Haldi, jaggery and ginger jaggery: the everyday shelf, done properly

Three things that are already in most Indian kitchens, bought without much thought and used without much ceremony. They are also the three where the difference between a good version and an indifferent one is easiest to taste, and easiest to lose through bad storage.

Stone-ground haldi, and why the pack is small

Our turmeric is grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilisers, dried, and stone-ground rather than milled industrially. Stone grinding is slower and runs cooler, and turmeric is an aromatic — what you are paying for is volatile, and heat is what drives it off.

It is sold in a 100 g pack for the same reason. Ground turmeric begins losing its aroma the day it is opened, and a kilogram bought cheaply is mostly yellow dust by the time you reach the bottom of it. A small pack finished quickly is a better product than a big pack kept a year.

• Keep it in an airtight container away from light and heat. Not above the stove, however convenient that is.
• Buy the size you will actually use in a few months.
• It stains — hands, worktops, plastic spoons and light clothing. Use a metal spoon and wipe up quickly.
• Traditionally it is combined with a pinch of black pepper, which is how the two have been cooked and taken together in Indian kitchens for centuries.

Haldi doodh, without scorching the honey

Warm the milk rather than boiling it. Stir in half a teaspoon of haldi and a pinch of black pepper, and let it warm through for a minute or two. Take it off the heat, let it cool slightly, and only then stir in honey. Honey added to boiling milk is honey wasted — this is the same rule that applies to every raw honey in our range.

Jaggery, and what it honestly is

Jaggery is sugarcane juice boiled down and set. That is the whole process. White sugar goes several steps further: it is refined, filtered and bleached until nothing remains but sucrose. Jaggery keeps the molasses, and the molasses is where its colour, its mineral content and its slight bitterness come from.

Now the part most people selling jaggery leave out. It is still a sugar. It is an unrefined one with more character and more of the cane left in it, and it is a traditional replacement for white sugar in tea, in sweets and after a meal — but it should be counted in your day the same way sugar is. We would rather say that plainly than let the word natural do work it cannot do.

• Use it in place of sugar in tea, coffee, halwa and chikki.
• A small piece after a meal is the traditional habit, and it is the one most people mean when they say they eat jaggery.
• Store it dry and airtight. Jaggery pulls moisture out of the air and turns sticky, and in a humid Mumbai monsoon it will do so within days of being left open.
• If it has gone tacky, it has taken up water. It is still perfectly usable in cooking.

Ginger jaggery: a winter block

Ginger jaggery is jaggery boiled with fresh ginger before it is set, so the heat runs all the way through the block rather than sitting on the surface. It is warmer than plain jaggery but not sharp, and it is traditionally a winter thing: a small piece after dinner, or dropped into tea in place of both the sugar and the fresh ginger.

Turmeric wants a small pack and a dark cupboard. Jaggery wants a dry one. Neither wants a year on a shelf.