Myanmar: Setting things straight, and on to mohinga

First things first, a little Internet research has indicated that the Union of Myanmar included on the Wiki list of nations is actually modern-day Burma. Just so there is no confusion for anyone country tracking.

Second, I found a few recipes for the national dish mohinga. It is a fish soup made with catfish, ginger, lemongrass and other spices. It sounds similar to what the Vietnamese call Pho.

I started out with a grocery list of ingredients that included chickpea flour, crushed toasted rice, 4 garlic gloves, 4 onions, 1 tsp. lemongrass, a banana tree stem, 1 inch ginger, fish paste, fish sauce, catfish, 4 tbsp. rice flour rice broth, rice vermicelli, lime, crisp fried onions, coriander, spring onions and dried chili.

Issues with the grocery list: no chickpea flour, crushed toasted rice, banana tree stem, fish sauce. or rice broth.

Going into the grocery shopping, I wasn't even confident I'd be able to find lemongrass or catfish. I've never cooked with either one before. And to be honest, I don't think I've ever ate catfish and was skeptical they would sell this somewhat inferior fish at my local Publix.

It's important to note at this point that I live in a master planned community. My Publix sells fine cheese, duck, quail and creme brulee ice cream. One of my friends once insisted that all Publix's sell fishing bait and didn't believe me when I said I had never seen it there, despite having scoured like every inch of the store. Big surprise, we could not find the large buckets of bait they sell at Publix stores in Port Charlotte, and left with some frozen fillets. Another big surprise, we didn't catch anything.

So yeah, I was iffy about whether the Lakewood Ranch Publix would have catfish sitting side by side with swordfish.

I was indeed surprised that they did, but even more surprised that they had lemongrass in a little tube in the fresh herb section. Now, on to all of the other stuff in the list of ingredients.

In the future, I need to be a little bit more on top of it when it comes to pre-meal grocery shopping (one of my friends pointed out that all Publix's have the plantains required in my Panama dish ... I pointed out this is true, except when I need them). With a little effort and visits to specialty stores, I could probably find most things.

But the point of all of this is to have fun, and I guess I'm somewhat resigned to the fact that things like chickpea flour (also known as gram flour) may not be common mainstays in American supermarkets. So I will figure out how to do without them, or improvise.

In the case of the chickpea flour, we're going with improvise.

I've been meaning to buy a food processor for quite sometime, but like many other things in my life have not been moved by necessity to do so. But as I wandered the aisles of my fairly small Publix this evening wondering where else I could find ground chick peas I thought "Seriously. What do you really think chick pea flour is, besides ground chick peas?" So for $24 I threw a food processor and bag of dried chick peas into the basket.

I'm cutting my loss on the fish paste and banana stems (Seriously? Where the heck would I find those?). And how much fish flavor do we really need? Since I'm all up on the new food processor think I'll make my own crushed, toasted rice. Jury is still out on the rice broth.