A snack run at four area international markets
“OK, these ones are great,” said Keith Sarasin, pulling a bag of Indian snack mix down from a shelf. “They’re made with black salt, which isn’t something that most Americans are really familiar with. It’s got sulphury back-notes that are a little freaky at first, but after they’ve tried it, most people get addicted to it.”
Chef Sarasin is the chef and owner of Aatma, an Indian-themed popup restaurant. He describes himself as “Indian-food obsessed.” We were at Patel Brothers, an Indian supermarket in Nashua, looking over an aisle of dozens of varieties of snack mixes. He explains that people in South Asia — India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh — are passionate about snack foods. As if to illustrate his point, for every aisle of produce or staple ingredients at Patel Brothers, there is another one devoted to a different type of snack food.
“These,” he said, pointing to a package of biscuits (cookies), “are what you would have with tea. If you’re Indian, you keep some of these around all the time to serve to guests. There is a saying in Hindi that translates to ‘The guest is a god.’” That’s how seriously they take their snacks.
Almost every culture around the world has snacks that the people eat on the street, or sitting with friends, drinking tea, beer, coffee, or tequila, gossiping and arguing about sports. More and more of these snacks are making their way to New Hampshire — in supermarkets, superettes or convenience stores.
So, let’s do some exploring.
The following snack foods represent a small fraction of what is available at four local international markets — one Indian, one Filipino, one Mexican and one East Asian. These stores, in turn, are a fraction of the international snack landscape around us. There are Bosnian, African, Middle Eastern, and Greek markets that we haven’t had the opportunity to get to.
The snacks have been sorted by the stores where they were purchased (with tasting notes provided by snackers at the Hippo office). Because these are all ready-to-eat snacks, each section of regional snacks is followed by a recipe for a traditional snack from that culture that you probably won’t find on a grocery store shelf.
Patel Brothers:
Masala mix & West Indies potato chips
Patel Brothers (292 Daniel Webster Highway, Unit 8, Nashua, patelbros.com, 888-8009) is a large supermarket that is part of a national chain of more than 50 stores, according to the website. This one sits in Willow Springs Plaza in Nashua, next to Home Depot. It is a full-service supermarket with produce, groceries and products from all areas of South Asia and it features an in-store bakery.
Gharana brand Chakri (Muruku)
Where it’s from: Indian snack, made in New Jersey
Description: A dry, crunchy churro-shaped cookie or cracker, wrapped in a spiral.
Tasting notes: “A deep-fried flavor with a spicy back-end.” “Unexpectedly spicy”
Lay’s West Indies Hot & Sweet Potato Chips
Where it’s from: Lay’s, the PepsiCo-produced chips you’re familiar with, has produced flavors for the Caribbean and South Asian market
Description: A ruffled potato chip with Caribbean flavors
Tasting notes: “I taste paprika; the heat grows as you eat.” “Very reminiscent of Old Bay Seasoning.” “Wow, this excites my taste buds with the sweet, then the spice!”
Swad brand Mamra Laddoo
Where it’s from: Indian snack, manufactured in New Jersey
Description: Hard, crunchy caramelized puffed rice balls
Tasting notes: “Very crunchy.” “A second cousin to caramel corn.”
Anand brand Jaggery Banana Pieces (Sarkaravaratty)
Where it’s from: South India
Description: Nuggets of dried bananas covered with sugar and spices
Tasting notes: “This would be good with tea.” “Slight banana flavor — mostly hidden under the jaggery and cardamom. I like this.” “It tastes a little like garam masala.”
Bombay Kitchen Mumbai Masala snack mix
Where it’s from: Central Indian snack, made in New York
Description: A snack mix made of chickpea crackers, peanuts, raisins, rice flakes, lentils, green peas and spices.
Tasting notes: “There is a wide variety of textures. The flavor is subtle at first, with an aftertaste of garam masala.” “There is a variety of very crunchy and not-so-crunchy textures, with a nice amount of spice.” “I was much softer than I had thought. Not bad, but you need a decent handful to get the true flavor.”
Haldiram’s Khatta Meetha snack mix
Where it’s from: India
Description: A snack mix made of chickpea crackers, peanuts, mango powder, lentils and spices
Tasting notes: “Sweet tasting, with many spices. It isn’t hot.” “It starts out kind of bland, but quickly becomes addictive, with a sweet, mild heat and a soft crunch.”
