Asian Grocery Adventures: Fruit Edition

To complete the trifecta of posts on my adventure to the local asian specialty grocery, I give you fruit! There was a great mix of both your standard fruits and your stand-out beauties.

Mangoes!

Some lovely speckled nectarines

Gorgeous persimmons!

Citrus galore!

At the time I didn’t know what these were, however, now I do! QUINCE!

And this little beauty. Any ideas on what this is?

Asian Grocery Adventures: Seafood Edition

As a continuation of the lovely veggies I showed you guys last week (Thanks Ben for telling me it’s a bitter melon!), I thought I would show you some of the seafood wonders to be beheld at the same grocery store.

I had never seen such complete (head, eyes, antennae) shrimp uncooked before!

Fighting crabs!

Freeze dried anchovies! I personally am more a fan of freeze dried fruit, but to each their own.

Blood Sausage

This past Wednesday I had a new culinary experience. I tried blood sausage for the first time. Yes, blood sausage. It wasn’t as bad as I had been expecting, in fact I rather enjoyed it with the exception of the very thick casing that was possibly made of intestines. The meat had good flavor and did not taste like blood (my only experience is from sucking on paper cuts and other small injuries), no metallic flavor at all.

Yes, I know it seems gross, but as someone who is interested in food I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by. What odd food have you eaten lately? Have you ever tried blood sausage?

Asian Grocery Adventures: Vegetable Edition

There are a few big Asian grocery stores in the suburbs of the town where I grew up. When home for winter break last year I took a little field trip to take in the wonders. Here is what I saw in the veggie department:

Peppers of every imaginable shape, color, and level of spice.

Symmetric stacks of scallions (try to say that 5 times fast)!

Skinny Thai eggplant

And two things I couldn’t identify:
Does anyone know what this is?

What about this?

Chilote Delicacies

Last weekend I visited the island of Chiloé in Chile’s extreme south. While there, I had the opportunity to try two of Chiloé’s best known dishes. They both feature seafood, something that Chiloé is very well known for.

The first of these two dishes is called Curanto. As seen in the picture, it contains (from left to right): a sausage, two dumpling-style potatoes, a chicken thigh, a pork rib (not visible in the photo), mussels, and clams. This plate served three people and came with individual cups of almost unbearably salty broth.

I know there is awful glare from the window, but this second dish was absolutely incredible. It’s a soup called Paila de Mariscos, paila being the name for the vessel it’s served in and mariscos meaning seafood. It’s a delicious seafood broth filled with clams, mussels, a few other types of mollusk meat that I couldn’t identify and a big piece of salmon. The broth was beautifully seasoned with garlic, tomato, cilantro, onion, and garnished with parsley. It was surprisingly filling for a broth based soup, I wish I could have finished it!

Quirky Product

Instant Success is a brand of yeast I encountered in a Chilean grocery store. I’m sure it does glorious things to bread, but I got dreaming about how amazing my life could be if it were actually instant success.

Pomegranate Dreams

If I were in the Northern Hemisphere right now (T-minus 4 weeks and counting!) I would be thoroughly enjoying the beginning of pomegranate season. Alas, I am stuck in 90 degree heat, so allow me to leave you with these gems that fuel my dreams, as taken last winter break.

::swoon::

Be still my beating heart, you will be reunited with your pomegranate loves soon!