Shopping Mexican

Fresh Chiles

I often get asked where I shop for Mexican ingredients. During my first years in Ireland, the closest to ethnic food that one would get was an Italian or an Indian restaurant or the Chinese take away. It is hard to believe it now, when one can stroll any street in Dublin and find loads of really good ethnic food shops and restaurants, but when I got here first, finding an avocado was an adventure and chili was sold by the piece in selected supermarkets at exorbitant prices: I think the first chili I bought was about 4 Irish pounds!



Tomatillos & Jalapenos

At that time it was really hard to find any ethnic ingredients in Ireland. Even the crappy commercial brands found in supermarkets, those that bare little or no resemblance to the ingredients or produce we would use at home, were hard to get. I used to bribe relatives and friends to bring me stuff when they were coming, I shopped on internet websites and used UPS quite a lot to get packages sent from home. Every time I went to Mexico for the first few years, I would come back with my suitcase emptied of cloths and filled with food. This was quite expensive and totally unsustainable, so eventually I got tired and broke, so I decided to learn the art of substitution (which has probably made wave for a sort of Mex-Eire fusion cuisine in my kitchen). I learned to cook Mexican food with as many Irish ingredients as possible and with the bare minimum of imported items.

Maize Flour

Thankfully, I no longer have to bribe relatives to bring those items really impossible to substitute, such as maize flour, or chipotle chilies, as I can get them here. If there is one thing I must thank the Celtic Tiger years for is the opening of the food world market for us. These days you can find nearly everything you need for a truly Mexican feast quite handy in Ireland; there are plenty of shops and websites I have used over the years. A couple of years ago I came across an Irish website selling Mexican food ingredients called Almacen Latino and it became my main supplier of Mexican goodies. In September 2011, the other half and I purchased the business, we formed a new company called My Mexican Shop Ltd. and in May 2012, we launched My Mexican Shop an online shop dedicated to Mexican products, where you can get all the ingredients you need to cook a true Mexican feast at home.

So, as you can see, I no longer stress about finding tortillas, avocados, dried chilies or masa harina. In the meantime, here are the ones I use regularly:



My Mexican Shop: as I explained above, we own this website. It's of course Irish based and great for dried and tinned ingredients.You can find all sorts of Mexican stuff; we're stocking ready made corn tortillas of very good quality, but if you want to have a go at making your own (see my recipe here), you can get Maize flour and tortilla presses with them too. There's tamales masa harina and dried corn husks to make them. Mexican drinking chocolate and many other ingredients. Best thing is we deliver everywhere in Ireland.


Chorizo

The Cool Chile Company: this is a UK based company. They import and pack all their dried chilies and flour, but they also sell their own bottled salsas, mole pastes and also a few dinner kits. I like their make your own Mole kit, which has all the ingredients needed to make your own mole paste the hard way, they also have a Cuban black bean soup kit. They stock Mexican drinking chocolate, which has a lot of spices in it and it is absolutely lovely! Some of their products are stocked in Fallon & Byrne, but I have not made costs comparisons!

 Fallon & Byrne: this Dublin based shop stocks a small amount of The Cool Chile Company products.

Morton’s of Rathgar: found this one recently thanks to a fellow food blogger recommendation. I tend to make my own chorizo as it is not the same as the chorizo from Spain, but if I’m lazy, I go to Morton’s butcher, Lawlor's at Mortons, and buy their chorizo sausage. It is really good and much closed to what Mexicans would eat.

Chipotle Chiles

Saburritos (formerly Taco Taco): this is a small Mexican food stall inside the Epicurean Food Hall in Lower Liffey Street in Dublin. I have not tried them under the new branding, but they were my saviors in the early days when I couldn't find ingredients anywhere! Their food was authentic enough. They sell a small range of La Costena brand all tinned. In the old days you could ask for a pack of their frozen corn tortillas over the counter (a bit of a well known secret among Mexicans) and those tortillas make killer tostadas and fried tacos.

Mero Mero Market Stall: Gustavo is a Mexican living here for over 20 years. His wife, Theresa, lived in Mexico for a while, so she brought back some recipes and started making them to sell. They make salsas, ketchup (love it!) and bottled chiles. They have a stall at the Temple Bar Food Market where they sell ready-made food and do catering.


Chayotes / Chow Chow

Oriental Emporium: this is also an odd one. I like their fresh chilis, although they are not varieties we would normally eat in Mexico, they have a quality we Mexicans appreciate: they're HOT! so their Thai red and green chillis are great. I also find banana leaves for my recipies quite handy here. I use the shop in Rathmines, but there are a few dotted along Dublin. I also find here a vegetable we called Chayote in Mexico, which is a pear squash originally from Mexico but now grown in several other countries. It's known as chow chow in the shop and it's absolutely delicious, full of amino acids and vitamin C.