The Asian Grocer Is Often the Best Mexican Shop in Australia

Australia has far more Asian grocers than Latin American ones, and they are in almost every metropolitan area and a good many regional towns. That is a structural fact about the country and it has a useful consequence: for most Australians, the nearest shop that will genuinely improve their Mexican cooking is an Asian supermarket. Not because it sells Mexican products, but because a large part of the Mexican list is already on those shelves under different names and at better prices. Here is the translation, aisle by aisle.

Produce

• Limes by the kilo. Sold loose by weight rather than in a sleeve of three, and usually a fraction of the supermarket price. Lime is non-negotiable in Mexican cooking and this is where you buy it.
• Coriander by the bunch, roots attached. Bigger, cheaper and fresher than the supermarket sleeve, and the roots are useful in stocks. Australians call both the leaf and the seed coriander, so a recipe written elsewhere that says cilantro means this.
• Fresh chillies in volume. Long red, long green and bird's eye, usually sold in bags rather than singly. Not jalapeno or serrano, but a workable base for salsas once you adjust for heat and wall thickness.
• Spring onions, garlic, ginger, onions, generally cheaper and in larger bundles than at a major chain.

Dry goods

• Dried prawns. The quiet hero. They belong in pozole, in tortitas de camaron, and in a broth that needs depth. Australian supermarkets do not sell them and Asian grocers always do.
• Dried beans in large bags. Black and pinto beans are not always present, but when they are, the per-kilo price is well under the supermarket.
• Whole spices. Cumin seed, coriander seed, cinnamon quills, cloves, star anise, black peppercorns, and dried chillies of various kinds, all sold in packets rather than tiny jars.
• Rice. Long-grain rice by the large bag for Mexican rice, and glutinous and short-grain for other purposes.
• Maize and rice flours. Useful to know: these are not masa harina, which is nixtamalised. If the packet does not mention lime treatment, it will not make a tortilla that behaves.

Freezer and chiller

• Banana leaves. Frozen, folded and inexpensive. They are what you want for tamales in the southern Mexican style and for barbacoa, and Australian supermarkets never carry them.
• Pork belly, pork skin, offal and whole fish, often cut in ways an Australian butcher will not offer, and priced for cooks rather than for convenience.
• Whole ducks, goat and mutton in some shops, which opens up barbacoa and birria at sensible prices.

One habit worth forming at the freezer door: buy banana leaves whenever you see them rather than when you need them. They keep almost indefinitely frozen, they take up very little room, and they are the ingredient most likely to be missing on the day you decide to make tamales.

Hardware

The kitchenware corner of a large Asian supermarket is the cheapest place in Australia to equip a Mexican kitchen. A heavy flat carbon steel pan works as a comal and will outlast a non-stick pan several times over. A granite or stone mortar and pestle does the job of a molcajete for salsas, and though the stone is different, the result is a better texture than any blender gives. Heavy stockpots, steamer inserts for tamales, and steel tongs are all there at a fraction of specialty-shop prices.

What it still will not give you

Be clear about the limits. An Asian grocer will not have nixtamalised masa harina, whole dried ancho, guajillo or pasilla chillies, piloncillo, tinned chipotles in adobo, epazote or hoja santa. Those come from a Latin American grocer or from an online order, and they are the short list worth making a special trip for. Our store directory covers both kinds of shop.

The combined shopping pattern

The efficient Australian Mexican pantry is assembled from three sources: an Asian grocer for produce, dried prawns, banana leaves, bulk dry goods and pans; a supermarket for tinned tomatoes, dairy, meat and commodity staples; and one or two bulk orders a year, online or from a Latin grocer, for the specifically Mexican dry goods. Our recipes note the substitutions that genuinely hold up, and our guides explain the ingredients Australia cannot import at all.