[Sca-cooks] Asian supermarkets [mostly OOP]

[Susan Fox-Davis]

Phillipa wrote:

> I had the good fortune to be in Philadelphia's China Town yesterday.  My husband and I visited a few Chinese groceries. Unfortunately, everything, well, 99% of the stuff, was written in Chinese or Korean.  I was totally lost. (I did manage to get some great smelling jasmine tea though, 1/2 lb for $2.89.
>
> Can anyone  suggest which foods or foodstuffs I should look for the next time I am there, so I can keep some basic Asian foodstuffs around to be able to make some good Asian food on short notice.

Happily, these days many Chinese groceries formerly limited to ethnic communities are well-represented in American grocery stores.  You don't need to go to China Town to get ordinary soy sauce or even some of the more "advanced" products like rice vinegar.

Do not be shy about asking for help in the Asian markets;  they are happy to help anybody who wants to buy, and after all everybody's money is the same color!

One strategem you might not have though of is to shop there for vegetable seeds for Asian vegetables, particulary if they don't carry things like bok choy in your neighborhood produce mart.

DO get a rice cooker.  If you burn as much rice as I used to, it's worthwhile.  The smallest ones are quite affordable.  I'm contemplating the purchase of a restaurant-sized one for banquet cookery, this will be a serious investment though.


Some ingredients you might want to get there include:

Peanut Oil - not always available in Anglo markets.  Has the highest smoking temperature of the edible oils, and a mild peanut taste besides

Sesame Oil - the dark oil from toasted sesame seeds.  Remember that this is a CONDIMENT not something to do your deep fry with.  Eeep.

Hot chili oil - another condiment.  Actually, you can make this by simple infusion with peanut oil, dry hot chilis and the secret ingredient, TIME!

Cha Shu sauce - the special sauce that makes that Chinese BBQ pork so yummy good

Hoi Sin sauce - Happy memory food for me; my mother used to stew beef in it.

Oyster sauce - comes in a bottle like ketchup, serve with steamed green vegs for instant Chinese atmosphere!

"Chinese Five Spice" another one you can actually do at home, but people hardly ever do.  Cinnamon, Cloves, some subset of the licquorice-type spices such as anise, star anise or liquorice root;  there's ginger in mine as well.

Get some diverse dry noodles.  Wheat noodles for ramen, chow mein or yakisoba.  Rice noodles for Pad Thai, or fry them dry till they puff up.  Soybean noodles for 'glass noodles" transparent, al dente and very wonderful with stir fry.  All of these keep indefinitely in a cool dry place.

Tofu is packed in shelf-top sterile packaging these days, like European milk.  Good to have around.



Most of the other stuff I can think of off the top of my head is either not  Chinese nor Korean or is for pretty specialized cooking.

Thai:  galingale/galinga, frequently cited in medieval English recipes, still used in Thai cooking
Lemon grass, also a charactaristic spice in Thai cooking;

Japanese:  dried bonito and kombu seaweed for basic "dashi" stock, used for just about everything including that Miso Soup in every Japanese restaurant in America.

Korean:  Kim Chee, the Asian answer to aged sauerkraut.  Contrary to popular belief, this is not always flaming hot, it is available in mild strength.


Selene Colfox