Does anyone know the difference between Kashmiri chilli powder and just plain chilli powder?

Thanks

Kashmiri chilli powder is deep red in colour and it is a little milder than the usual chilli powders you buy from Indian shops. It gives curries a nice, red colour, just like paprika powder. Indian paprika powder is not hot at all, it just gives red colour. Indian chilli powder is quite hot and comes in mild, medium or hot varieties. Names of chillies it is made from are not usually given on chilli powder packets.

'Kashmiri chili powder', or 'kashmiri chillies' is a bit of a misnomer. It seems that nearly everyone is recommending them in cookbooks these days, but I have to report that most (if not all) so-calle Kashmiri chilies don't come from Kashmir. The mild red ones are grown in Karnataka and a few other states, and are called Byadgi chillies. They are easily regognisable by their shrivelled appearance. True Kashmiri chillies are quite broad, not very red and of medium pungency. Byadgi chillies (named after a town in the Hubli district of Karnataka, NW of Bangalore) are more pointed, deep red and mildly pungent.

I found even Indian chefs in restaurants in India were misidentifying Byadgi chillies as Kashmiri ones (even a Pandit from Kashmir!!)

Where does this leave the cook of Indian food. Well, just use jars of chilli labeled 'Kashmiri chilies', you now know they are not, but it is probably what the originator of the recipe specified, anyway. At least one supermarket chain is labeling its 'Kashmiri chillies' as really being Byadgi ones!

The problem is that no one knows the names of dry chillies or chilli powder sold as a spice. They are known as hot, medium, mild or sweet (paprika). There may be some Extra Hot! So they can called any medium hot chilli as Kashmiri chilli, wherever it is grown. This can get very confusing.

Lapis, I thought that their other name was Degchi chilli, where as Byadgi from the Southern India is quite hot, but I could be wrong.

Where does this leave the cook of Indian food? Use them as mild, medium or hot chillies, as per your taste.

Mamta, I thought Degi mirch was like saying paprika in Hindi. Paprika, as you know, is usually made from paprika peppers, similar to bell peppers (sweet peppers, or capsicums) and known in Hindi as simla mirch, I think. Byadgi chillies are reddish, and not very pungent, I bought a bag back with me from Bangalore.

I have some chilli powders known by the varietal name, but as you say, most are not, and open to abuse, I fear. I always grind my own, for this reason. The mixing of very hot chilli powder and paprika in any proportion must be a good one, as chillies and sweet peppers are the same genus, some are even the same species.

However, I would never use habaneros (or any American/Mexican chilli) for Indian food (except tabasco chillies (not the sauce) instead of Kanthari whites, or cayenne (the chilli, not the generic powder) for general use. Mostly I use Thai chillies, which resemble the small green chillies found all over India.

Hello Lapis

My understanding has always been that the Kashmiri chilli or Degi/Degchi mirch is from Kashmir and similar climates, milder, almost list paprika but with some heat. Byadgi probably comes from southern regions of India. Like most Indians, I tend to use them by their difference in heat, rather than their name, because I am not familiar with names in general. Here are a few interesting sites to read about them;

http://www.indianspices.com/html/s06231ch.htm

http://www.chilly.in/Indian_chilli_varieties.htm

http://www.spice-vpsa.com/varieties.htm

http://www.ikisan.com/links/ap_chilliMarketing.shtml

Mamta

PS The word Degchi also means 'a kettle' in some parts of India. Aren't languages confusing?

I don't believe most 'Kashmiri chillies' come from Kashmir, if you do the sums, you can see that the state of Kashmir (and Jammu, India side) would have to be 6 inches deep in chillies to fulfil the demands from the rest of the world. I believe that somewhere along the way, someone got hold of the byadgi chilli, and started to call it 'Kashmiri'.

Here is a picture of Byadgi chillies I bought in Bangalore:

http://www.uploadr.org/u/1226a.jpg

and some true Kashmiri chillies, bought in Kashmir:

http://www.uploadr.org/u/bb82d.jpg

I think the difference is obvious.

By the way, most of the data on the references you site are all from the same source, plagerism gone mad, I'm afraid. I have done my own reasearch and turned up about 300 varieties that are grown, or will be grown in India, though most of these are hybrids to counteract drought and wilt problems. Some old varieties are shown in your references.

Deghi is also the name of the earthenware pot used to get just that perfect flavour for producing biryanis. Yes, language is the spice of life!

