Tangled Branches: Satiated
riveting tales of how we sustain ourselves
Thursday, October 18, 2007
All My Chiles
Inspired by Ki's post about his chile pepper obsession, I decided to check my kitchen to see how many chile-containing items I had on hand. I think Ki wins. He definitely wins in the hot sauce category, as I only could find two. Most of our chiles are to be found in other condiments - salsa, pickles etc. And very few of these have seen the light of day since the garden started producing peppers and tomatoes this summer. But when the last of those have been consumed we'll be back to our favorite commercial products.
Here we have, left to right, Korean chile paste, Thai chile paste with basil, Sriracha sauce (spelled Sriraja here), Indian lime relish, and Indian tomato chutney. I use the Korean chile paste as the base for a chicken wing sauce, and I've never used it for anything else. The Thai chile paste used to be the seasoning for chile-and-basil stir fries, until I concocted my own recipe this summer. Sriracha gets added to a lot of things when I want a little extra zip, but we use it most often to create a spicy ketchup (half ketchup, half Sriracha), and also mix it with mayonnaise to make a sauce for crab cakes (better than tartar sauce). Indian pickles, relishes and chutneys are all used as zesty palate-refresher side dishes, served in small portions along with the rest of the meal.
Leaving Asia, and coming to North America, we have Scala's Hot Giardiniera, Arriba's Green and Red Salsas, a couple of chile vinegars, and Frank's Hot Sauce. Scala's Hot Giardiniera is a product that, as far as I know, is unique to Chicago. I know we've searched for a suitable replacement in Virginia and not found it. There are other giardinieras, but they are not the same thing. So we buy it in northern Illinois when we're there. It's mostly sport peppers, and a few other vegetables (celery, carrot, olives), preserved in oil. We normally serve it alongside sandwiches (Italian Beef, another Chicago thing) or maybe with just bread and cheese. Arriba's Salsas are just about the only jarred ones I buy. We've tried others, but always come back to Arriba. We only wish we could get the hot version of green one, but don't know of anyone selling it locally anymore. Chile vinegars get added to dishes in the same way I use Sriracha, when I need an extra little something. I top off the bottles with rice vinegar when they get low and these bottles last a long time. This year I'm planning to make my own with the Bellingrath Gardens Purple peppers. Frank's Hot Sauce is put on chicken wings and nowhere else. I make chicken wings in three styles - Korean, Thai, and Buffalo. Frank's is for the Buffalo version.
We'd hate to be without chiles in any place we occupy, even part-time, so the country fridge also yields up a few jars. You'll notice a lot of duplication here.
I thought, well surely this can't be all the chiles in the kitchen, so I broadened the search to the spice cupboard. I realize this looks like an ad for Penzey's but believe me, all the money in this relationship flows in one direction - me to them; I'm just a satisfied customer.
We munch on chile snacks too. We usually have these chile-flavored mango slices in the pantry. The newer packages in the stores look different - not as red - which leads me to believe that we're not going to like the new version. When I saw the new ones I grabbed all the old packages I could find on the shelves, so we're well stocked for the time being. I don't have any Mama Zuma Reds at the moment. Those are very hot, almost too hot - the spouse and I usually share a snack-size bag, and that's plenty. Sometimes we mix them with the plain salted ones.
My cheap plastic containers are nowhere near as photogenic as the flashy commercial packaging, but here are several things I made with our homegrown chiles. These are in the freezer now, destined to warm up our winter nights.
Does anybody else reading this have a chile collection? I'd love to see it.
Labels: chiles
2 Comments:
You have a very nice selection of hot sauces. I'll have to look them over to see what we can add to our larder.
Ooo, I forgot about the Sriracha hot sauce. Sweet but delicious on everything Thai and Vietnamese. You've gotta try Patak's Mango Chutney. It is absolutely delicious. Practically ate half the jar in one sitting. I also forgot to add on my list some Indian hot pickles it comes in a large quart can...salty as all get out but hot too with mangoes, lotus root, ginger, chilis, some kind of green flower bud like a large caper in a mustard curry chili sauce. Great but instant salt induced high blood pressure.
Nice to see a fellow spice lover.
Ki: For some reason, I've not tried Patak's Mango Chutney. I'll put it on the shopping list.
If you can find the name of the Indian pickle in the quart can, I'd be interested in trying that too. Our local Indian store carries more kinds of pickles than I've ever seen in one place before. My spouse is partial to Bedekar's. I like Patak's.
Try mixing the Sriracha with ketchup. We got in the habit of mixing ketchup and Cholula sauce to put on French fries at one of our old hangouts, then started doing the ketchup-Sriracha thing at home on various things, including samosas.
We like hot stuff ;-)
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