The frustrating thing about many recipes is that they include very exotic ingredients and you have no idea where to buy them. So even before figuring out the recipe, you need to do your research in terms of where to find your products.

I personally love Asian cuisine, and over the years I have found a couple of go to places where you will definitely be successful in finding your out of the ordinary ingredients. One of them is Amazing Oriental. I have previously posted the Malaysian Laksa soup, and found most of the ingredients in this amazing 😉 Asian supermarket. They have stores across NL. I usually visit the ones in The Hague (the big one in Ypenburg) and Amsterdam.

Stijn (my bf) and I visited Amazing Oriental yesterday. Below you can find a picture of some off the stuff we regularly buy:

So what do you see here (only focusing in the out of ordinarily stuff):

– tofu puffs on the left. They are in the refrigeration area and we use them for curry soups like laksa.

– Korean pancake mix and kimchi next to the puffs. They had a food demo and we tasted Korean pancakes with kimchi (fermented cabbage, super healthy). It was delicious, so we bought it (suckers for promotions as we are)

– dried chillies. You can keep them like forever and are a good base for curries or stir fries.

– our guilty pleasure: haldiram’s samosa snacks. It tastes like a samosa in a chips bag! It includes lentils, spices, nuts and dries fruit. Not super unhealthy right?

– urad dal and fenugreek (methi) seeds. When we visited India (Kerala) we always had dosas (lentil pancakes) as breakfast. They are super healthy and full of protein. I want to replicate them sometime, so already bought two key ingredients.

– coriander leaves with the roots (roots are delicious for curries)

– candle nuts (kemirinoten). As said before, they are poisonous when not heated. But they are a great base for curry pastes. The reason why they are called candle nuts is because they are so fat you can actually light them.

– shrimp paste. Smelly stinky fermented shrimps. It does not look appetizing, but it gives your dishes a wonderful umami flavour.

– next to the shallots you see the fresh turmeric. Both fresh and dried turmeric have great medicinal properties, so I usually put a tsp of turmeric in just about anything (tea, pancake mix, omelets). Make sure to combine with a bit of fat and black pepper, which increases your body’s ability to actually absorb the turmeric better.

This supermarket has loads more (they also have a delicious frozen section with all kinds of snacks), so whenever you see exotic ingredients on my blog, make sure to visit Amazing Oriental.

On a side note, they have an eating area where you can pause and have a snack. We tried the sambosa once in The Hague Ypenburg (I thought it was a spelling error and expected a samosa). I was not impressed at all. Seemed like the pastry was filled with leftover noodles. Just the idea..soggy pastry with old noodles. Why would you do it? So we always skip the eating area in Ypenburg (though some friends really like it so it may be a matter of personal taste). The snack corner in Amsterdam is better, and I do like the Murtabak and bara’s (fried lentil donuts). You will probably need to try yourself…