:-)

I only asked as I brought some the other day unaware it was any different. It soon became apparent however that it was a lot milder that the stuff I had been buying, and was a much richer red.

all is well Becs, I just thought I would be pedantic for the sake of clarity and correctness. However, I really wonder what I am getting when/if I buy chilli powder, and now I much prefer to 'roll my own'. ;?)

Also note than 'chilli' powder is the name given by the Americans to a mixture of chilli powder (cayenne), cumin, and other things, maybe herbs and salt, to throw into 'chilli con carne', usually just called 'chile' by the Yanks. It looks much darker (richer) and is milder than pukka chilli powder. Read the ingredients label.

I think Lapis' information is completely accurate. I used to buy (at some cost) my 'Kashmiri Chillies' from Waitrose, until I was informed that these were in fact Byadgi chillies, as the original seem to rarely make it out of their home state, where demand is considerable. The way to tell, is that true 'Kashmiris' are not crinkly in their dry state. I still use Byadgis though (which as standard practice, seem nearly always to be labelled as Kashmiri Chillies) as they colour and flavour well, with a mild heat. To temper dals etc, I generally prefer dried Bird's-eye Chillies as I love their flavour and fiery heat.I also tend to use Kashmiri Chilli powder in preference to the general ones, as again the colour is vibrant and I find the heat levels much easier to vary with the amount of powder used.

I bought a pack the other day and found it deep red in colour. Is this the real colour or artifically coloured with the carcinogenic red dye? I am hesitiating to use the powder and wondering whether I should buy the whole chilly instead

I wouldn't worry too much, the safety data sheet just says "Limited evidence that this may act as a carcinogen" is more about covering behinds than actual science, and it is rather vague, is it saying 'beware' or 'don't worry'? Personally I don't think any safety data sheet is worth the paper it might be printed on, but I'm a chemist, and should know about these things, anyway. For a laugh, lok up the safety data sheet for sugar (sucrose) and see what it says for injestion.

If you really want a red colour, try paprika (same family). I use fresh red sweet peppers (and fresh red chillies) when I want a bright red colour, as in traditional rogan josh. One has to macerate the pepper/s in oil to extract the colour, but what a colour.

I would almost always used whole dried chillies, broken into small pieces for a dish that called for chilli powder, but then I use fresh chillies nearly every time.

could someone give me some idea what recipes you use the powder and where could i find them!!

Andy, Kashmiri chillies are just a fad. Used (and written about) by people who are following the fad, rather than understand what they are writing about.

If you want to see what all the fuss is about, look out for ones called Byadgi, these are very wrinkled, and red, but not the 'vermillion' colour some think.

Real Kasmiri chillis are a cross between sanam and reshampatti in morphology, and who knows, maybe botanically as well. There is nothing special about real Kasmiri chillies, AFAIK. I think one UK supermarket sell Kashmiri chillies, but even they say they are really Byadgi, and not Kashmiri!

A thing to remember is that it is relaively recenty that the chill powder packets have started iving the names of the type of chilli in the packet. In most Indian cooking, chilli is chilli, only it is mild, medium or hot. Hardly anyone ues named chillies. So, you can use Kashmiri chilli whenever you need to use chilli powder. How much to use is a very personal taste and choice.

I found your discussion very interesting. We found some ground Allepo peppers which we enjoy very much. I understand it is a Syrian red pepper. Are you familiar with it and is it similar to the Byadgi chili powder?

hello mamtaji

this is seema from india i m big fan of your recepies. i had just tried some recepies from your site and they are excellent please help me to be a good cook my cooking is very bad i m trying hard to improvise it. i dont understand in which curry what spices should be use its a big problem because, whatever i cook it spices will be similar in taste or most are tasteless.please give me some good tips to improvise my email address is shreya_2303@yahoo.com.

thanking you for all your very good recepies

Hi Seema

Mamta's recipes are very specific as to what spices/herbs should be used for each recipe.

Wondering if you are using ground spices that have been hanging around too long? Always best when possible to buy the 'whole' spice and grind on the day of cooking!

Winton

Hello Seema

Welcome :-)!

We were all, well almost all, bad cooks when we started. As you cook more and more, you will get better. As Winton says, old spices may be a problem, though it is unlikely if you are living in India and cooking Indian food twice a day.

In older Indian tradition, a particular vegetable/dal etc. had to be cooked with the exact spices of that region prescribed for that dish. There is a lot of mixing and matching these days, so if you use unusual spices for a dish, that is fine. Just give it a clever name, and no one will know ;-)!

Quality of an Indian dish also depends on how you prepare the 'Masala' spice mix, how you fry onions etc., etc. If you ask us specific question about what has gone wrong for you when making a certain dish, we may be able to help you better.

