Tag: Cordelia’s Market

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

The Scoop on Las Delicias’ Tasty Tortilla Chips

Marco Martinez (Photo: Michael Donahue)

Marco Martinez is in the chips. Literally.

Martinez, 39, owner of Las Delicias, is the guy who came up with the restaurant’s famous tortilla chips, which are now in 60 Mid-South locations.

Las Delicias recently expanded its chips-and-dips footprint at Cordelia’s Market. Beginning this week, they will be cooking in the store’s kitchen and adding items to its grab-and-go cooler.

Las Delicias chips are already in 17 Kroger stores in the Memphis area and three in Mississippi. In 2013, a local Kroger store manager approached Martinez at the Memphis Farmers Market, he says. The manager said, “Hey, you think you have enough to sell to Kroger?” The chips at that first Kroger “did great.”

Martinez was a prep cook at Las Delicias before he came up with the chips in 2009. “We used to buy tortillas from a local place that made tortillas for us. We’d go pick them up hot and ready for us to use at the restaurant. Then one day the guy decided he didn’t want to make the particular size we needed anymore.”

That was 30 minutes before the restaurant opened, so Martinez’s dad had to buy tortillas at the grocery store. Then he said, “You know what? We’re going to make our own tortillas.” Martinez says, “He bought a little machine and we started making our own tortillas.”

They hired a customer who knew how to run a tortilla machine. His dad guaranteed the woman 40 hours’ work, but, Martinez, who learned how to use the machine, says, “She’d sit there for seven hours because we were done in an hour.”

So, they began selling hot tortillas to different restaurants. “I would take back whatever they didn’t sell and give it to the landlord for their horses to eat. We had so much, we were just throwing it away.”

Then Martinez thought, “You know what? I’m going to start cutting them up, frying them, and see how these chips compare to other tortilla chips.

“We started with a small batch and [kept] burning them. We kept on and on until we got them right and started making a few bags here and there. I started taking them to a place where I delivered tortillas.”

They were a hit. “I started having so many customers and so many orders, we had to run the machine all day long.”

Martinez’s focus is now the chips and dips. “Guacamole and pico de gallo dips. We started with those right around the time I started with the chips. I was like, ‘I need something to sell with the chips at the farmers market.’”

Moisture is the main difference between their tortilla chips and other corn chips. “Tortilla chips have a lot of humidity. When you are making the tortillas, you put in a certain amount of water. One part water, one part masa or flour. Other chips taste different from ours. They make them very dry. My tortillas take four minutes to fry. The other ones take 20 to 30 seconds.”

That changes the taste, he says. “When you put the chips in the frying pan, it kind of makes them blister. When they do that, they look very thick.”

As a result, Las Delicias tortilla chips “kind of melt in your mouth like a corn-flake. Another difference is you can actually see the salt grains on our chips as opposed to the competition. We just sprinkle a little salt on top of them.”

The only salt on Las Delicias chips is “whatever sticks to them after they’ve been fried and dried. We try to get as much of our oil off them.”

Other chip makers sometimes “use super finely powdered salt. And they spray it along with oil so it sticks with the chips. So, they are a lot saltier than ours.”

Las Delicias no longer makes hot tortillas for other restaurants. Martinez needed the machines to make the chips. “We sell between 10,000 and 13,000 bags in a month.”

Las Delicias is at 4002 Park Avenue and at 5689 Quince Road. Cordelia’s Market is at 737 Harbor Bend Road in Harbor Town.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Nothing’s Half-Baked at Ranequa Bean’s 350 Baked

Ranequa Bean (Photo: Ravyn Towns)

Growing up, Ranequa Bean didn’t eat her vegetables. But she did eat her sweets.

So it’s no surprise she is now the owner of 350 Baked, which features her homemade cakes, cookies, brownies, and cobblers. Her goods are available online and in four locations, including High Point Grocery and Cordelia’s Market.

