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Hey guys, this is Ander speaking, producer of Potluck Food Talks.

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And before we start the show, we wanted to dedicate this episode to Peter Eichstetter,

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the king of chili and hot sauce.

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All right, enjoy the show.

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Hi everyone, welcome to Potluck Food Talks.

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Today we're going to talk about odd stuff.

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Are we talking about me or are we talking about what are we talking about?

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Chili man, picante, you know, this kind of food.

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What are your thoughts on picante?

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I'm terrible with spicy things, as in like, I'm not terrible in the fact that I can't eat it.

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I'm like, I have the urge to put chili on everything I eat, which is okay.

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But in some cases, you know, not okay at all.

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I feel like sometimes you need to leave things as they are,

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but like I love spicy food in general.

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Yeah, for instance, when I take people out to eat here in San Sebastian,

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it's quite common because it is common everywhere else to ask for some hot sauce.

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You don't want to put hot sauce on your cocochas and salsa verde, you know, like there are some things

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you want to leave them as they are.

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They mock you, you know, they put a stamp in your passport, you can never return.

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Exactly.

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What about you?

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You like hot stuff too, no?

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You're like a hot sauce guy.

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I'm a super hot sauce crazy person.

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Like I grew up in a house where my dad had like 20 different plants of capsicum

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and he would like do their own cross pollinations of their own chilies.

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And we had like a fridge at home, which was a fridge with food for everybody.

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And there was a second fridge just with hot sauces for my dad.

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That's amazing.

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That sounds awesome.

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But there is a point where my body doesn't tolerate it.

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Like, well, I do tolerate it.

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It's not that it's too spicy for me.

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I just get hiccups and I see it coming.

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I said, oh, I'm going to get hiccups.

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And then three seconds later it's like, just like that.

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I think it's really nice that your body has like a naturally built-in airbag, you know,

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against hurting yourself too much with chili because I don't have that.

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And, you know, especially when you start eating really spicy,

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these get a little bit high, you know, you get a little bit like, you know,

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get a little bit of a blood rush going.

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And then sometimes I feel like I can't stop, you know.

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Something that I feel that is crazy is that this is something relatively new.

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This comes from since the discovery of America,

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because there wasn't any chili in Asia, Africa, or Europe before that,

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which is quite crazy because there is a lot of chili in Africa and in Asia eaten for sure.

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That's crazy, you know, because if you think like, you know, I mean, for me,

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if I think about like spicy food, one of the main cultures that I think of is Thailand,

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you know, Thai food without chili is unthinkable.

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And it has some of the spiciest food, you know, that I've ever encountered,

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you know, some of the most delicious food also.

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But if you think, you know, if you're trying to imagine Thai food without chili,

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it's like, it's really, really hard.

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A cool experience that I had in Bolivia and the Altiplanos, you know, this region,

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that it's a very ancient region.

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It used to be sea actually, like millions of years ago.

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So the biodiversity you find there is, it's quite uncommon.

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And from that region comes the oldest known type of pepper.

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And it's just like a tiny ball, completely round.

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And it's a chili.

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If you cut it, you perfectly identify that it's a pepper.

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It's a chili.

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The seeds are exactly the same, but it's perfectly round, super small,

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and it's super aromatic.

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It's delicious.

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It's called Ulupika.

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And it's crazy to think that this is the grand grandfather of all the peppers

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and chilies around the world, you know, and that there are so many variations.

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And as you say, Asia, imagine Korea without kimchi, you know,

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or these cultures like Italy without pepperoni or Spain without pimiento.

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Absolutely, you know, like Szechuan cuisine, all those sorts of things.

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This is completely like, completely different thing.

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I think it's really interesting.

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I think like what a lot of people don't think of is, like you say, the aroma of chili,

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because when, you know, when we think of chili or we think of a spice,

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I think people really neglect the aromatic qualities that chili has, you know.