Snack to make at home: Slacker Vada
Vada, a fried fritter-like food, are popular street snacks in Southern India. Passengers on trains will reach out the windows of their carriages at stops along their journey and buy them from vendors at each train station. They are a perfect on-the-go street food — crunchy outside, comfort-foody inside, and easily eaten on the go.
Let’s be clear about this: This recipe is not authentic vada. An Indian auntie would have a lot to say about how not-authentic they are. A vada wallah (a vada aficionado) on the streets of Mangaluru would take a bite of one, then shake his head at the state of this weary world. But, these vada are tasty, deep-fried and easy to make at home. Once you have a vague idea of how good a vada is, you will want to seek out one that is more authentic and involves intimidating ingredients like asafetida (a spice that requires a whole other conversation).
- 1 15-ounce can of lentils – I like Goya
- ½ 15-ounce can of chickpeas (sometimes labeled as garbanzo beans)
- 2 Tablespoon finely chopped cashews
- ½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- 2 teaspoons finely minced fresh ginger
- ⅓ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
- 2 hot green chiles, finely chopped – New Hampshire chiles are notoriously unreliable; your best bet is probably serrano or Fresno chiles, which have a good flavor and a reliably moderate level of heat
- 2 Tablespoon rice flour, possibly more
- ½ teaspoon salt
- vegetable oil for frying
Your best tip for Indian cooking — or any cooking — is to prepare all your ingredients and lay them out so you know where they are when you need them and don’t need to rummage through your cabinets or refrigerator looking for something that you forgot you were out of. Professionals call this mise en place; it’s just another phrase for being properly prepared. Do that with your vada ingredients.
Rinse the chickpeas and lentils in a strainer until they stop being foamy.
Blend the lentils and chickpeas in your blender until they look like peanut butter and smell like refried beans. If the mixture is too thick, add water, a spoonful at a time, until it gets to where you want it to be.
Transfer the puree to a bowl, and mix in the other ingredients. It should be just stiff enough to work with your hands. If it’s too sticky, add more rice flour, again a spoonful at a time, until you can hold it and shape it with your fingers.
Take enough of the mixture to roll into a ball about the size of a golf ball. Roll it, then poke your finger through the middle of it, and shape it into a miniature doughnut. Vada are doughnut-shaped for the same reason doughnuts are: to allow them to cook completely in hot oil before they get greasy. It also allows you to get a deep-fried crispiness on the increased surface area of the vada. Make two or three while your oil heats up.
Heat 4 to 6 inches of oil in a pot to 350°F. If you choose a small pot, the oil will come to temperature quickly and you won’t need as much of it. You will only be able to fry one or two vada at a time, though, and the temperature of the oil will drop more easily when you add the room-temperature vada to the pan. If you use a bigger pot you will have more oil, can fry more vada at a time, and will retain a good frying temperature.
Fry the vada like you would doughnuts — 2 or 3 minutes on each side — until they are crispy and the color of brown car upholstery. Drain them on paper towels.
Because these are doughnut-shaped, part of your brain expects them to be sweet, but they are entirely savory. There are bits of chewy coconut, but also brightness from the chilies, ginger and cilantro. The background flavor is undefinably savory but supports its co-stars. These are excellent hot from the fryer, or at room temperature, although they are at their crispiest while they are still hot. They go very well with chai or coffee, and with a chutney, preferably coconut chutney.
Make these, grow to love them, and then we’ll talk about asafetida.
Saigon Asian Market:
sweets and seaweed
Saigon Asian Market (476 Union St., Manchester, 935-9597) is a medium-sized supermarket with groceries and products from Vietnam, China, Taiwan and Thailand. It offers fresh produce and excellent fresh seafood.
Kaoriya Mochi Peanut Flavor
Where it’s from: Traditional Japanese snack, made in Thailand
Description: Soft pillowy rice mochi, with a sweet, peanut filling
Tasting notes: “Two distinct textures; it tastes like a peanut butter bun.” “Very chewy; peanut flavor is very prominent, but not like peanut butter.”
Ricky joy brand Strawberry Mellow Cone
Where it’s from: China
Description: Brightly colored, ice cream cone-shaped candy.
