November 9th, 2008 by Jemaleddin Cole

They opened this awe­some gro­cery store, “Fresh World Inter­na­tional Market/El Grande Supermercado,” around the corner from me that has more foods I haven’t seen than ones I have. “International” evi­dently means Japan­ese, Chi­nese, Korean, Viet­namese and Mex­i­can, with a few Cen­tral Amer­i­can foods like pupusas, but since that covers almost all of my favorites, I’m not com­plain­ing. My favorite finds so far:

• Mex­i­can Coke: Made with pure cane sugar instead of high fruc­tose corn syrup, it packs much more sweet­ness for the same number of calo­ries, and in glass bot­tles tastes crisper and brighter than that swill in plas­tic ever could.
• Stir-​fried fish cake: The store has its own Korean restau­rant inside, and there’s always a woman in the back making fresh kimchi and other ban­chan good­ies that are spicy and deli­cious. I’m so glad the lady at Nam Kang the other day pointed out that what I’ve been loving is fish cake, because I never would have guessed.
• Better spices: Yeah, I like chili powder as much as the next guy, but the stuff they carry is like a chipo­tle ver­sion - smoky and deli­cious. No, they don’t have McCormick, which I feel bad about since it’s a local Bal­ti­more brand, but what they do have seems punchier.
• Veg­eta­bles that look like veg­eta­bles: No wax on the apples, no sprayers hosing down the greens, and almost every­thing reminds me of what veg­gies looked like when I was a kid instead of the franken-​plants I see at Safeway.
• A world of Goya: So far no huit­la­coche (meaning “raven shit,” a.k.a. “corn smut“), but every kind of canned, dried or liq­ue­fied Mex­i­can ingre­di­ent I could desire from pineap­ple juice to eigh­teen kinds of kidney beans is for sale.
• Crazy Asian junk food: For instance, “Soda Drink (Pineap­ple Flavor),” which con­tains, “water, sugar, citric acid, sodium acid, fruit cloudy, straw­berry flavor, lemon flavor.” But it does taste like pineap­ple. Did I men­tion that it’s blue? Or that the bottle looks like a panda? Of course it does.
• The rest of the animal: Have you noticed that your local mega­mart no longer has things like chuck roasts, flank steaks or skirt steaks? What hap­pened?  What are they doing with the rest of the ani­mals? I don’t think I want to know, but they have all the pork belly, chicken necks and assorted offal you could want at this place. As a guy who craves tripe and ten­dons when he gets a cold, this place is going to pay off this winter.
• Some­thing inter­est­ing done with the animal: Chorizo? Sev­eral kinds of chorizo? Made on the premises? Sign me up.
• Kimchi refrig­er­a­tors: $800-$1,700 will get you a fridge ded­i­cated to making rotten cab­bage. Isn’t that what they’re sup­posed to prevent? 
• Things I want to try but am a little con­fused by: Spicy mango pick­les? Instant Pho? Cut­tle­fish? Mulle? Some crazy thistle-​looking fruit whose name escapes me? I’m gonna need a recipe or a rec­om­men­da­tion before get­ting into the weird stuff.

Prob­a­bly my favorite thing is that unlike the Super­Fresh where I’m sur­rounded by white people (you folks smell like bologna, did you know that?), this place is like a school-​house rock vision of what Amer­ica ought to be. There’s obviously-​former-​military white guys with their asian wives. Mex­i­can cooks stock­ing up on masa. Japan­ese fam­i­lies going ape-​shit about some­thing in the “Asian Powders” aisle (!?). Today I saw a tall black man, a young Asian guy and his Latina girl­friend talk­ing in sign lan­guage. I love shop­ping at places that make me thing all this post-​racial Obama-​era hooey is real.

All of which is a long way of get­ting to: I decided to make some chili. I don’t have a recipe or any­thing, just the con­fi­dence that if you put any quan­tity of tomato prod­ucts, onions, meat, spices and beans together and cook it on low for an hour, you get chili. So I got some cheap stew­ing meat, chorizo, a selec­tion of beans, and a couple kinds of canned chiles and cooked it up with some chili powder and what­not. And it turned out great. I’d have to say that this is not only the best batch of chili I’ve ever made, but it’s my favorite chili I’ve ever eaten.

