Tihar in Nepal

Spices for Tihar in Nepal

Tihar honours crows, dogs, cows and brothers in turn, and the kitchen produces sel roti, a ring-shaped rice bread flavoured with cardamom, clove and ginger, and spiced vegetable and lentil dishes. Nepali cooking uses spices from the hills, notably timur (Nepali Sichuan pepper, with a citrus, tingling heat) and jimbu, a dried Himalayan herb in the onion family, which is fried in ghee to season dal. Both are quite different from the spices of the plains, and both are part of the flavour of home.

The spices

Sichuan pepperTimur, the tingling spice of Nepal's hills, is a close cousin.CardamomBlack and green cardamom flavour sel roti.ClovePart of the sweet spice mix for sel roti.