Best wishes

Mamta

Byadgi chillies are easy to spot, if you can find them. They are wrinkled, and sometimes a good red colour, which will darken on storage. These are the ones usually sold under the 'Kashmiri' flag.

However, what is a Mangalorean dish doing being made with 'Kashmiri' chillies? By a strange coincidence, the Byadgi chilli I'm afraid its all a scam propagated by TV chefs(of all nationalities). I even have a dvd of Camelia Punjabi holding byadgi chillies, proclaiming them 'Kashmiri' ones. She should know better.

here is a (poor) picture of Byadgi chilles, not my photos, which are on a sick computer ATM.

[URL=http://img31.imageshack.us/i/byadgichi1.jpg/][IMG]http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/8568/byadgichi1.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

here are real Kasmiri chillies.

[URL=http://img718.imageshack.us/i/realkashmirichilli.jpg/][IMG]http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/5249/realkashmirichilli.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

I can confirm both are correct.

Hope the pics show, please amend if they don't.

I read the whole discussion between Mamta ji and lapis, but my small doubt remains. I just want to find out which of the two should be used to bring out colour to the dish. Specially the non veg ones like Mutton etc. MDH masale are selling both the types in different packing. Kindly advise.

It is not always easy to find named chillies in Indian shops. They are mostly sold as mild, medium and hot, sometimes Extra hot too. Then there is paprika, which is purely for colour. I use medium hot chillies for heat (don't like very hot food) and paprika for colour.

Mamta

the colour is only soluble in oil, so whatever you use, it msy be extracted into oil. Paprika is good, as it can be had without heat, or I sometimes use fresh red capsicums (in oil). SMoked paprika is excellent, too, although all paprikas absorb water and can 'go off' rather rapidly.

Personally, I would use the chilli powder that looks the most red, and hope it has no 'added' colour! I very rarely use chilli powder, prefering fresh chillies, which can be fried, whereas the powder burns quickly!

I have been searching for this for ages found the answer with full list of ingrdint from tandoori glossary. I found this definition for Kashmiri chilli powder which they call curry masala basaar:

Definition: Curry Masala (Basaar)

This is a premix of different herbs and spices ground into powder. Curry Masala (Basaar) is also known as Kashmiri masala (basaar). Curry Masala (Basaar) comes in mild, hot, and extra hot. Curry Masala (Basaar) is used as base herb mix for curry?s and stir fry. The ingredients are: paprika, turmeric, coriander, chilli, garlic, cloves, ginger, black cardamoms, curry leaf, fennel, cumin, fenugreek, mustard, black pepper, ground cinnamon, star aniseed, rapeseed oil and sunflower oil.

Direct link:

http://www.tandooricookingexpert.com/blog/2010/10/31/glossary-curry-masala-basaar/

doesn't sound Indian, let alone Kashmiri. Kashmiri chili powder is just powdered chillies.

For a start, one doesn't find such mixes in Indian cooking, especially not described as herbs, this is found on UK "Indian restaurant' menus, not Indian recipes. The Kashmiris do not use fenugreek definitely not curry leaves, mustard seeds or star anise.

As far as I am concerned, this is completely made up. You can't believe everything you read on the net. And Tandoori cooking is not a Kashmiri thing, more Punjabi.

Hi all.

I have some dried Kashmiri/non-Kashmiri chillies and need to know the best way to grind them to a powder/paste in order to extract their colour and flavour. I used about 10 chillies in a dish recently but it didn't look very red. Tasted good though. Any ideas?

Thanks.

Hello Patrick

Personally I wouldn't grind chillies dry, the dust gets everywhere, into mucous membranes you didn't know you had and the cuts you did not know you had! I don?t discard the seeds of chillies. So to make a paste, I would grind them together, seeds and all, in a coffee grinder (I keep one just for spices). For colour only, grind the de-seeded Kashmiri chillies. I use dry ?sweet paprika? powder for colour myself. Let?s see what others do.

...I use sweet paprika for colour too

Cheers

Steve

I've bought recently Dried Kashmiri Chillies (dark maroone in colour) from Spices of India, 200g (Brand Fudco) for (I think ?3.95)

But, a friend of mine whilst visiting friends in Delhi bought me a pack of Kashmiri Chillies, slightly darker in colour from www.chhedastores.com tel: 022 241 144245

Hope this helps somebody,

Martin

The reason why Kashmiri chile is sometimes called degchi chile is because the powder is used in this manner.