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For me, for example, I was really blown away when I first moved to London

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and I was living in a very sort of Caribbean neighborhood.

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There was a lot of Scotch bonnet chilies at the markets.

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And that's a chili that's notorious and very, very spicy,

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but it has a super, super beautiful aroma.

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It's very similar to habanero chili.

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And I found it so delicious, you know.

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But obviously you have to tolerate the spice to be able to taste the flavor also.

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But I completely fell in love with those types of chilies.

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There was one thing that Lars Williams did, you know, the owner of Empirical Spirits,

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who was one of the main Noma guys for a long time, to assume, of course, no.

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I heard that at one point he made a distillate from habanero chilies,

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where he somehow eliminated all the spicy elements and just distilled the pure flavor.

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I tried that. I had a cocktail made out of that.

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While in New York, there is this place called Atlas,

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which is related to Enrique Olvera, is one of his restaurants in New York.

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Yeah.

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And Jana Wolfson is the director of drinks.

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She's a super talented mixologist.

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And there was this cocktail called, no, I think the cocktail was called Invisible Lines.

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And the distillate, you're saying it's called Fuck Trump and his fucking stupid wall.

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Yeah, exactly.

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Was it habanero or jalapeno? Maybe I'm talking about a different one.

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He did one, like initially, where he just distilled the pure,

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like I don't know whether he distilled it or what the process was,

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but he like basically made an essence without the spiciness.

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But then he did, yeah, he did a spirit in his company, Empirical, also.

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And I think that's so interesting because, you know,

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you just concentrate on the flavor of the product.

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I actually always thought about how to do that.

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I remember when I was in culinary school, I wrote to some food scientists asking about

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how could I exactly the same idea, taking the aroma out of habanero without the spiciness,

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because I also think that habanero is one of the chilies with the nicest aroma.

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I mean, I love habanero sauces.

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For sure.

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Yeah.

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I had this experience like this was actually like a year and a half ago.

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You know, I live on top of this gourmet shop here in San Sebastian.

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So I was going there and then I see they were saying habaneros for five years, the kilogram.

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And I was like, okay, this has to be a mistake.

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I'm taking everything.

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I took everything they had and the next day I took again everything they had.

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So at some point I had like three kilos of habaneros at home and I was like,

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okay, what do I do with this?

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So I cleaned them all, even using gloves and everything.

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My hands were like itching for a week.

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And then I use like this standard procedure for fermentations, which is 2% of salt.

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So I just added 2% of salt to one batch and some common sense aromatics, you know,

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like some bay leaf or garlic, black pepper, you know, like this kind of stuff.

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That one I left for a few months and then I did another one.

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I raised up the salt level and I added anchovy paste.

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Man, that's the best.

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It's the best sauce I've ever made.

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I always give it like small batches as presents to friends.

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And they always say like, man, this is so good.

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And that one I left like for one year aging with the anchovies and everything at room temperature.

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It's like a habanero garum.

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It's amazing.

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Also another thing that I see a lot is people taking a lot of time taking out the seeds

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and everything because I understand that the seeds add some bitterness.

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But for instance, in this case, in both, I blitz everything with seeds and then the

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beans and the white parts inside everything because that adds spiciness to the sauce.

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And that bitterness once it's aged, like, I mean, it's perfectly tolerable.

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And you save a lot of work and you also save a lot of food waste, you know?

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Yeah, for sure.

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And for sure.

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And you save your fingers also because peeling out those seeds, you know, like you said,

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it's like a super dangerous.

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I remember when I spent some time cooking like very traditional northern Thai food.

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And there it was sort of like it was the number one warning was kind of like,

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man, hey, make sure that when you handle the chilies, because the chili that is like

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predominant in Thai food are the bird's eye, the scuds.

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Yeah.

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Bird's eye chilies.

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And they call them scuds.

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I had that at home.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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That's a nasty one.

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They get fierce.

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They're burning hot, you know?

