shoestring gringa

If you’re a fan of Chinese food, the good news is that there are Chinese restaurants everywhere,  even in Mexico.  Even rather small towns will often boast one or two.

If you want to make your own at home, you can usually find basic Asian items in large city supermarkets.   Warning — most of the available soy sauce is pretty awful — if you see a jug of Kikkoman in Costco, grab it!  Jars of  plum sauce, oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, and kung pao are easy to find.  Once we found tofu in a tetrapak which was quite acceptable.    We’ve regularly been able to buy fresh ginger (jenjibre) at Soriana for the past year.  Ingredients for other Asian cuisines are sometimes seen, but less common.

If you live off the beaten track, you can still satisfy those Asian cravings with a combination of planning, improvisation, and keeping it simple.  For example, we’re very fond of wonton soup.  The miracle of a steaming bowl on a chilly day was recently achieved by:

Planning:  (1) Having bought ginger when we last shopped in the city (growing it would be even better and is on my to-do list).  (2) Always having soy sauce, cornstarch and sherry, the basics for Chinese food, on hand, and of course garlic.

Improvisation:  (1) Making our own wonton wrappers.  This is easily done with a pasta machine (or rolling pin) and a recipe off the internet.  (I think we bought ready-made wonton wraps once in Merida, but I can’t swear to it.)  (2)  Using pork broth left over from  another dish combined with Knorr chicken powder and water for the broth.

Keeping it simple:  Forgetting about luxuries like dried mushrooms and Napa cabbage and just using locally available green onions.

For someone who learned (perforce) to cook out of books, this way of cooking and thinking is an ongoing learning experience for me — beginning with what’s on hand and fashioning something hopefully enjoyable out of it, as opposed to dreaming up a menu and going out and buying all the stuff for it.  As with so many areas of Mexican life, it involves a whole lot more creativity and way less expense.  Although it can be frustrating at times, it seems ultimately a more sustainable and satisfying approach to doing things.