Despite its slightly inflated prices, Kitchen/Market is still a great resource for hard to find Mexican ingredients.
It's also a good place to start when you want to make something like mole, which has been on our Recipes To Tackle list for a while now. The staff was not supremely friendly nor very knowledgeable about the chiles but the ancho ($3.60 for 2 oz.) and guajillo chiles ($3.20 for 2 oz.) needed for red mole are easy enough to find among the over 30 varieties.
They did gush, however, over the Ibarra Mexican Chocolate, often used to make hot chocolate drinks. We didn’t use this in the mole but it would probably work pretty well, since mole often calls for cinnamon too.
There are other reasons to visit Kitchen/Market. You can find corn husks ($2.75 for 4 oz.) for tamales, huitlacoche ($4.55 for 7.5 oz.) for everything and “Mexican” canela (This one’s actually imported from Sri Lanka, $1.75 for 1 oz.), again for those tamales. They also have a steam table and they’ll make you a burrito, like roasted chicken or stewed pork ($8.25), or a tosatado ($8.75), which they can deliver or cater your next party with. That, plus the dozen or so hot sauces and cute Mexican trinkets, are the reasons to visit Kitchen/Market.
Don’t go there to buy pine nuts ($6.75 for 4 oz.), repacked and over priced, nor dried apricots ($2.80 for 8 oz.), which are almost double the price compared to Sahadi’s. Go because the location is convenient, they have a good variety of items and they’re open insanely late.
| Location: |
M-F, 9am-11pm; Sa/Sun, 11am-11pm
New York
,
NY
10011
|
|---|---|
| Phone: |
212-243-4433
|
| Website: | www.kitchenmarket.com |
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I'm really surprised that there are "hard to find" Mexican ingredients in NYC that would send you to a store with inflated prices. I guess we're lucky here in Chicago to have numerous little (and big) Mexican grocery stores and fruit markets around.
Trust me Jenny - I called over 6 places for Corn Smut a while back and the only place that I could find it was at Kitchen/Market. I am sure there are other places for chillies and such but you would have to schlep out to one of the outer boroughs and convenience is everything!
I was just in the Essex Street Market a few days ago, and there was a store with Spanish/Mexican ingredients,including lots of chiles. I'm sure it's less expensive than the store you mention...It was my first time there in a long time and it's really changed.
Yea, it's more than a bit of an exaggeration to say Mexican ingredients are hard-to-find in New York: Corona, Queens - Sunset Park, Brooklyn..both have huge latino populations and, as such, lots of places to find authentic mexican ingredients (and great food!). But, yes, I know, you have to leave Manhattan (an act that can cause a panic attack amongst some).
You don't have to leave manhattan -- the kroena delis in the west 90's and 100's stock Cuitlacoche! Also, there's a great mexican bakery on 9th about 47th street that stocks ingredients, and their fresh tamales are delicioso!!!
Korean delis