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And especially when you do a lot of mortar and pestle work, you know, especially when

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you're doing like sometimes salads, papaya salads and those sorts of things.

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But like even when you're making like Namjib dressings, Namjib, they're sort of like citrus

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fruit dressings, you know, garlic, chili pounded up with salt and then your abs, lime juice,

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and like a little bit of sugar and you kind of mix it.

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It's like, or mandarin juice or whatever.

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Super nice.

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But you know, you're mortar and pestling away.

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And more often than not, you just get this like little sort of sniper shots that kind

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of like goes right into your eye and you're out for the next two days.

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You can forget the eyes.

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How 50% of your eyesight is gone, you know, like.

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Man, I've seen it all.

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My dad making sauce at home all the time.

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I mean, someday we were doing like hot chocolate and the blender was completely

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contaminated with capsicum and everything was super spicy, you know, that kind of stuff

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happened all the time.

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There was this, that's also a nasty story.

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This friend of my father who was like his mentor and eating chili.

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And this guy would put to his daughters on the toothbrush a little bit of chili, you know,

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to get his daughters used to the spiciness.

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Yo.

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And he would hold him.

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They would read, you know, already grown up woman reminded me of doing that, you know, like.

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That's some real psychopath shit.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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I'm sorry.

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I'm sorry.

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I kind of respect it, but also it's kind of too troubling.

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But it is wrong, but it's funny, you know, like.

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One of the most classic sauces in Venezuela, they call it picante de suero.

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Suero is not what we understand in Europe as suero.

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It's basically kind of like a sour cream.

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It's like a fermented fatty milk until it gets like really creamy.

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Yeah.

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And just adding some chili to that.

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And usually oregano and that's it.

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It's also quite common to preserve it in taparas, which are like this natural wooden bottles

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that indigenous people make like from ancestral times.

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And they call it, yeah, picante de tapara, which is the receptacle where it's inside.

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That's a super nice one.

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Then there's another one.

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You find this more in the Amazonas, which is made with ants,

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which is called either catara or picante de bachaco.

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And I actually thought for a long time that the ants had a spiciness

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that was an alternative spiciness to capsicum because that's another thing.

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This is the only thing that is spicy in the world because you have wasabi,

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which is something completely different.

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Yeah.

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Pepper, like black pepper, which is also something different.

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But this kind of spiciness, it's only in chilies.

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And that for me, it's also super interesting.

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Absolutely.

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So I thought that these ants were also spicy, but not.

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Then I found out that they add chili to the ant sauce, and that's what makes it spicy.

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And these are traditional Venezuelan sauces.

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My father, like his signature sauce, and this is what he did,

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which was more civilized to teach children how to eat hot sauces.

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This was kind of like, have you ever cooked passion fruit when you cook the shells?

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No.

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You can make like marmalade, like a compote out of the shells.

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This has like a lot of texture.

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And this is a traditional dessert done in Venezuela,

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because also the passion fruits used in Venezuela are completely different

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than the ones you find here in Europe.

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These ones are like 10-inch bowl size and shape.

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So on the whole flesh of the shells, you cook them in the passion fruit juice.

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Then you peel the outer layer.

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You don't want that.

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You only want the white side.

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And then you get like this compote, this sticky compote.

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And he would do like a super light chili sauce with that,

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which was like a sweet spicy marmalade.

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It sounds delicious.

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Yeah.

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That sounds really good.

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It's super nice, man.

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Super nice.

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Yeah.

237
00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:43,440
Chili and passion fruit, it works really, really well.

238
00:12:43,440 --> 00:12:47,760
Last year I was doing a hot sauce with yuzu juice and like mandarin,

239
00:12:47,760 --> 00:12:51,680
but also with passion fruit with yellow habaneros.

240
00:12:51,680 --> 00:12:54,880
And just like you say, like just like a little bit of salt,

241
00:12:54,880 --> 00:12:57,040
a little bit of garlic, and then the citrus juice,

242
00:12:57,040 --> 00:12:58,800
and then just need it to ferment for a little bit.

