastern and Latin American grocers stock it as calabash or opo squash.
Tindora
A small firm gourd eaten for its bite. Sliced or quartered it takes on masala while staying crunchy, and whole pods are slit and stuffed. The faint bitterness under the skin is part of why it tastes of itself.
What to use instead- Frozen sliced tindora from an Indian grocerThe same weight, cooked from frozen in a wide pan on a high flame, uncovered, so the water drives off.The flavour comes through, the crunch does not. Freezing softens it, so a dry sabzi turns tender rather than crisp. Covered pan and low flame make it worse — you get a pale stew.
- Small firm courgettesQuartered lengthwise into fingers the size of tindora halves, salted briefly, then cooked hot and uncovered.Closest in a dry masala sabzi because it browns the same way, but it waters out, loses the bitterness entirely and goes soft at the point where tindora is still firm. Eat it hot or it slumps.
- Tender French beans, cut shortInch lengths, the same weight, with exactly the masala you would use for tindora-batata.This keeps the bite, which the frozen gourd cannot. What you lose is the seedy centre and the skin's edge of bitterness, so the shaak tastes sweeter and reads more like a bean dish than a gourd one.
Don't attemptBharela tindora. Stuffing with besan masala needs whole firm pods that stay shut around the filling through the cooking, and nothing else sold abroad does that — courgette splits, frozen tindora collapses.
Fresh in Indian and some Southeast Asian shops as tindora, tindli, kundru or little gourd. Otherwise sliced and frozen, which is the usual way.
Guvar
A slim stiff bean with a definite bitter edge. In guvar nu shaak the jaggery and the besan are there to push against that bitterness, and in undhiyu it keeps its chew while softer vegetables give way.
What to use instead- Frozen guvar from an Indian grocerThe same weight, already topped and cut, needing two or three minutes more than fresh.The bitterness survives freezing, which is the whole reason to buy it. The stiffness does not entirely: the pods bend rather than snap, so a dry shaak comes out softer than it should be.
- Yardlong beans from an East or Southeast Asian grocerCut to the same inch-and-a-half lengths, the same weight, cooked much as you would guvar.Closer than French beans because they are genuinely stiff and chewy rather than tender. They are not bitter at all, so pull the jaggery back by half or the shaak turns frankly sweet.
- French beansThe same weight, same lengths, and half the jaggery the recipe asks for — taste before you add the rest.Everyday and easy, and it looks the part. But it is sweet and soft where guvar is bitter and tough, so with the full jaggery you have made a sweet green bean shaak with Gujarati masala on it.
Don't attemptA dry guvar nu shaak built on the bitter-sweet balance. With French beans the jaggery has nothing to argue with and you have made fansi nu shaak, which is a good dish but somebody else's.
Frozen in Indian grocers' freezers, whole or cut; fresh only occasionally. Yardlong beans are the fresh thing worth walking to an Asian shop for.
Val
Flat dried beans with a thin skin and a mealy, faintly bitter interior. Cooked soft they break a little and thicken their own gravy, which is why val nu shaak needs so little else doing to it.
What to use instead- Dried val, ordered by postAs the recipe says — soaked overnight, then pressure-cooked soft.Nothing changes, and unlike every vegetable on this page val is a dry good that keeps for a year and travels well. If one thing here is worth ordering a kilo of and forgetting about, it is this.
- Butter beans or lima beansThe same weight dried, soaked overnight, but cooked noticeably less — check them early, they go from firm to mush quickly.The flat shape and the mealy inside are right. They are sweeter, have none of val's bitterness, and the skins slip off into the gravy, so the dish looks cloudier and tastes gentler.
- Black-eyed beansThe same weight, a shorter soak, and the same jaggery and tamarind the recipe uses.They hold their shape far better, which suits a dhokli-style dish where you do not want the beans breaking. The flavour is its own thing entirely and the gravy will not thicken by itself.
Don't attemptVal nu shaak, and anything built on the skinned split val. The skin and the bitterness are the dish; butter beans give you a pleasant bean stew that nobody from home would recognise by that name.
Any Indian grocer, and online as val, vaal, lablab or hyacinth bean. Being dry, it is the one item here you can reasonably stock up on.
Ratalu
A dense purple-fleshed yam. Sliced and fried for bhajiya it goes floury and almost creamy inside while the edges crisp, and it is barely sweet, which is why a plate of them does not cloy. Eaten on fasting days in many homes.
What to use instead- Ube or purple yam from a Filipino, Caribbean or West African shopOne for one, peeled and sliced the same thickness.Often the same vegetable under another name, and the best answer here. One warning: frozen grated ube is frequently sold already sweetened for desserts — read the packet, because sugared yam will ruin a savoury bhajiya.
- TaroThe same weight, sliced a little thinner, and cooked right through rather than briefly.The sticky-starchy interior is close and it fries well. It is pale rather than purple, slips about more on the knife, and has a distinct earthy note that reads as taro to anyone who knows it.
- Sweet potatoThe same weight in slices, fried a shade cooler so the sugars do not catch before the middle is done.Easy to find and it holds together in the pan, but it is far sweeter and the inside turns soft and wet instead of floury. The bhajiya brown much faster and taste of sweet potato, not of ratalu.
Don't attemptRatalu na bhajiya made with sweet potato. The whole point is a dry floury inside under a crisp coat; sweet potato gives you a sweet damp one, and the besan jacket slides off the wet slices as they fry.
Indian grocers in winter, when it appears as a knobbly purple-grey tuber. Filipino, Caribbean and West African shops carry it year-round as ube.
Kand
A drier, denser tuber than ratalu, with a coarser grain. Cubed it holds its edges through a sauté, and fried it gives a firm chip rather than a creamy one. In many households it belongs to the fasting kitchen.
What to use instead- Frozen kand cubes from an Indian grocerThe same weight, cooked from frozen in hot oil without crowding the pan.The grain and the flavour come through intact, which is more than frozen gourds manage. The cut faces soften, so the cubes brown less readily and you will not get the crisp corners of fresh kand.
- Taro, the small eddoe kindThe same weight, cubed the same size, cooked a few minutes longer and right through.The closest thing for bite — dense, holds its cubes, takes salt and cumin the same way. It is a little slippery when cut and carries its own earthy flavour, so the shaak tastes of taro rather than of kand.
- PotatoThe same weight and the same treatment: cubed, salt, cumin, a hot pan and no lid.The honest fallback. It behaves well and takes the seasoning, but it has none of kand's coarse grain and goes fluffy where kand stays firm. Anyone raised on kand will know at the first bite.
Don't attemptDo not make potato the centre of a fasting thali and call it kand nu shaak. Kand is on the plate precisely because it is not potato; cook something else and let the thali be openly potato-based instead.
Frozen cubes in Indian grocers' freezers all year, fresh in winter. Taro is in Chinese, Caribbean and West African shops whenever you need it.