The Shopping Guide to Cooking & Baking in Hyderabad

Updated: 3rd Jan 2010

This is a useful list for foodies who are new to Hyderabad, like I was a year ago. Whether you are relocating from abroad or from another city in India, you may want to know where certain ingredients, equipment will be available, so you feel at home immediately. Most of the stores I have listed are the ones close to where I live and hence visited frequently. If you have been living here for longer than I have, and have your own little secret places where you find lesser known ingredients or stuff that is not easily found elsewhere, please be kind enough to leave a comment, so it will benefit the others.

I will keep updating this list as and when I find something new to share, so please bookmark this if you are a foodie in Hyderabad.

Vegetables and Fruits 
Fennel, mushrooms, dried mushrooms, fresh herbs, red and yellow bell peppers, broccoli, zucchini etc.
SPAR- Begumpet
Hypercity - Inorbit Mall
Ratnadeep - Srinagar Colony / Madhapur (Somewhat expensive compared to others but good quality)
Tarkari for fresh exotic vegetable and fresh herbs

3/01/2011
Athira reports that as of now QMart on Road 2, Banjara Hills is selling frozen blueberries and  raspberries.

Organic Groceries, spices, food products
24 Letter Mantra -  Reliance Manor, R.No. 12, Banjara Hills
Phone: 040 23300404

Fabindia Outlets


Seeds for Chillies and some other seasonal vegetables available at Spar, Begumpet


Homemade noodles and soy sauce
They make these fresh in their house and sell noodles by the kilo - minimum 1/2 kg
They supply to many local Chinese restaurants, the taste of freshly made noodles is something else. If you are in the vicinity, you must pick up a batch.
Moifa Chinese Ladies Parlour

8-2-326/a Road No. 3, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad

Phone: 040-23540583

Local Green Leafy Vegetables
They are freshest at your neighbourhood cart vendor


Fresh Herbs
Basil, Thyme and Rosemary, good quality almost always available at Spar, Begumpet
Those of you looking to grow Thai Basil / Basil at home, you can find saplings at Namdhari Fresh, Bangalore and they are quite light to lug along in your hand baggage.
Fresh Lemongrass - Spar or Ruci Idoni. If you happen to find some with root-hairs, pick those up and keep in a glass jar filled with water for a week or so, until the roots start growing, after which if you stick them in good soil, they will keep growing without much trouble. Perfect to cut small bits for your tea or Thai curries
Organic dried lemongrass (big pack) is available for Rs.50 at Namdhari Fresh, Bangalore and these stay for a long time. Next time you are in Bglr, get a pack and it will keep you company for a few months.
Dried Herbs - Fabindia outlets / Keya brand of spices available in most supermarkets

Almost every imported food item/ ingredient
Q Mart - Road no.2, Banjara Hills, near Thai Express - but be prepared to shell out the big bucks
Ruci & Idoni, Road no.10, Opposite Rainbow Children's Hospital, Banjara Hills

Special spices like Sweet Paprika, Fleur de sel and such - Waitrose shelf of Hypercity (Inorbit Mall, Cyberabad)

Tea-Towels 
The softest and best looking ones with fruits / vegetables on them (Made in Italy, I think) are sometimes available at the Little League / Ole store on Road no.3, Banjara Hills for Rs.100 a piece. Perfect gift for a foodie-friend.

Baking Equipment, Cooking Chocolate, Chocolate Chips, Moulds, Pans, Parchment Paper, Muffin liners, Fancy paper, Paper bags etc.
Adilaxmi Enterprises, Road 12, Banjara Hills, Next to Familia Hospital, Phone- 040 66633608
Sri Venkateswara Agencies, Near Jagannath Swami Temple, General Bazaar, Secundrabad, Phone- 040 66483608/ 66573608
Both these stores are sister concerns and between them, cover almost everything you would need for baking, chocolate making and cake decoration in Hyderabad

Good looking food storage jars in glass and good quality plastic / Steel and also stainless steel pans for cooking
Home Store (Lifestyle group store)
Reliance Living (Road 12 Banjara Hills / Begumpet)
Marks and Spencer (M&S), Inorbit Mall, Cyberabad



If you are relocating to Hyderabad from abroad, you may want to get back select few things which may not be freely available here, or cost a bomb.
If you have kind readers / relatives or friends coming from US/UK/other 'foreign' countries, who want to get you some foodie stuff, here are some of the useful things you can ask for:

