If you’ve always questioned why the best spices and ingredients from around the country always make it to foreign shores (and all we get are the leftovers), Kerala brand, Sprig, is your answer. Sprig narrowed in on the need for fine gourmet ingredients in our homes when we're looking to cook dishes from all over the world, be it Thai Curry or Mexican Rice Bowls. They also realised since we can't go sourcing for the ingredients, they made them all available online at their store.
The good folks at Sprig bring to you a range of finishing oils (chilli and sesame), gourmet salts and sugars (demerara sugars infused with vanilla, cinnamon, and brown spices), gourmet spice blends, a medley of peppers, pastes, and sauces from other countries (wasabi, harissa, nam prik pao and mole), paprika (sweet and smokey) and more.
We tried and loved the Six Pepper Medley (a mix of black, white, green, pink, Cubeb, and Sichuan peppers) and the absolutely lovely smokey paprika (a pinch is enough to perk up a pasta or scrambled eggs), the demerara sugar infused with vanilla came across as a bit too intense for regular tea or coffee—it would probably be more at home being added to cake batter. The Rosemary and Lavender-infused Sea Salt was perfect to marinate fish with before being grilled on a hot griddle. All we did was add some freshly ground pepper and a squeeze of lime. Absolutely no complaints about the nam prik pao, a sweet and fiery Thai chilli paste that we used to stir-fry veggies. We also made a dip with it, with Sprig’s Toasted Sesame Oil (sublime nutty flavours) and mopped it up with potato wedges. Yup, we went way overboard playing Masterchef thanks to Sprig.
Price: INR 299 onwards