243
00:12:58,800 --> 00:13:01,920
And then kind of I pasteurized it and then chilled it.

244
00:13:02,640 --> 00:13:04,320
And it was so good, you know?

245
00:13:04,320 --> 00:13:04,880
Nice.

246
00:13:04,880 --> 00:13:06,800
Because you have the fruitiness of the chili,

247
00:13:06,800 --> 00:13:10,320
but then you have like the really freshness of like the yuzu with the mandarin.

248
00:13:10,320 --> 00:13:11,920
Like it was super, super nice.

249
00:13:11,920 --> 00:13:14,400
Like one other thing that like really blew me away

250
00:13:14,960 --> 00:13:20,960
was when I first went to Mexico and like I discovered the whole world of chilies

251
00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:23,120
that make up the Mexican food culture, you know?

252
00:13:23,120 --> 00:13:24,000
That's crazy.

253
00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:24,320
Yeah.

254
00:13:24,320 --> 00:13:26,960
That was mind blowing to me because again, you know,

255
00:13:26,960 --> 00:13:30,640
it's not sort of like, oh, you know, spicy, but like the different capsicums,

256
00:13:30,640 --> 00:13:34,000
they have certain uses when they're fresh and then they're dried and then they're smoked,

257
00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:37,440
you know, some are smoky, some are really sweet, you know?

258
00:13:37,440 --> 00:13:39,040
Some are really chocolatey.

259
00:13:39,040 --> 00:13:42,080
And when the first time you go to a Mexican food market

260
00:13:42,080 --> 00:13:48,160
and have these huge bags of chilies that are like piled up in baskets, you know?

261
00:13:48,160 --> 00:13:50,320
It's like for me, like as a European chef,

262
00:13:50,320 --> 00:13:51,920
it felt like being on a different planet

263
00:13:51,920 --> 00:13:55,520
and seeing ingredients that I've never seen for the first time in my life.

264
00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:59,440
Yeah, that's awesome, man. I also remember, no, I definitely need to do that.

265
00:13:59,440 --> 00:14:03,840
I've never been in Mexico and it's something that I really need to do.

266
00:14:03,840 --> 00:14:08,160
And also, yeah, get into the whole chili culture over there

267
00:14:08,160 --> 00:14:10,880
because you have like this complex sauces like mole,

268
00:14:10,880 --> 00:14:14,400
then you have like this pickled jalapenos, which are amazing.

269
00:14:14,400 --> 00:14:18,880
And of course there has to be hundreds of things that I have no idea about, you know?

270
00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:19,680
Yeah, for sure.

271
00:14:19,680 --> 00:14:22,160
I mean, you know, like we all know chipotle chilies, you know,

272
00:14:22,160 --> 00:14:26,480
they have this smokiness, the depth, you know, and you have ancho chilies,

273
00:14:26,480 --> 00:14:30,880
you know, which are really, they're almost like kind of pasty, like very sweet,

274
00:14:30,880 --> 00:14:34,560
but kind of like, yeah, it's very difficult to describe, you know?

275
00:14:35,600 --> 00:14:38,240
Chile de arbol, you know, like there's so many.

276
00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:43,840
And there's such basic ingredients for like the traditional Mexican food culture, you know?

277
00:14:43,840 --> 00:14:45,440
Obviously, like Mexico is a big place

278
00:14:45,440 --> 00:14:47,760
and the cooking is very different from north to south, you know?

279
00:14:47,760 --> 00:14:49,840
I mean, north is kind of like coast to desert

280
00:14:49,840 --> 00:14:51,920
and the south is basically jungle, you know?

281
00:14:51,920 --> 00:14:53,920
And then all the mountainous regions and stuff, you know?

282
00:14:53,920 --> 00:14:56,640
I mean, Mexico is very diverse, I don't want to generalize it,

283
00:14:56,640 --> 00:14:58,960
but yeah, it's so beautiful, you know?

