Popular questions from people include vanpayar in English, thotakura in English, jowar in English, toor dal in English etc so I am trying to put together a list with names of popular ingredients used in Indian cooking with names in different Indian languages including mostly Malayalam as I am more familiar with Malayalam as well as the English names for those ingredients.
The below list contains different names or translations for popular ingredients used which might include names for different legumes, lentils, flours etc as it is used in English language and also in few other Indian languages including Malayalam (language of Kerala), Tamil (language of Tamil Nadu), Hindi(popular language in many parts of India) etc.
For example, the name for jowar in english is sorghum(jowar is hindi name for sorghum flour), vanpayar in english is red cowpeas (vanpayar or perum payar is malayalam word for red cowpeas), cherupayar is green mung beans, vellarikka in english is cucumber (vellarikka is the malayalam name for cucumbers) etc.
Some popular questions include toor dal in english which is yellow pigeon peas, urad dal in english which is black grams, moong dal in english is yellow mung beans, kambu in english which is pearl millet (kambu is tamil word for pearl millet) etc.
- Jowar – Sorghum
- Vanpayar – red cowpeas
- vella payar – black eyed peas
- cherupayar – green mung beans – pachai payaru
- cherupayar parippu – moong dal – yellow mung beans – pasi paruppu
- Kambu – pearl millet
- tuvara parippu – toor dal – yellow pigeon peas
- kadala parippu – chana dal
- kadala – chana – chickpeas – garbanzo beans
- uzhunnu – urad dal – black gram
- rava – sooji – semolina flour
- semiya – vermicelli
- vellarikka – cucumber
- kumbalanga – ash gourd
- padavalanga – snake gourd
- cheera – thotakura – amaranthus dubius
- green peas – pacha pattani payar – matar
- Besan flour – chickpea flour – kadala mavu
- wheat flour – gothambu mavu – godhumai
- rice flour – ari mavu
- muthira – horsegram
- peanuts – ground nuts – kappalandi
- rajma – kidney beans
- athi pazham – attippalam – anjeer fruit – fig fruit
- nenthra pazham – nendrapazham – plantain bananas – cooking bananas
- nellikka – amla – Indian gooseberry – phyllanthus emblica
The list is not of any particular order and mostly has the malayalam and english words for most of the entrees (though some may miss the malayalam names too) and includes the names in few other languages as well including tamil, hindi etc. In the above list, you can see that I have entered the name for vanpayar in english as red cowpeas, muthira as horsegram, rajma as kidney beans etc, but for cherupayar parippu I have the translations as yellow mung beans (in english), moong dal (in hindia) and pasi paruppu (in tamil).
As I mentioned, they are not of any particular order, as I am just trying to put together the different names for the same ingredients used in different Indian languages as well as English. I will try to update this list and post when possible.
Hope you found this post on glossary for English – Malayalam and other Indian languages helpful in finding the different names for the same ingredients used in cooking.
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