Professional hot sauce maker Smokin’ Ed Currie, the founder and president of PuckerButt Pepper Company, returns to Epicurious to taste 17 hot condiments from around the world. From Japanese Yuzu koshō to Yemeni Zhug, find out what spicy condiments are on offer worldwide.
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00:00I'm Smokin' Ed Curry. I'm a professional hot sauce maker and pepper breeder.
00:04And I'm here today to take you on a trip around the globe for the spiciest condiments from A to Z.
00:10From hot sauces to crisps to condiments to jellies and more.
00:15Today, I'm trying pre-packaged versions that are retail ready, often from U.S. companies.
00:21Get your passport and tasting spoons ready. We're going on this trip together.
00:30The very first thing we're going to try is Loganma Spicy Chili Crisp.
00:34This brand comes from a mountainous region in western China.
00:38And I love that it comes in a big thing. Normally, when you get Chili Crisp, it's a little 6 or 8-ounce jar.
00:44That's a lot of Chili Crisp.
00:46I'm trying to shake it up because I want to get some actual Chili Crisp instead of just the oil on the bottom.
00:54It smells like a traditional Chili Crisp.
00:57Can you see how beautiful those pieces look? And I can't wait to try a bite.
01:04What was hidden underneath all that chili was a big soybean.
01:08You know, I personally don't like soybeans on their own.
01:11But in the oil and that onion-y flavor, they tasted really good.
01:15The very first flavor I got out of this was the onion.
01:18And then you got the chilies and then you got the garlic.
01:22It was overall just a well-balanced product.
01:26Achar. Indian tomato chili sauce.
01:29This is a condiment you can find in India. You can find it in Bangladesh.
01:33Red chili pepper, mustard seeds, and turmeric are listed as the heat.
01:37It's got tamarind and jaggery, which I love jaggery if you haven't had it.
01:42This smells really good. You can see the pieces of chili in there.
01:47You can see the tomato. It's got a very thick consistency. Let's give it a taste.
01:53Even though the tomatoes are the number one ingredient,
01:57the first flavor that came through was the turmeric.
02:00It's a very tasty product. This would be really good to add it to chili.
02:04If I wanted to put a different zing on an Italian-based food,
02:09I would switch out the tomato paste with this. So, for example, a tomato sauce.
02:15Sambal oelek. Most of us here in America were exposed to very bland foods until the 70s.
02:21Hoi Fong is located in California. This is the traditional condiment from Indonesia.
02:27This is a beautiful, beautiful sauce, and it's got a good texture to it.
02:32But what it is, is it's salty.
02:36Those red jalapenos on their own are very sweet.
02:39I prefer something that's not fermented.
02:41But for the everyday household that likes salt and likes to add things to their food,
02:46this is one of the best products you can get and the best bang for your buck.
02:50This became available in grocery stores very early in the 80s.
02:55It was used for stir fries. It was used on meatloaf.
02:58We would put it on our spaghetti. We would put it anywhere.
03:01It's becoming rare in the United States because there's a drought on red jalapenos.
03:05So, if you don't have some in your fridge right now, you better go out and get you some.
03:10Next, we're stopping in Louisiana.
03:12This is Steen's Cane Pepper Jelly.
03:15From the looks of it, it looks like raw cane syrup.
03:19Every state has a different approach to making pepper jelly.
03:22Deep down south in Louisiana, spice is not the superlative. Spice is the additive.
03:28It is meant to complement your food, not meant to masquerade your food.
03:34The ingredients in this, sugar, Steen's pure cane syrup.
03:39They have these gigantic vats and a gigantic stone wheel.
03:44Usually, you know, they just throw the whole pieces of cut sugar cane in there.
03:50And that stone wheel rolls along the stone vat and out of the bottom comes cane sugar.
03:55You know, a lot of jellies are runny. You don't see the ingredients that are in it.
04:00But this one, you can see all the little bits and pieces.
04:05The cane sugar in there is amazing.
04:08They could make a hot sauce just with that cane sugar and those peppers.
04:11This would be a good base for a hot sauce homemade.
04:14It is absolutely delicious.
04:16The pepper flavor is very forward on top of the sugar.
04:21This is probably the best thing I've tried all week long.
04:24There's a lot of good things that come from Louisiana.
04:27This is a hidden gem.
04:29I would use this for spicing up a yam, mixing it with butter,
04:33and making kind of a sweet gravy to put on something, say country fried chicken or something.
04:38This is an amazing product.
04:40I'd love to take this home, but I'm afraid the TSA would take it.
04:44Not because it has too many ounces, but because they know it's good.
04:50River Nile Peri Peri Sauce.
04:53It's a traditional hot sauce from Mozambique made with peri peri peppers.
04:58Peri peris are very, very small peppers.
05:01They're really hard to pick and it's really monotonous.
05:04To make a bottle of hot sauce, you'd have to spend four hours picking the peppers
05:08to get enough to spice up a bottle of hot sauce, one bottle.
05:12This hot sauce recipe is four generations old and it has very simple ingredients.
05:16Lemon juice, purified water, garlic, onions, peri peri peppers, chili peppers, and salt.