284
00:14:58,960 --> 00:15:00,880
And it's like, I can't think of any other country

285
00:15:00,880 --> 00:15:04,160
that has such a diverse use of chilies really than Mexico.

286
00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:10,000
Yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe in South America, maybe Peru, perhaps not,

287
00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:15,120
but I think maybe in Asia, but yeah, Mexico is its own thing with chili.

288
00:15:15,120 --> 00:15:18,000
And this goes back to Aztec times, yeah.

289
00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:19,200
For sure, yeah.

290
00:15:19,200 --> 00:15:22,720
Yeah, another one, another good one is in the Bolivian Amazonas.

291
00:15:22,720 --> 00:15:27,200
They have this chili that it's called gusanito, which means little worm.

292
00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:29,840
It's a green one with like a funny shape,

293
00:15:29,840 --> 00:15:36,240
like if a worm is trying to walk, you know, like this waved shape of the worm.

294
00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:40,080
And anywhere in the Bolivian Amazonas, in any eatery,

295
00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:42,080
you will find a bottle filled with that.

296
00:15:42,080 --> 00:15:43,920
And I think it's just fermented.

297
00:15:43,920 --> 00:15:45,760
Man, that's so delicious.

298
00:15:45,760 --> 00:15:48,800
Last time my friend Kenzo came to visit, he brought me some.

299
00:15:48,800 --> 00:15:52,320
That's something I really crave about the Bolivian gastronomy.

300
00:15:52,320 --> 00:15:53,280
Super nice.

301
00:15:53,280 --> 00:15:57,200
Another very different one is the rocoto in Peru, you know that one?

302
00:15:57,200 --> 00:15:58,000
Oh yeah, of course.

303
00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:01,760
Yeah, that's the only one I know that has black seeds,

304
00:16:01,760 --> 00:16:03,200
which is completely uncommon.

305
00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:06,400
I don't know any other chili with black seeds.

306
00:16:06,400 --> 00:16:07,040
Yeah, that's true.

307
00:16:07,040 --> 00:16:08,080
Yeah, I can't think of any.

308
00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:11,120
Yeah, but I mean, Peru has such a cool chili culture also, you know,

309
00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:15,200
aciabarillo, aci, mirasor, super, super nice, you know.

310
00:16:15,200 --> 00:16:18,960
And like, again, you're so ingrained in the culture there.

311
00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:22,400
I mean, Peru is kind of like the birthplace of a lot of stuff, it feels like.

312
00:16:22,400 --> 00:16:25,760
You know, like, for example, this is one Peruvian dish that I really, really like.

313
00:16:25,760 --> 00:16:26,960
It's called aji de gallina.

314
00:16:27,840 --> 00:16:30,080
And it's basically a chicken stew.

315
00:16:30,080 --> 00:16:32,560
But aji is like the word that they use for chili, you know,

316
00:16:32,560 --> 00:16:36,480
but it's kind of like aji de gallina means like this chicken stew with chile amarillo,

317
00:16:36,480 --> 00:16:37,120
I think it is.

318
00:16:37,120 --> 00:16:38,080
Yeah, yeah.

319
00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:39,120
Aji amarillo.

320
00:16:39,120 --> 00:16:40,240
And it's super nice.

321
00:16:40,240 --> 00:16:41,920
It's also a very unusual dish, you know,

322
00:16:41,920 --> 00:16:44,240
because it's kind of got cheese in it and stuff.

323
00:16:44,240 --> 00:16:46,400
And it's super, super delicious.

324
00:16:46,400 --> 00:16:50,720
Yeah, there are like some variations of that in Venezuela with different names.

325
00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:55,600
For instance, there is this super common seafood soup in Peru called chupé.

326
00:16:56,240 --> 00:16:58,240
And Venezuela will have a chicken chupé.

327
00:16:58,240 --> 00:17:00,480
And that's something from Caracas.