But getting back to those childhood eating habits. “I was definitely a picky eater,” says Bean. “Any type of vegetable you put in front of me, I wouldn’t eat. Only meat and cheese. I didn’t like ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise. I didn’t start eating a lot of things until I went to culinary school.”

Her mother was a good cook, but Bean’s “love for cooking” came from her aunt, Shapell Gates, who was a “Southern cooker.”

Bean’s first baking effort was a cake she made for her stepfather when she was in high school. “It was embarrassing. It was so bad … awful.

“The lines ‘Happy Birthday’ started at the top left of the cake and ended at the bottom right of the cake. I had some little flowers on it. He was so happy. He said, ‘This is the best cake ever.’”

The cake might have looked bad, but Bean says, “The taste was definitely there.”

A dog lover, Bean originally wanted to be a veterinarian. “I did animal science for two years. But it was in an animal physiology class where we had to artificially inseminate cows when I said, ‘No, mom. I can’t do this.’ I’d smell like cow poop all day.” She had a revelation: “I like dogs. I don’t like cows.”

It was “love at first sight” when Bean discovered the culinary arts program at The Art Institute of Tennessee-Nashville. She earned her associate’s degree in baking and pastry, but her bachelor’s degree in culinary management made the biggest impression. “They taught me how to open a business.”

She also learned to love vegetables after she tried grilled asparagus for the first time in culinary school. “It was something about the taste from the grill … the oil and salt. The grilled flavor brings the vegetables alive.”

Bean worked at several businesses, including the Radisson Hotel Nashville Airport, where she was sous-chef. Her first food-related job in Memphis was sous-chef at Baptist Memorial Hospital.

In her spare time, she sold pre-ordered slices of her caramel, strawberry lemonade, banana pudding, and other cakes at Sprouts Farmers Market and Whole Foods Market.

Bean chose the name 350 Baked because 350 degrees is the temperature of the ovens her desserts are baked in.

Last February, Bean quit her job as culinary director at Remington College – Memphis Campus. “350 Baked was getting a lot of recognition. I was getting more money from it than Remington.”

Also, she says, “I had reached my breaking point of working for anybody other than myself.”

More people were seeing photos of her cakes on Facebook and Instagram. “My goal in 350 Baked is to be a household brand.”

She also had another goal. “My goal was to be in three locations by the end of this year. I did it in three weeks. And I told my husband, ‘God is so real.’”

Bean now offers a regular list of cakes, cookies, and cobblers, as well as rotating specials. Her cakes and other baked goods are available on her website, 350baked.online, or via her Facebook and Instagram. She also sets up at the Downtown Memphis Farmers Market.

“Moistness” is what makes her cakes different from other people’s, Bean says. She credits culinary school for teaching her how to get the right texture and flavor profiles. She also has “secret ingredients,” which set her cakes apart. Her slogan is: “Without us, it’s just cake.”

Bean doesn’t want a brick-and-mortar location. “My business plan is to get a big ice cream truck, but with cakes.” She wants her truck to make “the sound like the ice cream truck makes,” but be more unique.

So, when people hear it, they’ll say, “There’s 350 Baked.”

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Clay’s Smoked Tuna Salad is Smokin’

Abrian Clay, owner of Clay’s Smoked Tuna, never thought he’d end up in the fish business. Or be selling his tuna salad in restaurants and stores, and from a food truck.

“It started when I was in Orange Beach, Alabama, on a vacation and I went to this restaurant on the beach,” says Clay, 36. “I wanted to try something different, and I tried the smoked tuna salad. And it was so good. I asked the waiter, ‘What’s going on with the tuna salad, man? What’s up?’ He said, ‘This guy out here has a tuna farm and he wholesales it to us.'”

Clay thought about it. “No one in Memphis is doing this. No one is wholesaling it. I can do the same thing.”

He went home and made his first batch. “It was delicious. I gave out free samples and never looked back.