Tasting notes: “Fun filling inside.”
Mag Mag brand Thai Hote Madame Plum
Where it’s from: Thailand
Description: Spiced dry plum
Tasting notes: “Madame is beautifully sweet and sour.” “Not too spicy — a nice balance of sweet plum and heat. I’m voting this my favorite.”
Tao Kae Noi: Mala Flavor seaweed snack
Where it’s from: Thailand
Description: Dried, seasoned strips of seaweed.
Tasting notes: “It has some heat.” “The spice builds as you eat it. It’s very fishy.”
Koe-Kae Sriracha Chilli Sauce Flavour Coated Green Peas
Where it’s from: Thailand
Description: Freeze-dried peas, coated with a sweet sriracha flavoring
Tasting notes: “It has a good crunch and good heat in small doses.” “Excellent crunch! The heat builds then recedes nicely.” “Great crunch! Perfect amount of spice for a snack food.”
Teddy Bear Sweet & Sour Spicy Tamarind
Where it’s from: Thailand
Description: Dried tamarind fruit with added spice
Tasting notes: “This has a delicious sour tamarind flavor. There are large seeds.” “Interesting combination — I got the sweet, the sour, and the spicy (in that order), with a nice gummy texture.” “I was not prepared for the seeds, but otherwise, I loved it. Sweet and sour with an earthy taste.”
Snack to make at home: Kluay Thod
These fried bananas are a specialty in Bangkok, where street cooks use small, finger-sized bananas. Those totally work in this recipe but can sometimes be a little hard to find. Half-inch rounds of a regular Cavendish banana will work just as well, as long as it’s properly ripe — yellow, with a lot of brown spots on it. If the convenience store you buy your morning coffee from has bananas up by the register, they will be just about perfect for this recipe, especially later in the week, when the bananas have seen too much of life and have given up hope. Think of this as helping them fulfill their destiny.
- 10-12 finger-sized bananas, cut in half, or ½-inch rounds of 3 large, ripe ones
- 1¼ cups (200 g) rice flour, plus more for dredging
- 1½ cups (200 g) all purpose flour
- 1½ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 cup (200 ml) water
- 1 cup (200 ml) coconut milk
- ½ teaspoon salt – I like to use coarse sea salt
- ½ cup (50 g) sesame seeds
- 3 Tablespoons brown sugar
- ½ cup (50 g) finely minced coconut
- vegetable oil for frying
Fill a pot with 4 to 6 inches of vegetable oil and set it to heating over medium heat. Keep an eye on it; you want it to eventually reach 350°F.
Meanwhile, mix the rest of the ingredients, aside from the bananas, in a large bowl. It will make a thick batter.
Pour a smallish amount, maybe half a cup, of rice flour into a small bowl. This is for dredging. When you’re deep-frying something, wet batter doesn’t like to stick to wet or damp ingredients, so it’s a good idea to cover whatever you’re frying with something dry and powdery — fried chicken often calls for seasoned flour or cornstarch, for example. In this case, you’ve already got rice flour on the counter, so we’ll use that.
When your oil has come to temperature, dredge several pieces of banana in rice flour, then dunk them in batter. Even with the rice flour, the banana might balk at being completely covered; you’ll have to convince it.
Carefully drop the battered banana pieces into the oil and cook them until they are a rich brown color. You’ll know when they’re ready; their beauty will stagger you. Fry a few banana pieces at a time to keep the oil at a consistent temperature.
Drain them on several layers of paper towels.
You owe it to yourself to eat at least a couple of these hot and crispy right from the fryer. They are lightly sweet, with banana notes in the background, and a savory, sesame-forward flavor from the batter. There’s a comforting contrast between the soft banana and the crispy/chewy texture of the sesame coating.
True to their street food origins, you and whoever else is in the house with you will probably eat this standing in the kitchen. If there are any left, they will still be good for several hours, especially with a glass of Thai iced tea.
GFM Pinoy Food Mart:
ube and adobo
GFM Pinoy Food Mart (224 North Broadway, Salem, gfmpinoyfoods.com, 458-1957) is a very small, snack-heavy Filipino grocery store. There are some refrigerated and frozen foods from the Philippines, but most of the stock is dry goods.
