Where to buy Ecuadorian ingredients in the UK
Most of Ecuador’s cooking is within reach of a British kitchen. Here is where to find each ingredient, and what to use when you can’t.
| Ingredient | Where to find it | If you can’t | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Green plantain | Most large supermarkets; African and Caribbean grocers | None needed | Buy |
| Yuca (cassava) | Frozen in Latin, African and Asian grocers | Floury potato, at a push | Buy |
| Achiote (annatto) | Latin shops; online as paste, seeds or ground | Sweet paprika for colour | Buy |
| Mote (white hominy) | Latin shops, dried or tinned as maíz mote | Tinned white hominy | Buy |
| Chochos (lupin beans) | Italian delis sell them in jars as lupini | Jarred lupini, rinsed | Buy |
| Purple corn flour | Peruvian and Latin shops; online | No real substitute | Buy |
| Naranjilla pulp | Frozen in Latin shops | Lime juice and extra pineapple | |
| Tree tomato (tamarillo) | Some supermarkets and online in season; frozen pulp in Latin shops | Tomato with a squeeze of passion fruit | |
| Queso fresco | Latin shops and some delis | Half mozzarella, half mild feta | Buy |
| Panela | Latin and Asian shops; online | Dark muscovado sugar | Buy |
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Shopping in person
In London, Elephant and Castle has long been the centre of Ecuadorian and wider Latin American shopping, and Latin grocers in Seven Sisters and along the Holloway Road carry many of the same products. Outside London, Latin American shops are fewer, but African, Caribbean and Asian grocers cover plantain, yuca and panela-style sugars, and Italian delis are the easiest place to find lupin beans.
The three to buy first
If you are starting out, achiote, mote and plantain will let you cook most of the dishes on this site. Achiote keeps for months, dried mote keeps for a year, and plantain is a weekly supermarket buy.
Ripeness matters with plantain
Ecuadorian cooks use plantain at every stage. Green and hard, it is fried into chifles and patacones or mashed into bolón. Yellow with black spots, it is sweeter and fried as maduro. Fully black, it is sweet enough for desserts. A green plantain bought in the UK will ripen on the counter in about a week.