Indian supermarket - what to get?

Question

I've just moved a short walk from an Indian food supermarket. This is a treat because where I live, speciality ingredients/world food stores are rare and some ingredients for certain cuisines are just not possible to find. For example, I love Yotam's stuff and have his vegetarian cookbooks, but some of the recipes have ingredients it's just not possible to get here. 

So I'm super excited about having Indian ingredients nearby that I haven't previously had access to. The only problem is that I'm now overwhelmed by the choices and have no idea what anything is, so I don't know where to start! 

I went in there yesterday to get spices to make berbere mix, and there were spices, chutneys, flours, frozen veg, curry pastes, sauces, etc, all in varieties or flavours I'd never heard of. And I don't want to just randomly buy stuff when I don't know what I'm doing. 

So: what vegetarian Indian recipes do you recommend for someone who has access to an Indian food store, i.e. a wider range of ingredients than the standard Western ones? Only thing: they don't have fresh veg, but do have quite a bit of speciality frozen veg. 

Thank you!

Answer

For Indian spices & herbs, the must haves for me is Cumin Seeds, Coriander Seeds, Green Cardamon, Cloves, Garam Masala (you can even make you own). You can make a very decent curry base with these and some onions, garlic, ginger and tomatoes (and I love cilantro). You can also make a simple chai with some of these spices. 

Nice to have for me would be fenugeek (methi) leaves & seeds, curry leaves, fennel seeds, black cardamon.

Fresh paneer is good recommendation for veggie protein. I would also try some indian flat bread: paratha, roti, it is quite easy to make you own naan and very nice to have fresh but you can also get from the store. some papadoms to cook at home.

I am a big meat eater but these are the veggie Indian dishes that I like - any Paneer (Saag/spinach or any curry gravy), Malai Kofta (Vegetable cheese balls cooked in curry gravy, you may be able to get the cheese balls frozen), Aloo Gobi (cauliflower & potatoes - dry curry). 

If you feel adventurous, you can get some chickpea (gram / besan) flour to play with and do pakoras, etc. 

Basmati rice if you prefer less starchy rice and if you don't previously have access to it.

Answer

If nothing else, definitely start buying your rice and spices there--we have several Indian markets near us and those products are always both cheaper than at the grocery store, and often nicer quality.

Answer

Where do you live...? 

I tend to go up to the Indian supermarkets in Harris Park in Sydney but tend to only buy spices, some pickles, indian flours, and fresh breads and poppadoms. 

Their range of veggies tends to not be as good as some of the bigger fruit shops so I get my onion, garlic, chilli, aubergine etc from normal shops. The fruit shops I go to usually have fresh curry leaves (frozen or dried are pretty useless) and one always has fresh Methi. I buy frozen (Malaysian) Roti from my local Asian supermarket and find it a good bread for curry.

As to what you should cook - best advice is to get a good vegetarian indian cook book and go from there. Its quite easy as long as you master some techniques like really browning (not burning) onions and cooking out the spices properly (nothing worse than raw spice). 

Useful tools to get are a decent spice/coffee grinder to process the spices and a stick blender to puree pastes.

Answer

The yoghurt. Good, unadulterated and cheap.
To the spice list, add dill seed.
That they don't sell fresh vegetables is probably not much of a loss.

Answer

I would get dried adzuki beans, lentils, any beans or bean flours. I love the dried bean section in Indian markets. Fresh galangal, bay leaves etc. I have never bought ghee but it's something to consider. If you like rice, rice might be a good option (I don't like rice in general). If you like to make your own curry blend, like everyone else said, spices! I learned to make my own curry blends -- 1000% times better than any premade bottled curry.

There is one brand of madras curry I really like in a yellow tin but I have to buy it online, If you can find it in the store, you can buy and try it.

Answer

Madhur Jeffrey's cookbook "world vegetarian" was the COTM on chowhound a few years back, the various threads have fantastic feedback about the specific recipes. She is a well known indian cook with several cookbooks
http://www.chowhound.com/post/august-2011-cotm-world-vegetarian-madhur-jaffrey-799118

Start small. 
First make a basic dal, the spiced oil that goes ontop just before serving, a nice fragrant basmati rice, and serve with a thick whole milk yogurt that i'm sure the market sells made into a raita.

Answer

Tea! Usually my first shopping trip at an ethnic grocery is their pre-made spice mixes. When you start cooking from a cookbook, your goal would be to beat the pre-made mix..

 Look for fresh naan if they have it.

Answer

I also wanted to suggest getting a couple of cookbooks and using that as a starting point. Madhur Jaffrey is the doyenne of Indian cookbooks for a western audience. I found that there are some basic techniques to master, how to cook and layer different spices, for example, that will then allow you to start improvising on your own. I'm sure you could find loads online, like http://www.hookedonheat.com/indian-cooking-101 or http://www.mallikabasu.com/

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