Fritzie’s Ube Cheese Pandesal
Where it’s from: Filipino pastry, made in New Jersey
Description: A purple bun (ube is an Asian purple yam) with a mild cheese filling
Tasting notes: “This tastes a lot like a croissant.” “It reminds me of pan dulce slightly. I can’t really taste the cheese.” “It … has a nice taste, like a sweet bread.”
Jack ’n’ Jill brand Chicharron ni Mang Juan (vegetarian pork rinds), Sukang Paombong flavored
Where it’s from: Philippines
Description: Light golden-brown fried snack that is curled to look like pork rinds
Tasting notes: “Salty and savory with more depth of flavor than I was expecting.” “Mild and crunchy; they would be excellent with three or four beers.”
Boy Bawang Cornick: Adobo Flavor
Where it’s from: Philippines
Description: “Marinated Meat-Flavored Fried Corn”
Tasting notes: “Chickeny-tasting corn nuts.” “Crunchy puffed corn with a mild flavor.” “Fave! I love these. They are like Corn Nuts, but not tooth-breaky.”
Jack ’n’ Jill brand Chippy Barbecue Flavored Corn Chips
Where it’s from: The Philippines
Description: Barbecue-flavored corn chips the size and shape of Fritos
Tasting notes: “The taste is a mix between a Bugle and a Frito.” “It’s light on the barbecue flavor, but I love the corn chip for a nice change-up.” “Savory, meaty taste at the end.”
Jack ’n’ Jill brand V-Cut Potato Chips
Where it’s from: The Philippines
Description: Lightly smoky rippled potato chips
Tasting notes: “It reminds me of a barbecue sandwich in a chip form.” “I really enjoyed the barbecue flavor of this one. Not too strong; just perfect.”
Snack to make at home: Tambo-Tambo
Tambo-Tambo is a coconut pudding with tapioca pearls and rice balls from the Philippines. Because the Philippines is made up of more than 7,000 islands, each with its own culture, and because it is in the middle of several major trade routes, you never know what you’re going to get in a Filipino snack. The food culture of the Philippines has been impacted by East Asian, Indonesian, Spanish and even American influences. This particular snack leans heavily into three ingredients deeply rooted in the Filipino landscape: coconut, cassava (which tapioca is made from) and rice.
- ½ cup (75 g) small tapioca pearls
- 1 cup (250 ml) water
- 1 cup (150 g) glutinous rice flour – it will probably be called Sweet White Rice Flour in your supermarket, but it’s the same thing
- another ½ cup (125 ml) water
- 1¾ cup (400 ml) unsweetened coconut milk
- another ½ cup (125 ml) water
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup (100 g) sugar
- diced fresh fruit – mangos are traditional, but I think fresh cherries would be fantastic
Soak the tapioca in a cup of water for half an hour, then rinse thoroughly.
Meanwhile, mix the rice flour with half a cup of water, then roll it into half-inch balls with wet fingers. (Your fingers should be wet. Giving the rice balls fingers would be disconcerting.) Cover them with a damp cloth until Game Time.
Mix the coconut milk, salt, sugar, and the last half cup of water in a small saucepan, then bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently.
Crash the heat to low, then stir in the rice balls. Cook them for about 4 minutes, until they are cooked through and chewy. Stir pretty much continuously, to keep the rice balls from sticking to each other.
Bring the heat back up to high, then stir in the rinsed tapioca, and stir until the tapioca has been cooked, another 3 or 4 minutes. The tapioca will thicken the mixture noticeably.
Remove from heat, and let the pudding cool, maybe 20 minutes. Serve, garnished with fresh fruit.
This snack is full of contrasts — the coconut pudding is creamy, the rice balls are chewy and the tapioca is, err, tapioca-y. The coconut is sweet — perhaps even a little too sweet on its own — but it is balanced out by the mildness of the rice balls. This snack is great warm, but even better cold and refreshing. I can imagine standing in a market in Manila, desperately hot and completely overwhelmed, then grounding myself with a dish of tambo-tambo.
La Michoacana Market:
Takis and Zambos
La Michoacana Market (112 Pine St., Nashua, 882-0271) is a small neighborhood market with Mexican snacks and products. It serves a small selection of American-style hot food, some with a Mexican twist.
