I'm gonna invest in a basic set of common Indian spices to get me started.
You can certainly buy sets from a variety of vendors, but I find that most of them are overkill. Your mileage will absolutely vary, of course, but here's my core, with some Amazon links to specifics. I have the same reservations about Amazon most folks do, but there just aren't many other options as remote as I am.
-- Cumin, both ground and seeds (I LOVE seeds in many dishes!) I completely agree with
@ploverwing that grinding your own spices is tastier, but I'm kinda lazy, and Indian cooking can have a lot of steps, and I don't mind saving this one.
-- Coriander, ditto. I really am nuts about letting half a teaspoon each of cumin and coriander whole seeds heat up in the oil for a minute before adding the rest of the ingredients.
--
Fenugreek. This is the one most people miss, but man, you
gotta have it. Fresh is best, like with all herbs, but I haven't found an Indian market, so I use dried, and it works dandily.
-- Garam masala. Masalas are blends, and they're all a little different. A lot of people tell you to make your own, but I ain't got time for that. LOL I'd rather spend the time cooking than making my own spice blends.
This is by far my favorite of the many I've tried. The link is to a pound jar, but most folks will benefit from a smaller package. Fresher is better.
Maybe start with the 3oz bag.
-- Turmeric. I'm sure they're mostly all pretty good, but again,
this one stands out to me.
-- I used to use a lot of fresh and/or powdered ginger, but I've since become enamored of
this ginger/garlic paste. The same company makes ginger-only and garlic-only pastes, but I use this quite a bit. The big drawback for me is that they all include sugar, which I'd rather not...but the savings in time and effort, and the positive impact of these on taste is worth it.
Heat is a personal thing for sure, and I'm not of the school that says it HAS to be hot, and regularly make mild dishes for other people...but for ME, yeah, it HAS to be hot.
I haven't explored Indian pepper varieties as much as I should, but there are a lot of grocery store cayenne pepper brands that don't taste like anything to me.
This one's the winner. (It's Frontier, and I like a lot of their stuff -- avail. at Whole Foods and most health food stores.) You don't have to use nearly as much as with other brands, because you can actually taste it as a nice flavor. Even a little really opens up the rest of the flavors -- kinda like salt that way. You don't necessarily want to taste salt. Sometimes you just want to have it make other things taste more like themselves.
Also,
Sriracha Garlic Sauce isn't as blazing hot as you might think, and adds a very nice flavor profile to a lot of vegetable dishes.
Some dishes might require other things, but for what I make, some combination of these is getting it done.
More about specific recipes, books, etc. to follow, but my point here is that it doesn't have to be crazily complicated to get started!
Thanks to
@ploverwing to kicking this off! So much yummy stuff to talk about here!