328
00:17:00,480 --> 00:17:02,880
I don't know how the story is, why they have the same name

329
00:17:02,880 --> 00:17:04,720
and they share some ingredients.

330
00:17:04,720 --> 00:17:08,000
It's also like a creamy stew with cheese.

331
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:11,920
Yeah, like no idea what the relationship is between those two.

332
00:17:11,920 --> 00:17:16,480
Yeah, and also talking about like chilies, Venezuela has a chili,

333
00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:19,920
it's called aji dulce, which is not spicy at all.

334
00:17:21,280 --> 00:17:26,480
Pretty much like you could say it's like a baby pepper, but no, it's a chili.

335
00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:28,160
It looks like a habanero.

336
00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:32,240
It's super aromatic and it's one of the staple ingredients of Venezuelan cuisine.

337
00:17:32,240 --> 00:17:36,240
That's actually what makes Venezuelan cuisine so difficult to cook abroad,

338
00:17:36,240 --> 00:17:39,680
because this is a very hard to find ingredient.

339
00:17:39,680 --> 00:17:42,720
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, no, like with a lot of these,

340
00:17:42,720 --> 00:17:47,200
especially Latin American cultures, it's kind of like those ingredients,

341
00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:50,960
there's such a strong food tradition that if you don't have those ingredients,

342
00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:53,520
it's like it's impossible to replicate, really.

343
00:17:53,520 --> 00:17:55,200
And what about commercial sauces?

344
00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:56,480
Do you have any favorites?

345
00:17:56,480 --> 00:17:57,760
I mean, I have a...

346
00:17:58,640 --> 00:18:00,240
This is a difficult topic, you know, Erik.

347
00:18:01,760 --> 00:18:07,120
It's because, you know, like I mean, I have a soft spot for Tabasco, of course.

348
00:18:07,120 --> 00:18:09,520
If you speak about hot sauce, you have to talk about Tabasco.

349
00:18:09,520 --> 00:18:11,200
Tabasco is not great.

350
00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:14,880
It's like mainly vinegar, but I do like it.

351
00:18:14,880 --> 00:18:17,040
But have you seen how it's done?

352
00:18:17,040 --> 00:18:17,840
Have you seen...

353
00:18:17,840 --> 00:18:22,560
There are some videos in YouTube where like this series called How is Made?

354
00:18:22,560 --> 00:18:23,760
No, I haven't seen it actually.

355
00:18:23,760 --> 00:18:25,600
Man, Tabasco is a super nice sauce.

356
00:18:25,600 --> 00:18:30,240
It's only chili, just lacto-fermented, and then some vinegar is added.

357
00:18:30,240 --> 00:18:32,320
So that's a perfectly legitimate sauce.

358
00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:33,920
I'm not saying it's not legitimate.

359
00:18:33,920 --> 00:18:35,440
I'm just saying like it's not the best.

360
00:18:35,440 --> 00:18:37,840
No, of course, of course, it's not the most aromatic.

361
00:18:37,840 --> 00:18:39,360
It's basically spicy vinegar.

362
00:18:39,360 --> 00:18:41,040
Yeah, I know they also have like...

363
00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:45,520
They have this problem that they registered the trademark for Tabasco,

364
00:18:45,520 --> 00:18:47,280
which is a region in Mexico.

365
00:18:47,280 --> 00:18:47,680
Yeah.

366
00:18:47,680 --> 00:18:48,640
But they did it before.

367
00:18:48,640 --> 00:18:51,200
They were like copyrights or this kind of thing.

368
00:18:51,200 --> 00:18:54,240
So they're able to keep the name, but that's like a big exception.

369
00:18:54,240 --> 00:18:55,200
You can't do that.

370
00:18:55,200 --> 00:19:00,800
You can't like, you know, register like a city or a region for your sauce.

371
00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:01,680
Of course, yeah.

372
00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:04,960
I have also, I have a soft spot for Valentina, you know.

