doubt I can find the spices but I will make due.
Was about to suggest googling for a local Indian grocery store, then I tried it myself and realized just how out of the way Boulder Junction appears to be! Only "Indian" hits I got had more to do with reservations and the like. So it looks like you'd need to do mail order unless a roadtrip to one of the bigger cities is in order.
It is true that you can cook Indian without all the exotic ingredients..I've seen recipes using normal grocery store yellow split peas instead of chana or toovar dal, and with, say, whole cumin, cardamom, garlic, ginger, turmeric, red pepper flakes or cayenne, and various other accessible ingredients one could get pretty far. The four key elements I think (at least, not among the jains who would supplant things like garlic with hing/asafetida, not something I recommend doing personally, man does it stink up the house) are cumin, sort of the master spice in Indian, garlic and ginger, and red pepper. I admit I cheat and use bottled crushed garlic and bottled ginger for Indian food. Its just quicker, call me a Philistine...they use garlic/ginger paste quite a bit over there, as well.
Topic: Ethnic and Regional Cooking (Read 225633 times)
