Hard to find ingredients? Substitute!

Although ethnic foods are now becoming more and more common in supermarket shelves all over the Western (and that's including Australia and New Zealand which are sort of Western) world, there are still some ingredients that we sometimes could not find anywhere except in a special store in New York City God knows where. Don't despair, here is a list of substitutions that some of you might find useful. This was from a post by Luis Ramos back in 1991 (Feb. 25 Monday 16:41:57 to be exact) from a cookbook entitled Filipino Cooking Here and Abroad by Eleanor Laquian and Irene Sobrevinas.

Ingredient	Substitute
Achuete, atsuete, 1 tbsp	1/8 tsp. red food coloring
or (used in pancit molo)	2 tsp paprika
Bulaklak ng saging	dried lily blossoms available at most Chinese stores
Chorizo de Bilbao	Pepperoni, garlic sausage or oxford sausage
Gabi	Yam
Kalamansi	Lime or Lemon
Kamias	Lemon juice or rhubarb
Kangkong	Watercress or spinach
Labanos	Red or white radish
Misua	Very fine noodles (vermicelli)
Singkamas	Turnips
Talbos ng Ampalaya	Watercress or spinach
Talbos ng sili	Spinach

Shop for ingredients: