Baigana (brinjal)
Buy: Italian eggplant
Cooking abroad
What to buy instead
Some of this is not sold outside India, and some of it is sold under a different name two aisles over. This is every substitution on the site, with the shop it is usually found in. Each one is also on the recipe page itself — switch Outside India and the list rewrites.
Panch phutana
Buy: Panch phoron
Raw papaya
Buy: Green papaya, or chayote
Asian and Caribbean shops carry green papaya.
In the shop: Hard and deep green — ask for green papaya, not the ripe orange one.
Arhar dal (toor)
Buy: Toor dal
Sold in every Indian shop. Yellow split peas work but need ten minutes longer.
In the shop: Split, matte yellow-orange, slightly larger than moong.
Used in Dalma
Dried red chillies
Buy: Chile de árbol
Much hotter than Odia dried chilli — use half.
Used in Dalma
Fresh grated coconut
Buy: Frozen grated coconut
Thaw first. Desiccated only as a last resort, soaked in warm water.
In the shop: Loose white shreds, not sweetened baking flakes.
Used in Dalma
Kakharu (pumpkin)
Buy: Butternut squash
Sweeter and denser — cut slightly larger so it does not collapse.
Used in Dalma
Kancha kadali (raw banana)
Buy: Green plantain
The firmest, greenest one in the box. Yellow will go sweet and mushy.
Used in Dalma
Mustard oil
Buy: Cold-pressed mustard oil
Indian shops only. The US supermarket kind is sold for external use.
Used in Santula
Ridge gourd
Buy: Courgette
Add it late — courgette releases far more water than ridge gourd.
Used in Santula
Saru (colocasia)
Buy: Frozen taro, or a waxy potato
Frozen taro is in the Asian freezer aisle.
In the shop: Small, hairy, brown-skinned, about the size of an egg. Sold as taro, arbi or eddoe.
Used in Dalma
A word on swapping
A substitution is not the same dish. Chayote in place of raw papaya makes a good dalma; it does not make the dalma you remember. Where the difference matters, the recipe says so, and where nothing sold abroad comes close, it says that too rather than pretending.