When you make your curry you will usually add half of a tsp. of hot/mild chile powder with the other spices. After the curry is made you put half of cup or less of oil in a soup ladle over the fire to almost simmer, take the ladle off and wait for 15 seconds then add a heaped tsp. of kashmiri chile into the oil, stir and spread over the curry. This gives the curry a rich and red appearance.

Thanks for this Gilly Boy. This method is called 'tarka' or tempering. It is most commonly used for all sorts of dals, but can also be used for other dishes. It imparts a slightly smoky flavour to the dish and makes it look nice too. It is best done in a cast iron ladle, if you are looking for an authentic flavour.

How much Kashmiri chilli pwdr shd I use if not making a paste of chillies if required for a recipe?

I am not sure what you mean by paste of chilli. Generally, amount of chilli will depend upon what you are cooking, how much amount you are cooking, what you are cooking and how hot or mild you like it.

seems to make sense, although a sorry situation, really. It suggests the customer doesn't know what they want, probably a correct assumption for the most part!

Confusion reigns in India as to what is what. Often, it is due to translation (or transliteration) and finding an English name for an Indian herb or spice.

Examples are cinnamon, from Sri Lanka, often substituted by cassia, possibly from China, even the Hindi name supports this idea, as cassia is known as dal chini, or wood from China, although China may mean anywhere outside of India. Onion seeds (kalongi) are not onion seeds, but merely look like them. Fennel seed was once called lovage, caraway called black cumin seed, in fact, nearly every spice has been confused with something else at some time, and many problems still exist. Bay leaves don't exist in India, but those used in cooking are leaves from cassia trees, a very different flavour!

It would be nice to see spice packets name the region in which the spice was grown, just as vegetables are supposed to be labelled with the country of origin in the UK.

Getting back to Kashmiri chillies, it is possible that the Kashmiri chilli is a cross breed, with parents of sanam and reshampati, both derived from S. American chillies, originally. Neither the sanam or reshampati are particularly red, as far as I can see.

This is true for many things, but not all. The difficulty with names has never stopped Indian from using correct spices, because they buy spices using their correct Indian names, not English names. Chillies are not very often known by their names in India, only by their heat; mild, moderate or hot, sometimes even extra hot.

Surely, Mamta, the difficulty comes when Indian recipes are translated (etc) into English, especially if there is not an equivalent English word or a particular spice is not readily available in the UK/Europe/America.

Bay leaf is a perfect example. In India, the tej patta is used, leaves from various cassia trees. There is no such tree in the UK, so someone looked at the tej patta and thought it looked like a bay leaf, so called it an 'Indian bay leaf', not only wrong, but misleading and the wrong flavour. A substitute for tej patta would be a piece of cassia bark, whereas a substitute for bay would be cardamom, if we are going on flavour.

If we are to use substitutes, then we must compromise, although the world is getting smaller. However, I have noticed that using the proper ingredients (in India) has made a better tasting dish compared with 'nearest equivalents' in the UK.

It's a shame that fresh chillies are so hot, as some of them have a wonderful flavour, detectable just before the 'chilli bite'.

Sorry for not responding to you earlier Helen, it has been very hectic around here!

Yes, it is indeed true that many recipes, and many other things for that matter, loose their true meaning in incorrect translation. I find this most commonly with dal names.

What you say about tej-patta is true of course, it is definitely different from bay laurel that we grow here in UK (I have a small tree in my garden). You only have to look at the leaf pattern to know that. Personally, I don?t think that tej-patta makes a whole lot of difference to flavours, because what we buy as bay leaves from Indian stores here, or even in India, are very dry, almost odourless leaves. I do dry and use some bay laurel leaves (dry are better than fresh) here in UK and use them now and then, more for their look to be honest, rather than any noticeable flavour/aroma.

?It's a shame that fresh chillies are so hot, as some of them have a wonderful flavour, detectable just before the 'chilli bite'. ?

They do indeed have a nice flavour, well sort of. The trick is to a take a very small bite at a time from the whole chilli with a few mouthfuls of food in between, not with every mouthful as some people do and then regret. I always say that to start with; do not add it chopped up to your salad/soup/curries/bhajies/anything. Keep it on your plate and take a tiny bite now and then.

All fresh chillies are not very hot. Generally speaking, smaller chillies that are more tightly packed with seeds are hotter. We Indians are so used to buying chillies without any names and any definite idea of their heat, that it never causes any problems. We can generally tell which chillies are hot by looking at them.