373
00:19:04,960 --> 00:19:06,000
That's a nasty one.

374
00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:08,640
Okay, I respect Tabasco, but Valentina, come on.

375
00:19:08,640 --> 00:19:09,280
Come on, man.

376
00:19:09,280 --> 00:19:10,560
Valentina has its spot.

377
00:19:10,560 --> 00:19:14,240
I mean, like from eating at like seafood restaurants in Mexico, you know,

378
00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:15,360
like you have to have Valentina.

379
00:19:15,360 --> 00:19:16,480
It has its spot.

380
00:19:16,480 --> 00:19:17,360
It does, it does.

381
00:19:17,360 --> 00:19:22,640
But for me, Mexican commercial sauces, my favorite one is El Yucateco.

382
00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:23,360
Oh, yeah.

383
00:19:23,360 --> 00:19:24,480
And they have like...

384
00:19:24,480 --> 00:19:25,920
They have Habanero, right?

385
00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:29,760
Yeah, it's only Habanero, all from Yucatan Peninsula.

386
00:19:29,760 --> 00:19:33,600
And it's like, I don't know, they have like five or six different flavors

387
00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:35,360
and they're all super nice.

388
00:19:35,360 --> 00:19:35,760
Yeah.

389
00:19:35,760 --> 00:19:37,600
My favorite one is the dark brown one.

390
00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:42,320
They also have like a completely black one, which is kind of small.

391
00:19:42,320 --> 00:19:45,760
And then they have many different, like of other kinds,

392
00:19:45,760 --> 00:19:47,600
but those ones are for me, it's the best.

393
00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:47,840
Yeah.

394
00:19:47,840 --> 00:19:52,480
And the other one commercial that I really like is one called Cholula, also Mexican.

395
00:19:52,480 --> 00:19:54,320
I think I've tried that one before.

396
00:19:54,320 --> 00:19:56,480
Yeah, I mean, the Yucatan one is really nice.

397
00:19:56,480 --> 00:19:58,800
It's also one of my favorites, but like the Cholula,

398
00:19:58,800 --> 00:20:01,200
I've seen it for sure, but I don't think I've tried it.

399
00:20:01,200 --> 00:20:04,080
Then we have Siracha, of course.

400
00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:07,760
Yeah, you know, I think Siracha is overrated, man.

401
00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:09,440
I think it's overrated.

402
00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:17,360
I mean, it has its place, like Valentina, come on.

403
00:20:17,360 --> 00:20:17,920
You know, like...

404
00:20:18,560 --> 00:20:19,040
I don't know.

405
00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:21,600
I mean, it's sort of like, you know, if I don't have anything

406
00:20:21,600 --> 00:20:23,360
and there's a Siracha in the fridge, you know,

407
00:20:23,360 --> 00:20:24,720
am I going to put it on a chicken?

408
00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:25,440
Yes, I will.

409
00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:28,240
But, you know, like if I stand in the supermarket,

410
00:20:28,240 --> 00:20:30,400
am I going to pick it over like a different one?

411
00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:30,960
Lots of...

412
00:20:30,960 --> 00:20:33,440
I recently bought a Siracha Mayonnaise

413
00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:35,680
and this kind of like side products they make,

414
00:20:35,680 --> 00:20:36,640
I think they're really nice.

415
00:20:37,520 --> 00:20:40,080
Also the story, this was a guy that was like,

416
00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:42,720
I don't know, for 20 years in jail planning,

417
00:20:42,720 --> 00:20:46,080
making a business plan about what to do when he gets out.

418
00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:47,360
And he made Siracha, man,

419
00:20:47,360 --> 00:20:49,360
which is also like a super cool story.

420
00:20:49,360 --> 00:20:50,240
That is very cool.

421
00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:52,960
Talking about supermarket chili products,

422
00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:57,360
I mean, one that reigns supreme by far for me is Lao Gan Ma.

