Five kitchen ingredients, nothing else. Cold-pressed mustard seed oil and four aromatics, slowly infused in small batches in Montreal.
Mustard seed oil
Cold-pressed (kachi ghani). The everyday oil of Punjab and Bengal, and the one families bring out in winter for maalish. Its scent is bright, almost peppery: it is the base of our oil.
Garlic
Gently warmed in the oil, it loses its bite and keeps a round warmth. It is the most “homey” note.
Ajwain
A small ridged seed, a cousin of cumin. Bite one and it tastes like a stronger thyme. It brings a dry, herbal note.
Clove
The dried flower bud of a tree from the Maluku Islands. Sweet, woody, a little sugary: it is often the first scent people recognise.
Asafoetida (hing)
A resin from the root of the ferula plant. Strong in the jar, it mellows in warm oil and recalls sweet onion.
The label list
Ingredients (INCI): Brassica Juncea Seed Oil, Allium Sativum (Garlic) Bulb Extract, Trachyspermum Ammi Seed Extract, Eugenia Caryophyllus (Clove) Bud Extract, Ferula Assa-Foetida Root Extract.
Allergen: eugenol. May contain wheat (asafoetida).
These ingredients come from the kitchen, but the oil is not for eating: it is a massage oil, for external use only. Patch test on the inner forearm and wait 24 hours before first use.