“I marinated it in white wine and I smoked it,” Clay says. “I chopped up my ingredients to make the salad [with] the mayo and everything. It was an instant hit.”

Abrian Clay

That was five years ago. He used his Facebook business page to get the word out, and he began delivering the eight-ounce packaged tuna salad to the Mid-South.

His first vendor was the Curb Market in Crosstown Concourse. “I think in four hours we sold $600 worth of tuna.” Then, “Stores started reaching out to me,” he says.

Clay uses yellowfin, also known as “ahi” tuna. “We use fresh tuna made from tuna steaks. Not your canned stuff at all.”

He originally was “going to the Gulf in Louisiana to get the fresh tuna.” Now, he says, “It comes from the Gulf, but I have someone who drops it off.”

Clay, who initially thought about strictly doing wholesale, moved to a commercial kitchen with a drive-through pick-up window. People could pick up individual orders of tuna salad as well as his smoked chicken dip. “We expanded our menu to hot foods as well,” Clay says.

He began selling smoked wing plates, catfish plates, salmon plates, lamb chops, and T-bones. “Everything is smoked on a rotisserie smoker with pecan wood.”

The tuna salad takes nine hours to prepare. “We marinate our tuna steaks in white wine, and we put it on a rotisserie smoker at a certain temperature and let it smoke five hours. It’s a strenuous process.”

After two and a half years at the commercial kitchen, Clay transitioned to his food truck, where he continued selling his salad, dip, and hot plates.

His truck is at East Parkway and Summer. “That’s a busy intersection,” he says. “A lot of people are getting off Sam Cooper and going to and from the zoo.”

Growing up in North Memphis, Clay helped his dad cook before he took on the job of cooking breakfast for his parents on weekends. “I would always experiment. Like I would give them eggs, toast, and orange juice, but I would add nutmeg and parsley to the eggs.”

His parents suffered through those experimental breakfasts, but Clay says, “They boosted my confidence and acted like they enjoyed it.”

He got his bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in business administration, but he was interested in making and selling a product.

Clay still is surprised at his career path. “I had an epiphany with myself when I started,” he says. “I noticed all day I was going to people’s houses, delivering them containers of tuna salad. I was like, ‘This is going to be my history? This is what I’m going to tell my children I was doing at that age? Driving to people’s houses and bringing them tuna salad?'”

Clay’s food truck is open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. He also delivers. His smoked tuna salad is in stores, including Cordelia’s Market and DeeO’s Seafood.

For more information or to order, call (901) 848-5640 or go to clayssmokedtuna.com.
To see a video of a Clay’s Smoked Tuna, watch it below:

Clay’s Smoked Tuna Salad is Smokin’

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Cordelia’s Market Opens Hot Bar, Offering Made-from-Scratch Meals Daily

CREDIT: Cordelia's Market

Cordelia’s Market

Cordelia’s Market, a community grocery in Harbor Town, introduced a brand-new hot bar on February 18th. It’s a welcomed extension to the market and grocery that will allow them to serve more fresh, hot meals on a daily basis.

Every week will include a Taco Tuesday, but otherwise they plan to rotate the menu each day to serve a variety of foods.

“If our customers ask for more of a consistent menu, then we will explore doing more themed days in the future,” says Erica Humphreys, the general manager.

“We plan to launch with lunch from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. and dinner from 5 until 7 p.m. daily. Brunch will be the next step on the horizon, and then breakfast,” she says.

Food on the hot bar will be served fresh and made from scratch, providing a quick and convenient new option for customers.

“Cordelia’s Market has always been committed to providing customers with a quality and convenient experience,” says Humphreys.

Cordelia’s Market –– formerly Miss Cordelia’s Grocery –– has been serving the Harbor Town neighborhood for more than 20 years. They offer a selection of organic produce, snacks, sandwiches, and beer and wine.

Cordelia’s Market is located at 737 Harbor Bend.