That’s not saying a lot though - from what I can tell, the magic of the stuff is that any­body can make a decent pot of chili with what­ever hap­pens to be in the pantry and freezer, and the less time you spend wor­ry­ing about fresh­ness of ingre­di­ents or qual­ity of meat, the better. My prob­lem is that I didn’t have any idea how spicy the chorizo was - and it’s not a good idea to taste pork before you cook it. So I used my normal quan­ti­ties of chili powder and jalapenos and sriracha (I told you I put it in every­thing), and ended up with some­thing just slightly too hot. This, dear friends, is the down-​side to that fresh-​made chorizo. When you find your­self snack­ing on spicy Korean fish cakes as a palate cleanser, you’ve gone too far. 

12 Responses to “Season to Taste”

1. You’ve had cut­tle­fish. Actu­ally - Jared’s tried cut­tle­fish! I think you were pretty eh on it - I like the tex­ture, myself, but it is bland.

   Mmm, chili.

   — shelley November 9th, 2008 at 8:04 pm #

2. When was this?

   — Jemaleddin Cole November 9th, 2008 at 8:10 pm #

3. Dim Sum! With Daniel and Heather.

   — shelley November 9th, 2008 at 8:21 pm #

4. I vote for the Huit­la­coche! But that’s mostly because Steve’s posts still manage to crack me up. I wish we had more options for fresh food out here. You’d think we’d be doing a little better con­sid­er­ing we live ten feet from cows.

   — jet November 9th, 2008 at 8:23 pm #

5. S: Oh yeah: cut­tle­fish was awe­some.

   J: I’ll eat corn smut if you will!

   — Jemaleddin Cole November 10th, 2008 at 7:34 am #

6. Living in north­ern Wis­con­sin where the near­est mer­cado is 3 hours away I’ve had to learn to make my own ingre­di­ents. The fol­low­ing recipe is so simple that there’s no reason to buy it instead of making it your­self. The recipe calls for pork but it works just as well with beef.

   Easy Chorizo From Skank’s kitchen

   Ingre­di­ents:

   1 pound coarsely ground pork
   1 tea­spoon salt
   2 table­spoons chili powder (Not a blend. Use pure ground chili powder)
   ¼ tea­spoon ground cloves
   ½ tea­spoon ground cin­na­mon
   1 table­spoons paprika
   1 tea­spoon oregano
   1 clove garlic, crushed
   2 table­spoons white vine­gar
   1 table­spoon water

   Instruc­tions:

   1. Com­bine ingre­di­ents in large bowl and mix by hand

   2. Cover place in the refrig­er­a­tor for one or more hours to let fla­vor­ings mix.
   3. Freeze it if you like or sauté it and use imme­di­ately.

   Addi­tional Notes:

   1. I like to use one table­spoon of the medium-​heat, pure ground New Mexico chili powder and one table­spoon of the hot.
   2. It’s really hot and good if you use 2 table­spoons of the hot chili powder.
   3. I also like to use hot Hun­gar­ian paprika when I can find some instead of reg­u­lar paprika.
   4. Some­times I add a tea­spoon of ground cumin just because I like it.
   5. I usu­ally double the recipe when I make it.

   — skank November 10th, 2008 at 7:50 am #

7. I make half a dozen vari­eties of chili from mild New Mexico Pork Chili to a hot chili recipe that I came up to suit myself. Here it is:

   Good ‘n’ Hot Chili

   1 large onion, chopped
   2 cloves garlic, minced
   1 and 1/2 pounds of ham­burger
   (It’s good with round steak cut into small chunks instead of ham­burger. If you use round steak you want to toss it in a half cup of pure ground chili powder to coat. Then add a couple of table­spoons of cook­ing oil to the skil­let to brown it with the onion and garlic. If you want to use a tastier cut of beef like a chuck roast follow instruc­tions for round steak but simmer it for three hours until it is tender. Adding a bottle of negro modelo to the sim­mer­ing liquid is very nice.)

   Brown meat, onions, and garlic in a large skil­let. Remove from heat. Drain off fat.

   Com­bine the fol­low­ing sea­son­ings and stir into the meat until it is evenly coated. (If you use round steak omit the chili powder.)