423
00:20:57,360 --> 00:21:01,040
It's the Chinese condiment with the angry Chinese grandma

424
00:21:01,040 --> 00:21:01,840
on the front.

425
00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:02,560
Oh, yes.

426
00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:05,280
They make chili oil and especially the one that...

427
00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:06,880
You introduced me to this,

428
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:09,600
the one with chicken flavor and tofu bite.

429
00:21:09,600 --> 00:21:10,160
Exactly.

430
00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:12,000
Oh man, that's so good.

431
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:13,760
Right? It's so nice.

432
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:16,960
And the one that you say the chicken flavor one is super nice

433
00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:19,280
and the one with the black beans, the fermented black beans,

434
00:21:19,280 --> 00:21:21,040
this was super, super delicious.

435
00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:23,600
Yeah, I mean, like who comes to that thought like,

436
00:21:23,600 --> 00:21:27,520
guys, let's put some chicken flavor in our chili oil.

437
00:21:27,520 --> 00:21:28,400
Yeah, for sure.

438
00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:29,680
And then also, you know...

439
00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:30,480
Where is it from?

440
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:32,960
Is it Chinese or from somewhere else?

441
00:21:32,960 --> 00:21:34,160
It's Chinese, yeah.

442
00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:35,040
It's so tasty.

443
00:21:35,040 --> 00:21:35,840
So nice.

444
00:21:35,840 --> 00:21:36,480
It's so tasty.

445
00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:38,000
It's a pure MSG bomb.

446
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:43,440
And also, you know what I'm a big fan of is sweet chicken chili sauce,

447
00:21:43,440 --> 00:21:43,840
right?

448
00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:44,880
Which is also...

449
00:21:44,880 --> 00:21:45,840
That's also nasty.

450
00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:47,760
It's super trashy, but you know what?

451
00:21:47,760 --> 00:21:49,120
I've always had a soft spot for it.

452
00:21:49,120 --> 00:21:51,280
And then when I spent some time cooking Thai food...

453
00:21:51,280 --> 00:21:52,640
Yeah, when a fried chicken...

454
00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:53,680
Yeah, it's amazing.

455
00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:57,680
But then, you know, in the time where I spent some time cooking Thai food,

456
00:21:57,680 --> 00:21:59,040
I saw people making it fresh.

457
00:21:59,840 --> 00:22:02,000
And I was like, wow, like, you know,

458
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:04,560
because it ended up having exactly the same consistency.

459
00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:07,760
It looked exactly the same, but like taste-wise, it was amazing.

460
00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:12,560
And what they basically did is they blended chilies and garlic,

461
00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:14,880
and then they like boiled it down with some water

462
00:22:14,880 --> 00:22:17,600
and like quite a lot of vinegar, white vinegar,

463
00:22:17,600 --> 00:22:19,280
white distilled vinegar and sugar.

464
00:22:19,280 --> 00:22:23,520
And so they made this like sweet and sour sort of like chili base.

465
00:22:23,520 --> 00:22:26,160
And then afterwards, you cut it with a little bit of lime juice

466
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:27,760
and you have this like sweet...

467
00:22:27,760 --> 00:22:31,120
It's not super spicy, but it's like a little bit sweet, garlicky, sour.

468
00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:34,080
And man, super tasty, super delicious.

469
00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:35,280
You can put that on anything.

470
00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:40,800
Like a big relation I had recently was an African sauce called Peri Peri.

471
00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:45,680
And I think this is from West Africa, from like Senegal

472
00:22:45,680 --> 00:22:48,400
or these countries in the West Coast.

473
00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:50,400
Man, super nice.

474
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:52,640
Yellow, like deep yellow.

475
00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:57,840
And it has like this completely different, you know, like flavor profile

476
00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:00,880
because they have like a different type of vinegar.

477
00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:01,360
I don't know.

478
00:23:01,360 --> 00:23:04,720
I don't know what it has, but it was something completely different.

479
00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:23,920
Really nice.