Spice Stores in New York

While I promise that I'll also include references to stores in my recipes, I thought it might be helpful to summarize some of the best stores for crazy ingredients that I've found so far. Besides, it's more than likely that you'll start finding other recipes and want to know where to go to find things like white peppercorn. I didn't even know that existed until I saw a recipe for Kerala Porkchops. A slight digression, but now I'm ready :).

Little India- both a neighborhood and a store. The store is fairly small, but has a very large spice selection. It also has a great section of pickles. Now, these are not our Kosher deli pickles. We're talking about mangos pickled in chili sauce, lemons, limes, and all sorts of other delectable if unfamiliar jars of preserved exotica. You can click on the link to get directions, or take the 6 train to 28th street and walk one block.

Kalustyan's
A huge grocery store, with everything you could ever imagine, including a great deal of Middle Eastern ingredients. They have just as many spices, if not more, than Little India. They also have an incredible selection of dried fruits, ranging from blueberries to dates, as well as a great variety of rice and pulses. The back of the store has fabulous frozen goods, including Armenian lahmajun (sort of like a pizza made on pita bread), kibbeh (a delicious dish that's best described as a dumpling made of bulghur wheat with a ground meat center), every kind of yogurt ever imaginable, and much more. There's also a good amount of cooking ware, such as frying pans to make dosa (a South Indian pancake), idli trays, spice grinders, and things I wasn't quite sure the function of.

Grace's Marketplace
This is more like a specialty foodstore. It does, however, have a variety of spices that are rather surprising. It's on 3rd avenue and 71st street, and is not as expensive as the neighborhood might make you assume.

Another great place to try for specialty Middle Eastern food on the Upper East Side is Melangé, on 1st Avenue between 68th and 69th. Although not consistent, it often has things like saffron threads, coriander powder and cinnamon sticks. Their prepared food is terrific too, especially the hummus and eggplant dishes. They also have some great varieties of tea and dried fruit.

Traversing the Spice Trail

I've been using a recipe book called The Spice Trail for the last 6 months, ever since I graduated from college and decided I wanted to eat real food when I came home from work. It started with a desire to learn how to make food from Kerala, a South Indian province, but since then I've learned to Parsee, Thai, and Punjabi food, thanks to this book. Many of the recipes I blog are variations of those found in this book. Once you've used it for about a month, you'll be an expert, and your cabinet will be permanently stocked for South Asian cooking. If you know of other recipe books, I'd love to hear about them in your comments.

Dhal Curry

Whenever I post a recipe, I promise I'll also direct you to references for it as well as the best places in Manhattan to get the ingredients. If it can't be found in Manhattan, I'll try to stick to grocery stores in Queens or Brooklyn. If you don't feel like doing this yourself, I'll also direct you to some great restaurants that have these dishes, as that's what usually inspires my desire to cook the dish in the first place.

So, let's begin with Dhal curry. Dhal is basically a lentil dish, which is very common in Indian food. Some dhal is made with lentils, while others are made with split peas. As far as I can tell, this often depends on the region. I think northern India is more likely to use lentils, which give the dhal a more creamy and less grainy texture, whereas Sri Lankan and South Indian Dhal is often made of split peas. At Indian grocery stores, this is called Toor Dal. It's typically eaten with white rice and some sort of spicy pickle of your choice. Usually it's served with something less soupy, often a meat dish, but if you're vegeratian, chickpeas go really well with it too. Dhal is incredibly cheap, (you can usually get a 2 pound bag for about $2-3 at Indian stores), and is great to just keep around the house.

For this recipe you'll need the following:

1 cup of yellow split pea lentils (toor dhal)
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp coriander power
1 tsp ground ginger
1 can of coconut milk
cayenne or red pepper
2.5 cups of water
3 tbsps oil/ghee (I usually just use olive oil)
2 tsp mustards seeds
8-10 dry/fresh curry leaves
2 tsp cumin seeds
4 cloves of garlic (thinly sliced)
1 medium shallot (thinly sliced)
salt to taste

In a medium pot combine the dhal, water and turmeric over medium heat. Cook until the dhal is almost soft. Add the can of coconut milk, salt, coriander powder, and ground ginger and as much cayenne pepper as you like. You could also probably add ground cumin or cloves hear if you like, or leave out of any of the spices you don't like. Coriander gives the dhal a bit of an earthy flavor, which is nice with the sweetness of the coconut milk. Bring to a boil and keep simmering until the dhal is soft. This while take about 20 to 30 minutes.

In a separate pan, heat the oil. Add the mustard seeds, curry leaves and cumin seeds. The mustards seeds pop really quickly, so you may have to lower the heat. Once they start popping, add the shallots. Fry them until somewhat crispy, then add the garlic and fry until you start to feel a bit of an aroma. Mix into the dhal, and you're set.

This goes really well with Jeera Pullao, or cumin rice. To make it you'll need
2 tbsps of olive oil
1 tbsp cumin seeds
2 medium onions, thinly chopped
2 bay leaves
1.5 cups of Basmati rice
2.5 cups of water

Heat the oil in a sauce pan. Add the cumin seeds and bay leaves and fry for about 1 minute, over medium heat. (Don't let the bay leaves burn).
Add the chopped onions and saute until transparent. Add the rice and stir fry it until it looks well coated with the oil. Then add the water and let it boil for about 15 minutes.

This whole meal takes about an hour to prepare.
You can get the spices, such as coriander, cumin seeds, mustards seeds (which are particularly hard to find at most grocery stores) at three stores that I know of in Manhattan.
The first is Little India, between Lexington and Park Avenues on 28th street. You can take the 6 train to 28th street and you'll be two minutes away.
There's also Kalustyan's, which is 2 minutes away from Little India, on Lexington between 28th and 29th. They have a larger variety, but are a bit less friendly.
In the East Village, there's a tiny grocery store on 1st Avenue between E5th and E6th streets. I'm not sure what it's called, but it's about 5 steps south of the Indian restaurant covered with christmas tree lights.


If you're not up for cooking this yourself, I would suggest trying it at Sigiri, a Sri Lankan Restaurant between E5th and E6th on 1st Avenue.
Their website is http://www.sigirinyc.com/
It's only $3 there, although not nearly as much as the yield for the recipe I've given. You can also check out the citysearch reviews here: http://newyork.citysearch.com/review/41841476.

This type of Dhal may feel unfamiliar to those of you used to the North Indian version, but trust me, you'll be converted as soon as you try it. I'll be posting a more complicated recipe for a lentil dhal recipe soon.