Mithu, I have a related question about storing spices and other Indian cooking essentials (legumes, rice, lesser-used masalas) in the pantry. What's the best way to stock and organize these items? Can we see a picture of your pantry or other visuals to see what kind of containers to use and how to label them? Thanks!
By Shruti on Indian Spices - The Basics on 8/31/10
So here is a pic of my pantry - I do not have too much of pantry space because my kitchen is quite small. So, I have two long cabinets on either side of the cooking range (see below!)
The one on the left carries all the bulk spices on the top (things I dont need everyday!). The bottommost shelf has small canisters of masalas. You see my hubby is a foodie and just loves buying new masalas from the store. That last shelf has about 40 masalas in there - mostly Shaan but some of Badshah and Everest as well. My favorite is the Butter Chicken Masala by Shaan. I am sure he would vote Tava Fry as his favorite. By the way, those canisters are from Ikea. I would have liked to put them on a gradual incline so it is easy to see the labels. But, I never did that and now I know which masala/spice is where!!
The right side cabinet holds non-indian spices on the right bottom (Costco Zindabaad!) along with my homemade desi ghee (yum), and garlic pods (gotta have my garlic). The shelves on the top have all my dals/lentils - whole mung, split mung, whole udad, split udad, green vatana, vaal, whole masoor, split masoor, and matki.
Ikea canisters hold my spices just right! The recommendation is to keep spices in the fridge for a longer life but my fridge never has space for regular stuff, let alone 40 spices.
I already posted the post about Basic Indian Spices on July 11, 2010 at http://slurpnburp-mithu.blogspot.com/2010/07/indian-spices-basics.html My masala dabba or spice box holds my everyday spices. Actually I have two boxes - one as shown below.
The other has udad dal, dried red chillies, fennel seeds or badishape, coriander seeds or dhanay, and whole garam masalas ex bay leaf/tamalpatra, cinnamon stick or dalchini, etc.
Thanks so much! This makes me want to run to Ikea right now and start organizing my pantry! This is the perfect project for an OCD person like me!
ReplyDeletebtw:
ReplyDeletethe small canisters are from ikea
the slim tall ones are Pasta sauce bottles that i have been collecting since i got married :)
the slanted bottles in teh right pantry are from walmart (a long time ago)
and the slanted ones with a plastic gray lid are from ikea (i dont like them!)
omg .. ur pantry is soooo organized!! thank God you can't see mine!!
ReplyDeleteI got a spice box this time from India! YAY! :)
ReplyDeleteI want to live in your kitchen!!
ReplyDeleteYou are so neat Sanskriti..I will never show my hubby this...my masalas are all over the place..hats off babe!
ReplyDeletethe credit goes to my mom (swarupa miss ;)) who trained me really well. Even then when she comes over she finds 1000 things that are "wrong" with my house - perfectionist!
ReplyDeleteHey, Lovely storage! Where did you get the dal jars? I need some too.
ReplyDeleteDid you soak the pasta jars in water to remove the labels? Mine are half clean and have traces of paper all over the jar.
thanks! The dal jars are these pasta sauces that u get at costco! I collected them for years :) Use windex and scrape them off with a steel scour pad. Then run them in a dishwasher. Mine have leftovers "sticky"ness but not that bad!
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