Natco

Natco is a British brand that has packed spices, pulses, flours and tins for South Asian and Caribbean kitchens for many years. Its range reads like a well kept larder: the seeds and blends for a masala, the beans for a slow pot, and the flour and coconut for festival sweets.

From Natco we stock tinned beans such as black eye beans and gungo peas, tinned chickpeas, plum tomatoes and puréed spinach among the tinned saag. There is butter ghee, gram flour, desiccated coconut, wet tamarind and dried black beans among our rajma and dried beans. The spice side runs to cumin seeds, hulled sesame seeds, garam masala and a few seasonings for grilling and stir frying.

Punjabi cooks use Natco chickpeas for a fast chole and besan for pakoras and besan ladoo. Black eye beans become lobia curry, while gungo peas are the Jamaican choice for rice and peas at Christmas. Desiccated coconut goes into coconut barfi and ladoo, tamarind into sambar, rasam and imli chutney, and hulled sesame into til ladoo for Makar Sankranti. Pick tinned pulses for a weeknight and dried beans when you have time to soak and want a creamier pot.

To use wet tamarind, break off a piece, soak it in hot water for ten minutes, then squeeze and strain the pulp; the block keeps for months in a cool cupboard once wrapped. For other brands of the same basics, compare Natco with our tinned beans and chickpeas and whole spices collections.