On Wednesday, 27 March 2013 02:48:24 UTC+10, sf wrote:
>
> There's my entire point in a nutshell. Not particularly interested in
> Indian curries

Isn't _that_ enough point? If not interested in them, why cook them, or go out and buy them in restaurants?

> and I don't want to stock up on spices I will rarely
> use (like maybe once and never again) because I have enough of the
> other stuff that I do use all the time.

If one is interested enough to cook Indian curry once, there are plenty of jars and cans of curry sauce. No need to buy spices, just fry meat + onions + other vegetables, add contents of jar/can. Agree that no point in stocking up on things that won't be used (but I end up using a lot of coriander, cumin and chilli in range of non-Indian/non-curry dishes, and cardamom and cinnamon (and cloves) get used in Euro-baking, so the extra needed for Indian is pretty small for me).

Before I had a working Thai lime tree, I found Thai curry pastes to be worthwhile buying and using, since Thai curries tend to use more fresh ingredients that I was less likely to have.