• Pure Almond extract / Pure Vanilla Extract
• Seeds of herbs like basil, spearmint, oregano etc. that you can grow at home
• Wilton's baking tins (mention your oven size clearly when you ask for this)
• Small sized cast iron pans, perfect for baking that cornbread or little cake apart from making eggs, roasting spices etc.
• Dried berries such as cranberries, blueberries, cherries
• Tins of Chipotle Chillies in Adobo Sauce (if you love Mexican food)
• Sliced raw almonds
• Cute muffin tin liners (though you get them at the above mentioned stores)
• Pecans, Macademia and Brazil Nuts
• Good quality instant yeast
• Gelatin leaves
• Spice mixes such as Ras el Hanout or Creole Seasoning
• Cacao Nibs
• Microplane (for grating zest from lemons, oranges) and Silpat recommended by Simran
• Tahini, Zataar, Sumac from the Middle Eastern Countries
• Nifty shredding peelers, dried mushrooms, Hot Basil sauce, other cooking sauces, Rice paper sheets for the Vietnamese rolls, Glass noodles etc. from SE Asian Countries

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Beet, feta and water amaranth salad

Sometimes, one ingredient can be such an inspiration for a whole recipe to be built around it. Feta cheese for us is one such ingredient. Neither S nor I can resist the intense saltiness and rich flavour of feta. That so much salt isn't good for our health is easily forgotten when we lay our hands on this one cheese. I for one will willingly compensate with a salt free meal, if I have to, but never miss an opportunity to bite into this salty bit of heaven.
A few weeks ago we went shopping in the recently opened Hypercity supermarket in Inorbit Mall at Hitech City. This supermarket in Malad, Bombay was our favourite weekend haunts to stock up of food stuffs and we were so glad to find an outlet here. This is one place where foodies and non-foodies can easily go overboard buying all kinds of stuff to last several months.
We go in with a list of some five items, needlessly take the HUGE shopping cart thinking that we make our toddler sit in while we browse around peacefully. In the end the best laid plans go to dirt. Atri is in my arms, the shopping cart is full of items we never imagined that we wanted and three of the five simple items on my list were not in stock that day :) Such is life!

So we managed to pick some Danish brand feta cheese on that visit and with beets sitting in the fridge, the idea for a simple salad was tossing around in my mind. Later that day, some local greens called Ponnaganti / ponnanganni / water amaranth made their appearance from cart vendor and happily joined the salad party. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm only too happy to try out the local greens in all kinds of dishes - along with vegetables, in dals and in salads. So what if I don't find the endives and rockets of the world, or the ones i do find are all wilted for want of a home, I'm happy to substitute them with locally available greens, saving on all the food miles and reducing my carbon footprint . Cooking 'glocal' is the way to go, isn't it?

Here's the recipe for this very simple salad.


Beet, feta and water amaranth salad
Serves 2

Ingredients
2 large or 3 medium beets
100 grams of feta cheese
1 cup washed, picked and towel dried water amaranth leaves
Dressing
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 clove garlic
Freshly cracked black pepper

Directions
Pressure cook whole beets. I generally cook it for 3 whistles and then leave it on sim for 7-10 minutes. Remove when cooled. Slide off the skins. They'll come off very easily. Dice into medium sized cubes and keep refrigerated until it's time to use them.
Crumble / dice feta into small cubes.

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients for dressing. I did not use salt in this as the salt in feta makes up for it. Add the beets, greens and feta. Toss with a gentle hand so as not to get the feta all mashed up. Serve chilled with soup or pasta.

Notes
More about ponnaganti koora from the ENVIS website
Useful resource - The ENVIS centre on medicinal plants has listed a huge variety of species with vernacular names and medicinal benefits making it easy for us to identify new plants.
I learnt a recipe for ponnaganti koora from my neighbour where it is cooked with split moong dal with a light tadka. This made a delicate tasting accompaniment to rotis.

A bunch of fresh water amaranth

Water amaranth also features on some other food blogs -

• Anjali in her blog Annaparabrahma does a stir fry using these Honegone greens (that's what its called in Kannada)
• Srivalli does a stuffed paratha with these greens 
•  Talimpu has a recipe similar to the one given to me by my neighbour, the one with moong dal

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