Hello :-) I'm really happy to find this site. I was so confused to read Rick Stein's Indian recipes, so many specifying "kashmiri chilli" - I've been reading and cooking indian food for over 20 years and this was a new one to me. It's great to read the explanation here that it's kashmiri chilli getting 'trendy' that it's appearing in these recipes - not that I've been missing something all of this time. I've always cooked just with whole dried red chillies, dried red chilli seeds, chilli powder, or fresh green chillies. I vary heat by varying the amount. That's as fancy as I get and it dos sound, from reading this discussion, that I'm doing the right thing. Yay!

A question on fresh green chillies - I've seen small green chillies in one of my local Indian groceries. They are just a bit longer than a Thai red bird's eye chilli. Is there any difference in using these to using the long green chillies?

That last post is from me, forgot to log in!!!

I stumbled across this thread while updating my Indian Chilis Web page (http://www.clovegarden.com/ingred/cp_indiz.html) and found the conversation interesting.

One subject was about hot green chilis having interesting flavors but being too hot to enjoy. That is true, until you've made your sacrifices to the Chili Gods. The sacrifice they ask pain, but it is only temporary. Once the sacrifices have been made, you can enjoy the flavors, and "afterburn" is just a faded memory.

The way we do our sacrifices here in Los Angeles is to have our lunches in a Thai restaurant (we have at least 100 of them here) until we can order everything "extra spicy" and enjoy it, especially with added nam pla prik (hot green chili in fish sauce and vinegar).

The hot pain of chilis is a false signal, no actual damage is being done. Eventually, with exposure, the nerve receptors get tired of it and decide not to bother sending the signals any more.

That link http://www.clovegarden.com/ingred/cp_indiz.html doesn't work unless you remove the closing parentheses.

nice site, AGrygus, nothing confusing. I would agree with all that you have shown.

FWIW, I researched Indian chilies a few years ago (when I was on call for 12 hours a night!) and must have looked at ALL the sites having anything on Indian chillies.

I found info on about 300 varieties, about 30 common named cultivars and about 30 cross variants, the rest were mostly research types including one who's seeds had been through a nuclear reactor!

The Kanthari white I was given samples of when I was in Bangalore, a man from Kerala sent them over. They are more ivory than white, but my samples contained yellow, orange and red variants, and some were round (NOT Mundu!).

The real/genuine chilli from Kashmir is as you suggest. I spent an afternoon looking through a friends bag of chillies he bought and brought back from Kashmir. I managed to separate them into 21 different morphological variants, in the end, I think I could see that each was a combination of sanam and reshampati. The sanam is the commonest chilli in India (about 75% of all chillies grown in India are sanam) and is the one that is straight down one side and curved the other. Only available dried in the UK.

HTH

Your comments are very helpful to me.

I try to be accurate in matters of India, because my Web site's second largest audience, after the United States, is India, accounting for as many page views as GB and Canada combined.

I'm a little confused my self. Recently when in India i bought a bottle of Kashmiri paprika. The ingredients however state 100% ground Kashmiri chillies!? So still confused i tried some on chicken and it was fantastic. Slightly sweet tangy with just a hint of hot and a stunning colour. So have i got Kashmiri paprika or chilli? The brand is Keya.

Hello Anton

In India, chillies and peppers are rarely sold by their names, usually just as mild, hot, very hot or colour chillies. But things may have changed in recent years. I often buy mild chilli powder and end up finding it is too hot for me.

In India, sweet paprika is generally labelled and sold as 'rang wali mirchi' or 'chilli for colour'. Generally speaking, Kashmiri chillies are milder and used more for colour and flavour than their heat. May be that is why they labelled your Kashmiri chillies as paprika, I don't know.

I almost always add Kashmiri chilli powder that I buy from Indian store, to my tandoori mix, because I hate using the red colour that restaurants in UK do. It gives tandoori dishes a nice colour and flavour.

While you have it, try adding a little to your tomato soup, it gives a lovely flavour, as well as colour and a mild heat.

This is a relatively good description; https://nomoremicrowaves.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/wtf-is-kashmiri-chili-powder/

Mamta

Come and visit and keep in touch with me and others at

https://www.facebook.com/mamtaskitchen

sounds like the chillies you bought are of the Byadgi type, almost exclusively sold as 'Kashmiri' chillies (which are not very red!). My very best advice (which I follow!) is to buy fresh chillies, and let them dry (discard any suspect ones). Then grind these down if you want the powder, adding ground paprika if you want a redder colour and/or milder result. Also, one can buy smoked paprika, which adds a little, um, smokiness to the proceedings, great for tandoori dishes if you haven't got a tandoor!

HTH