Indian Grocery Store Intimidation

Where to start?

Not your five minute recipe

A friend recently tagged along with me to an Indian grocery store.He was seeking Indian spices so that he could learn how to conjure up some Indian dishes.

The intimidation factor can really set in when you have to buy a pound of Garam Masala or the like. It is almost easier to pay the price at Wholefoods for an "Westernized" version that costs the same for a 4 ounce version as apposed to 16 ounce sack at you local Indian grocer.

What was my friend supposed to do with ten, one pound bags of spices? For a novice that wants to learn, this seems like the wrong way to attempt Indian cooking. Besides, we live in NYC where space is a premium.

Indian grocery stores are usually filled with South Asian folk. These days I have noticed others that brave the packed aisles of foreign products, that don't resemble your local Indian food restaurant's dishes. A place where the clerks that stock the shelves are less than friendly if you pronounce the product incorrectly. I was surprised that these stores are not catering to the rest of the melting pot? These are entrepreneurs after all. Wouldn't they want a piece of what gourmet grocery stores have capitalized on?

I scoured the web for a spice kit. The kind that almost every Indian home has. A round stainless steel container with a series of smaller round containers for the spice of your choice. Most importantly, one that contains the spices.

For those out there that want to tackle the tedious task of Indian cooking this spice kit is for you (above) LINK. For those that own the grocery stores, get it together and stock a few of these. They may even work for those South Asians that are away form home and don't need enough spices for an entire village.

Happy cooking and good luck with that Navratan Korma. If it doesn't work out, at least you will have a really cool stainless steel organizer.