Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Royal Indian Spice and Food


Earlier this month, I had to drive DD15 to a youth conference near Philadelphia. I took the opportunity to visit some friends in Conshohocken, who told me about a little Indian grocery store.

Royal India Food and Spices is just north of the King of Prussia Mall on Route 202. (map) The store is a Petro gas stations, but instead of the usual gas station snacks and soda, the store is stocked with Indian spices, dry goods, and some produce. They also distribute Indian movies and rent Uhaul trucks. When we were there, two nice Sikh gentlemen waited on us and advised me about moderately-priced rice.

We bought a huge hand of ginger root for $1.99/lb. I also got a 10 lb bag of basmati rice for $13.99. (It is almost $20 in our grocery stores.) I also spotted a 2-lb bag of masoor daal (split red lentils) for $3.99. We bought bags of ground garam masala spice blend, black mustard seeds, and ground cardamom. I brought home a jar of ginger paste, thinking it might be handy when fresh ginger is not available.

I definitely plan to stop in whenever I am in the area, adding ingredients as we try new dishes. I want to try chanaa dal next, a small split yellow bean. It is very popular in India, but not well known in the West. Apparently vendors try to substitute yellow split peas, but I bet Royal India will have the real thing.

4 comments:

Bee said...

We love our Indian market. The spices are always so much more cheaper than in the grocery store. And I think we go through a bag of red lentils every week.

Matriarchy said...

What do you make with the lentils? We are just starting to explore Indian food, having relied on a restaurant before. We don't know the name of anything we want to make, so I have trouble finding recipes to try.

anajz said...

Would you mind sharing your curry recipes?

Matriarchy said...

Here is a good all-purpose place to start:
http://wegottaeat.com/discover/recipe/23018

It's my basic recipe, which can be doctored up in various directions. I don't have a lot of other specific recipes. My daughter tends to make it up as she goes along.

I am also experimenting with Sag Daal:
http://wegottaeat.com/discover/recipe/46482