The Konkan Pantry

Mango is eight weeks of the year. This shelf is the other forty-four — the sour, the sweet and the heat that a Konkan kitchen runs on when there is no fruit on the tree.

Kokum is the one to start with

If you take one thing off this page, make it kokum. The dried rind of Garcinia indica does in Konkan what tamarind does further inland: it sours a curry without the muddiness, and it turns the colour of a fish curry from brown to red. It is also the base of solkadhi and of the sherbet that every Konkan house drinks through May.

Buy whole rinds rather than powder. Powder is usually cut with salt, it loses its edge in a few months, and you cannot see what went into it. Whole kokum keeps a year in a jar and you use two or three pieces at a time.

What this shelf is not

It is not a complete Indian pantry. There is no turmeric or cumin here because you already have them and we have nothing to add about either. What is on this page is the part of a Konkan kitchen that a shop outside Maharashtra usually will not stock, which is the only reason to order it rather than walk to the corner.

The commission on groceries is the lowest of any category Amazon pays on, which is worth saying out loud: this is the page we would keep if we had to pick one, and it is also the page that earns the least.

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