Bimbo brand Nito snack cakes
Where it’s from: Mexico
Description: Dry, chocolate-frosted and -filled snack cake
Tasting notes: “A strong cocoa flavor.” “The sweet bread enhances the sweetness of the chocolate icing; it isn’t too sweet.” “Nice and chocolatey.”
Takis Hot Nuts Fuego
Where it’s from: Mexico
Description: Peanuts with a spicy/sour coating
Tasting notes:“The spiciness is all in the electric red dust.” “Very acidic.” “All the spice of a Takis with a peanut finish.” “Shockingly spicy at first, but ends nicely. It makes you want more!”
Yummies brand Ceviche Flavored Zambos
Where it’s from: Honduras
Description: Ceviche-flavored plantain chips
Tasting notes: “Outstanding lime and salt flavors; the fishy background is distracting.” “This tastes sort of like a seaweed chip; it’s pretty good.”
Diana Brand Jalapeňos tortilla chip
Where it’s from: El Salvador
Description: Seasoned tortilla chips
Tasting notes: “Tiny triangles. Delicate corn flavor with mild heat.” “not as hot as I expected but tasty and easy going with a great touch of spice.” “I’m obsessed with these! They are perfect, and almost no flavoring sticks to your fingers.”
Bimbo brand Choco Bimbuňuelos
Where it’s from: Mexico
Description: The packaging describes it as “Sweet Crispy Wheels with Chocolate Flavored Coating”
Tasting notes: “Extra crunchy. The chocolate is very melty.” “These are very dangerous! You could eat a whole package if you weren’t careful. The chocolate is so creamy and the crisp is light.”
Snack to make at home: Pemoles
Mexico is another country that has had its food shaped by a huge number of influences — indigenous, Spanish and even French. Mexico has a complex and sophisticated baking tradition. There are Mexican cookies that would blow your mind. Pemoles are wreath-shaped cookies made with masa harina (corn flour) instead of wheat flour, and are flavored with coffee.
- 2 cups (250 g) masa harina (corn flour)
- ¼ teaspoon salt – again, I like to use coarse sea salt; it plants little salt bombs in the finished cookie
- 1 Tablespoon finely ground coffee
- 1¼ sticks (125 g) butter — authentic pemoles are made with lard, which tastes fantastic in baked goods but can be intimidating, so we’ll use butter instead; feel free to use the full-octane fat, though; you will not regret it
- ½ cup (125 g) sugar
- 1 egg
- ¼ cup (2 ounces) coffee liqueur
Toast the masa harina in a dry skillet, stirring constantly, until it darkens to a golden-brown color — about the same color as a lion. Transfer it to a bowl to cool.
Add the salt and coffee to the roasted masa harina. Stir to combine.
Using your electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until they are pale yellow, light and fluffy.
Beat in the egg and then, once the egg is incorporated, the coffee liqueur.
Gradually mix in the dry ingredients.
When the dough has come together, refrigerate it for half an hour.
OK, this is where things get a little weird. Every recipe for pemoles says that you should knead the dough until it is smooth before chilling it. This seems impossible. The pre-chilled mixture is much too soft to work with your hands. Additionally, because there isn’t any wheat in this recipe, there is no flour to produce gluten, the stuff that makes bread and other baked goods pliable. I’m sure that the Mexican nuns who invented pemoles could do it; I haven’t worked out a way to.
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.
Pinch off a tablespoonful of the chilled dough and form it into a 6-inch-long snake. Apparently, rolling it is recommended — and that would probably work if you could manage to knead the dough — but I’ve found that squeezing it in my palms works better. Put your snake on the baking sheet and form it into a circle. You should be able to form about a dozen cookies.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes. You won’t be able to tell by the color when they are done, but if you poke a pemole and it feels like a cookie that hasn’t firmed up yet, they are ready to take out of the oven.
Let the pemoles cool, then eat them.
These have a crumbly, sandy texture, much like a really good shortbread. This is something bakers call sablé. The roasted corn flavor is deeply satisfying — a little like a good cornbread — and the not-over-the-top coffee flavor gives you an emotional anchor to hang the “Ooh-I-like-this” part of your brain on. It goes without saying that these are a natural to have with coffee.
