Spices of India – An Indian Market in Oklahoma City

Spices of India
3647 Northwest 39th Street
Oklahoma City, OK 73112-6309
(405) 942-7813

One lazy, hot summer day, my daughter Kayla and I were transported to another culture while shopping in the good ol’ Midwest.

Located at NW 39th and Portland in Oklahoma City, Spices of India will take you on a tour of Indian Cuisine and enthrall you with spices and produce that you might not recognize.

First up, there is a cooler full of Indian sodas and beverages, most of which I’d never seen before, but Kayla (just returning from a 40 day stint in Hyderabad, India) exclaimed loudly, “Mom! This is what I drank over there!”

Then there were some colorful containers containing Ice Cream or something frozen that sure looked like Ice Cream?

There was a whole aisle full of different boxed meals and cookies.

And funny thing, I saw Nigella Lawson cooking the day before with something called Paneer.  Paneer is a fresh cheese made in Asian countries that is not aged like our cheeses and is usually fried or put in saucey dishes like Palak Paneer (spinach and cheese) or sometimes even wrapped in dough and deep fried.  This entire freezer case was full of different kinds of Paneer.

Here is a case of frozen TV type dinners…all curries or other interesting meals.

And I took this one just for Team India’s sake, due to the fact that my daughter’s entire mission team got food poisoning at a local Hyderabad restaurant from eating Biryani.

Sorry for the memories guys!   Hehe

Apparently there is a big need for these because there were two freezer cases full of different kinds of them.  Freshwater fish…

These looked like small fish, like minnow size.  I’m curious as to what they’re used for…

And there were 2 freezers full of vegetables that I’ve since had to Google and see what in the world they are…

Ratalu = purple yam.
Amla = Indian gooseberry
Karela = Bitter gourd
Arvi – taro
Surti Papdi Lilva =green broad bean

But this is what we came for.

Specifically spices to make homemade Chai tea.

And more specifically Cardamom pods still in their pods. (Poor pictures – sorry!)

We’re going to conduct an experiment.  We’re going to try to make the tea with fresh spices.  And then we’re going to make it again with these tea bags.

And then we’re going to decide whether or not using fresh spices is worth all that trouble.  Kayla is highly addicted to Chai tea now.

There was a lot more to look at at Spices of India…colorful things like beans and lentils and other legumes.

Things like chickpea flour, soy flour and many more types of flours.

This entire rack was all things coconut.

And of course, the redhead found the sugar aisle.  She tends to gravitate to all things sweet.

Those blurred objects she wouldn’t hold still were some sort of rock candy crystals they were thrilled to find over in India when they were craving something sweet.

Look at these unique oils…ever seen mustard oil or ghee?

Ghee is a type of clarified butter and in India, they use mustard oil to fry things in.

There was a fresh refrigerated section.

Inside there were many things I didn’t recognize and a giant box of green almonds.  Green almonds are almonds in their natural state that haven’t been hulled from their drupe (outer shell) yet and have a bit of a grassier flavor then our normal processed almonds. They are widely used in Indian cooking.

I was very interested in this refrigerator case – dates and figs.  Yummm…

There was cookware and incense and tools to hull out fresh coconuts and press fresh Naan dough into bread.

And at the end, bangles and beautiful racks of Indian clothing to purchase.

I saw a few really awesome men’s shirts that I think Mr. Wonderful would look pretty fetching in, if I could get him to wear them.

My first trip to Spices of India left me with a hunger to go home and look up recipes and then go back.

I think I’ll start with Tikki Masala.

Because Biryani is apparently off limits here.