I’ve checked Carrefours in Shilin and Beitou, and the Qianlian supermarkets in the area, but I cannot seem to find these exact spices. Any suggestions?
Garlic Powder
Dried Oregano
Red Pepper Flakes
I found “Paprika” without a problem, but taco recipe I’m using noted 2 different kinds: Sweet Paprika and Smoked Paprika
I am surprised I could not find Garlic Powder. I have Onion Powder that I think I got from Costco years ago, so I have been using that instead.
I am also surprised that Oregano is not easily found. Instead, I have substituted this with Thyme and Basil leaves (also sourced from Costco - so my containers of them are quite large)
For Red Pepper Flakes, I substituted with 5 Spice, which is probably not very close. I haven’t looked up what Five Spice is yet, but I don’t so much because I cannot handle very spicy food anyway. There is a Japanese spice that I found that looked like red pepper flakes but also had what looked like seaweed flakes.
Mildly surprised - I think all of those usually reasonably easy to find, but with Covid-19, stocking is a touch weird right now. Dumb question: did you look carefully around the store? Wellcome and Quanlian typically have several different spice shelves scattered around the store, with different varieties in each one; Carrefour may do the same.
In Taiwan I’ve usually bought the garlic granules @BiggusDickus just wrote about, rather than garlic powder. I consider them interchangeable.
For red pepper flakes: if you can find dried red chilies, you can stem those and throw them in a coffee grinder (or food processor, I guess) instead. I have an old blade grinder I use for spices. Note doing them this way can be much spicier than jarred red pepper flakes. Oh, and FFS don’t take a appreciate whiff, “just for taste”, of the grinder.
I’ve never bothered to find sweet paprika - I’m not sure if I’ve seen it here. I always just use smoked anyway. Mind you, my palate is kind of garbage (repeatedly whiffing freshly ground chili flakes will do that to you!), so others may feel there’s a bigger difference than I do.
I’ve found garlic powder and dried oregano at Carrefour just two weeks ago. I believe the foreign food aisle near the tomato sauce was where I found the oregano. I found the garlic powder in the normal spice aisle.
Garlic powder is almost impossible for some reason. I forget if Costco has it. Oregano is not too hard. If you have a balcony you can grow it, dry and save it, it grows like crazy. Almost every supermarket has “Italian spice” which is largely oregano, in a pinch. Lately I’ve been going with the Vietnamese red pepper flakes, they’re some uber hot variety.
I actually came across all these spices at an 安永 health food store recently. They were in plain glass containers with labels in Chinese, so pretty easy to miss if you can’t read them.
For garlic powder, you can use a Costco garlic spice mix or salt-free spice mix that is mostly garlic powder, or better yet, just mince some garlic and briefly sautee it.
For dried oregano, the average Italian spice mix here is mostly dried oregano, as Tempo Gain has noted. Just use that. Or pick up a pot of oregano at the plant market!
For red pepper flakes, just add a touch of la4jiao1fen3, chili powder. Or just pick up some chiles at the store and mince! Not everything has to be just as the recipe indicates, and all dried and powdered. Be creative, experiment!
As for paprika, the average Hungarian paprika is the ‘sweet’ (meaning not hot and spicy AFAIK) and not smoked, so if you find some in a local super, that’s likely to be it. The la Chinata brand IIRC sells both sweet smoked (‘sweet pimenton’) and spicy smoked (spicy pimenton) which last I recall was imported by PNP and stocked by Mayfull among others.
Five Spice contains a lot of star anise so it is quite different and not suitable for tacos IMHO.
For good taco flavor, consider adding a bit of cumin. Try roast it in a pan and then grind it fresh, and the smell and flavor are heavenly.
Also look for this brand https://www.tomax.com.tw/en/
It is available at kitchen supply and bakery stores is larger quantities. Should usually be available at RT Mart and Carrefour. There are other local brands too.
I find Taipei in the whole useless for buying spices, try buying any Indian type spices is hard work. Yellow/black mustard seeds fuck almost like they don’t exist!
I have finally got all the spices I need for curry paste I bought in Cambodia!
Chilli flakes are not a problem to buy here I must add.
I have found a couple South Asian grocers not far from City Hall MRT in Taipei, in the area north of Zhongxiao East Road and east of Keelung Road - also near Yongchun MRT
Where do you find them? In a regular grocer or a baking supply shop?
Here are the Japanese chili flakes I mentioned earlier: Shichimi Togarashi
places that sell potted herbs.
