Amchar masala substitutes

Mix 2 tsp roasted ground cumin, 1 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp ground mustard seed, ½ tsp ground fenugreek, ½ tsp coarse black pepper and ½ tsp amchur. This is essentially the real thing, and it takes five minutes if you have the spices.

Best for

mango chow, kuchela, pickled fruit, amchar, cucumber chow

Grind coarsely, not to a fine powder. Amchar masala should be gritty enough to see and to cling to wet fruit. A mortar or a few pulses in a spice grinder is right.

The minimum viable version, and it gets you most of the way. Roasted cumin is the single dominant note in amchar masala and amchur supplies the dry sourness. What is missing is the mustard bite and the fenugreek bitterness, so the blend tastes cleaner and less complex.

Best for

mango chow, quick chow, pineapple chow, last-minute cooking

If you have no roasted cumin, dry-toast whole cumin seeds in a pan over medium heat for two to four minutes until they darken and smell nutty, then grind. That is what geera is.

Available everywhere and broadly in the right family, but garam masala is built on cinnamon, clove, cardamom and black pepper. Chow made with it tastes noticeably sweeter and more perfumed, more like a warm curry spice than the dark, roasted, almost savoury-bitter profile of real amchar masala.

Best for

chow, pickled fruit, emergency swaps

Use less than the recipe says. Garam masala is more aromatic per spoonful and it is easy to make the fruit taste like dessert. Dry-toasting it in a pan for 30 seconds first helps a lot.

Closer than garam masala in the roasted and fenugreek departments, because most Caribbean and British curry powders already contain plenty of both fenugreek and cumin. The catch is turmeric, which stains mango chow bright yellow and adds a musty bitterness.

Best for

kuchela, amchar, cooked pickles, chow where colour does not matter

Toast it dry for about a minute before use, which knocks back the raw turmeric edge. Expect the finished chow to look yellow rather than dark brown.

Right register, wrong details. Chaat masala hits the same sour-savoury target and is designed for exactly this kind of raw-fruit seasoning, but it contains black salt, which is distinctly sulfurous, and it has no roasted depth. Your chow will taste tangier, saltier and a bit eggy.

Best for

mango chow, raw fruit, cucumber chow, when you already own it

Cut the salt in the rest of the recipe, because chaat masala is already salted. Adding half a teaspoon of roasted cumin to it closes most of the gap.

The bare-bones version if you have no amchur, no mustard and no fenugreek. It supplies the aroma but none of the sourness, so add extra lime juice to the chow to compensate. The result tastes flatter and rounder, missing the sharp edge that makes chow addictive.

Best for

mango chow, minimal pantry, cooked dishes

Add an extra half lime per portion. In chow the sourness is doing real work, so replacing the dry amchur with wet acid is a fair trade.