Pre-Packaged Indian Spice Blends

Anybody know of any good ones specifically?
I went to an Indian Grocery store the other day, and they had the Shan brand on sale for something like 3 for $1.00. I wound up buying quite a few to try. I normally do a small handfull of Indian dishes pretty darn well completely from scratch, but for the price, I thought I'd give these a try.
So far, out of the Shan lot, I can say that for my tastes:
The Nihari spice blend was pretty darn good.
The Chana Masala spice blend was VERY good.
The Chicken Korma spice blend was inedible. Just plain vile. Really, it smelled like vomit. I tasted the resulting recipe twice, and then threw it all away.
Next up, will be their "Butter Chicken" blend

Does anybody have any recs for the mass produced pre-packaged Indian spice blends with specific manufacturer, and product name?

As a lazy (most of the time) Indian cook I'm most interested in hearing your opinions on these spice blends. I have used the Shan brand on occasion with decent results (I think it was the shish kabob-ish product?) It always pays to check out the actual ingredients listed on the box since that will tell you a lot. For instance I use various chaat masalas and always look for the ones that have dried mango powder toward the front end of ingredient lists. I will say that the very best blend ever was one I purchased (horrors!) at Whole Foods for big bucks ($3?). The brand was Aurora Creations. It was their bindi masala which made totally lip-smacking green beans. Since, I have just kept the packet and reproduced the ingredients and cooking method.

Penzey's has a whole range of Indian Spice Blends and the quality is superb. While they can not compete with making your own blends and roasting, they are the best I have used. -Dick

For whatever reason, I've never really liked the spice blends for 'curries' and gave up on them years ago. The Shan biriyani masalas though (at least some of the varieties - Sindhi style, and one other) are quite good.

My first encounter with a packaged spice blend/paste was bottle of Pathak's somethingortheother. It was vile, vile, vile - clearly something that emanated well below the average depth from that motherland of Indian cuisine - England.

budrichard wrote:Penzey's has a whole range of Indian Spice Blends and the quality is superb. While they can not compete with making your own blends and roasting, they are the best I have used. -Dick

Penzey's pricing on this stuff is ridonculous especially when you factor in that they cannot compete with making your own blends and roasting. Hence my question about these cheap blends at the Indian markets. The Shan Nihari blend I got would fill up 1+ of the mid size Penzey's jars. Not the tiny plastic ones, but the mid size glass jars (I'm VERY familiar with Penzey's.) The Shan mix cost under 50 cents. Penzey's price would probably be around 10.00 for the same amount of product. The Shan Nihari mix was as good as any of the Indian blends I've had from Penzey's.

I used to purchase my spices and blends on Devon Street. After about a a year, the closet I kept the spices and blends with other bulk items developed bugs. Threw everything out, cleaned with bleach and started over. About a year later, same thing, only commonality was Spices from Indian groceries. Again, threw everything out, cleaned and started to use Penzey's. This was about 12 years ago when Penzey's was a small operation. Since, then not a single problem and I don't purchase anything on Devon St.
I agree that Penzey' spices are not cheap but I purchase in bulk quantites and fill my spice jars myself. I have never had a single problem with anything from Penzey's and the quality as I said is superb..-Dick

Whoa. Interesting. What kinda bugs? Same store on Devon for everything?

I also have been making my own blends. No bug issues....yet. Been getting from A-1 Indian Grocer in Westmont for the most part. I also used to go to Penzey's for Indian blends, and I still do go there for some things.
Actually, they do have three things I can't live without:
1. Freeze dried crushed Jalapeno (Guaranteed to make you sneeze each time you open it)
2. Aleppo pepper flakes (LOVE this stuff. A tad hotter than ancho, with flavor that just seems to be perfect in Indian foods.)
3. Their black peppercorns - forgot which blend

Same store on Devon. Still go for eats on Devon but no shopping.-Dick

have tried a few more of the Shan brand recently, and probably need to keep tabs, so here are another few entries:

Just made their Rogan Josh blend tonight. I like it a LOT. Nice cardomom and clove flavor peeking through in this one.

Made their Chicken Handi last week. REALLY liked it. Mellow heat, and nice tangy flavor. Probably a lot of mango powder in that one.

Have a biryani packet I'll try next week, and an achar gosht curry mix that I've been scared to make.

What I'm finding interesting, but probably should not be surprised:
Just like Thai food with the maesri curry pastes, I'm thinking that there are restaurants using these shan packets, and doctoring them up. I've made a few things with these packets that taste oddly close to what I've gotten at some Indian restaurants. I think I might be turning into an Indian food snob.

Does anybody have any recs for the mass produced pre-packaged Indian spice blends with specific manufacturer, and product name?

Maharajah brand (in small rip top cans with a replacable plastic lid) are quite good, particularly their tandoor mix. My mother buys this brand occasionally because most of their mixes are zero or relatively low salt & you can control the salt you want - a lot of other spice blends have incredibly high amounts of salt or MSG, particularly the Shan brand which we tend to avoid (my Dad is on a salt-restricted diet, but seriously look at the ingredients on these things - they are loaded with salt). Also look under the SWAD brand (Patel's own brand) - they sell a number of masala mixes with are correctly proportioned whole spice mixes with no salt to be ground down at home fresh as needed - we particularly use the punjabi garam masala which correctly has no red chilis or turmeric in it - and importantly you aren't paying for added salt, this can be added as appropriate to the final dish.

Athena wrote:Maharajah brand (in small rip top cans with a replacable plastic lid) are quite good, particularly their tandoor mix. My mother buys this brand occasionally because most of their mixes are zero or relatively low salt & you can control the salt you want - a lot of other spice blends have incredibly high amounts of salt or MSG, ...

THANK YOU!! I have noticed that these are very high in sodium content, and I usually cut the amt of spice mix in half, and subsidize with other single spices that I have. Very good to know about the Maharaja and SWAD brands. I'll switch to those on my next go round. Thanks again!

The other thing about the Swad brand is that they are available in a lot of other places besides strictly Indian stores. I'm pretty sure Shop & Save carries some of them, for example.