   1/2 cup of pure ground chili powder This can be a com­bi­na­tion of hot and mild chili powder or all of one kind)
   2 table­spoons ground cumin
   1 tea­spoon to 3 table­spoons of red pepper flakes to taste
   1 table­spoon oregano
   1 tea­spoon salt
   1/2 tea­spoon black pepper

   Place in a large kettle or crock pot. Then add the fol­low­ing ingre­di­ents and heat through.

   4 to 5 cans of Hot Chili Beans or any com­bi­na­tion of pinto, black, chili, or kidney beans.
   2 cans of tomato sauce
   1 can of chipo­tle pep­pers in adobo sauce, chopped
   3 cans of diced toma­toes with jalapenos
   (If you can’t find these you can sub­sti­tute 3 cans of diced toma­toes and one small can of chopped jalapenos.)

   If this isn’t hot enough for you, add cayenne powder to taste.

   Bon appetit.

   — skank November 10th, 2008 at 8:00 am #

8. @skank: What I put together is sur­pris­ingly (almost shock­ingly) sim­i­lar:

   3/4lb cubed round steak
   1-1/4lb pork chorizo
   1 onion
   4 cloves garlic

   1/2 cup chili powder
   1T cumin
   1T oregano
   1T basil
   2 big pinches of salt
   1t ground adobo pep­pers
   20-or-so grinds of black pepper

   2 cans of beans (kidney and mini-​kidney)
   1 big (15oz?) can of tomoato sauce
   3 cans of diced toma­toes w/mild chiles
   1 can sliced jalapenos
   1 can chipo­tle pep­pers
   3T sriracha

   A little more meat and a little less beans, but almost iden­ti­cal! Next time I think I’m going to try more beans and maybe a mix of pork/beef/lamb.

   And as long as they keep sell­ing such good chorizo locally, I’m going to stick with the store-​bought. :-)

   — Jemaleddin Cole November 10th, 2008 at 10:45 am #

9. What a delight­ful arti­cle! I am insist­ing you cook said chili again so that I might sample! :)) I’ll bring rolls or some­thing. =)

   — CanadiensFan November 11th, 2008 at 8:37 am #

10. Are you using a chili powder mix or are you using pure ground chilis?

    Most store bought chili pow­ders have garlic, oregano, cumin, and a lot of salt in them.

    Because I have high blood pres­sure I use pure ground chilis and add every­thing to make what amounts to a salt­less chili powder.

    I usu­ally buy six or seven pounds of pure ground chilis when I visit Vacav­ille. The have ground New Mexico (mild and hot) and Cal­i­for­nia chilis along with cayenne pepper and hot paprika at this little fruit stand in Dixon. I store it in the freezer.

    — skank November 11th, 2008 at 4:03 pm #

11. Oh, I’m still using the mix - there was a little tienda latina around the corner from us that had that sort of thing but I forgot to look at the new place - maybe next time!

    (Also, still low on the blood pres­sure here, so….)

    — Jemaleddin Cole November 11th, 2008 at 4:28 pm #

12. Watch the spicy mango pick­les. I’ve had some that were good and one jar that was the most vile thing I’ve ever tasted. Actu­ally, I don’t think they ever taste good. A tiny amount with your Indian food is ok, I wouldn’t spread it on a slice of toast and think Yummy!

    In San Diego, I go to North Park Pro­duce for the east­ern Euro­pean, Arabic, and Russ­ian food. Then I go down the street to Pancho Villas for the Mex­i­can food and pro­duce. I started hit­ting the local mar­kets exclu­sively during the gro­cery store strikes a few years ago. It makes much more sense sup­port­ing the niche places.

    Here in France, we have to visit the farm­ers mar­kets to get most of our pro­duce. Not that its a bad thing! There are also cer­tain mar­kets known for having better Asian or Arabic selec­tions. I just found them nois­ier as the sell­ers tend to yell out sug­ges­tions like a fish­wife. Whereas my neighborhood’s local mar­kets the people stand back and qui­etly assist.

    I’ve been look­ing for corn smut in every mer­cado I visit in Cal­i­for­nia. I’m start­ing to think it is an urban myth :)

    — Ted Drake November 12th, 2008 at 1:20 am #