05:24It's thicker than I would have expected with lemon juice and water being the first two ingredients.
05:30So you don't really taste lemon at all.
05:32Garlic is the predominant flavor.
05:34You get some of the sweetness from onion and then a little bit of pepper.
05:38There's some kind of other chili in there that's giving it that flavor that I can't quite describe.
05:43If I had to take my guess, it's a cayenne mash, a salted cayenne mash, maybe even fermented.
05:48I think this is delicious.
05:50It would be something that I would keep at home, but I would only use really on fish
05:56or say chicken or maybe some pork tenderloin.
05:59Carolina Reaper Pepper Honey from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
06:03Honey is one of my favorite things to infuse with spices.
06:07I love the way honey pours. It just looks so beautiful.
06:10There's no indication that there's pepper in here and the honey looks crystal clear.
06:15It looks like a really good spun honey.
06:19However, when you taste the honey, pepper flavor comes out. It's very forward.
06:24It's absolutely delicious.
06:26They've done a really, really good job with this.
06:28They've used such a minute amount of pepper that all you're getting is the flavor and not the heat.
06:34The best honeys I've had is with dry pepper, unless you're going to cook the honey with the pepper in it.
06:40This could go on anything from glazing pork chops or say mixing it with some mustard
06:46to make a honey mustard with a barbecue.
06:49Crushed Calabrian Chili, a product of Italy.
06:52It looks beautiful in the jar.
06:55Calabrian chilies are not that hot, but they're very, very tasty.
06:59Of the Italian chilies that are predominant in the United States, this is the spiciest of them.
07:05It's literally just peppers and oil.
07:08And those peppers have been cooked and they're really beautiful.
07:11But it also lists salt, vinegar, and basil.
07:15I get none of the vinegar or the basil.
07:17They probably added the vinegar just to pH it so it was shelf stable.
07:21And it is absolutely delicious.
07:23This would really be good on hamburgers or hot dogs.
07:27Mina's Harissa, this is the spicy version, is one of the best shelf stable Harissas you can get.
07:33This Harissa is a traditional Moroccan Harissa.
07:36But Harissa is actually found all the way around the Mediterranean through North Africa and into the Middle East.
07:43The ingredients are red chili pepper, red bell pepper, garlic, olive oil, cider vinegar, salt, and citric acid.
07:51Let's give it a try.
07:54You get the kind of bitter tone of the Hungarian type pepper.
07:59You get the sweetness of the bell pepper and then the garlic just comes in.
08:02And it makes your whole mouth feel like, ooh, this is warm.
08:06Anywhere that you use tomatoes, you could take this and you could switch out a little bit.
08:12To give a new flair to anything you're doing.
08:15I was thinking mixing this in tomato soup would be a delicious additive.
08:20Yuzu kosho.
08:21This is the traditional Japanese condiment of yuzu and pepper.
08:25The ingredients are citron, which is yuzu, green pepper, and salt.
08:30So my guess is this is going to be a fermented chili mash that's flavored with citrus.
08:36Citron, for me, all I've ever really tried it in is the candied form in like nut breads that you get in holidays.
08:45I never would have thought to pair it with pepper.
08:48The smell is absolutely captivating.
08:55It's extremely salty.
08:56You get the sweet from the citron and the sweet from the pepper and no real fermented taste.
09:01This would be a really good product to add to stir-fries or say rice dishes or noodle dishes that you're making at home.
09:10It just, it smells like candy.
09:12You don't really smell the salt.
09:14The pepper note that I'm getting from this is not any spicy pepper.
09:18It's got to be a very mild pepper.
09:20Say like an anaheim or a shishito.
09:23And it's very complimentary to the citron.
09:26And this is definitely a product I'll find to bring home.
09:29This, to me, is like green candy in a bottle.
09:33Mama Teve's Hot Garlic.
09:35Seven simple, natural ingredients.
09:38Cold-pressed grapeseed oil, garlic, chilies, onions, salt, mushrooms, and celery salt.
09:45You rarely see mushrooms in a chili crisp.
09:48Peppers from this come from the Cambodian-Thailand border.
09:51And it's a traditional chili crisp for this family.
09:56The chilies, instead of being thick, have been chopped up into little pieces.
10:02The flavor of the garlic, it's like it's been fried and encapsulated in big chunks.
10:08Then when you break into that crisp, boom!
10:13I would recommend this for anybody who's looking for a unique experience and enjoys that oily, crisp taste.
10:21Alright, next.
10:22This is the Walker Woods.
10:24It is produced in Jamaica, and it is available in the United States.
10:28It's one of the better marinades there is.
10:30Ingredients are simple.
10:32Scallions, hot peppers, salt, black pepper, pimento that is ground, nutmeg, citric acid, brown sugar, and thyme.
10:38This is a traditional Jamaican jerk.
10:41It's supposed to be rubbed on meat, and then the meat is slow-cooked over a grill.
10:46It is also extremely strong.
10:48I don't have to lift the spoon or anything to get the aroma.
10:54Jerk sauces use scotch bonnets, or they use habaneros.
10:58The spices that they use offset the oleoresins that contain the heat, so it gets more of a balanced blend.
11:05Immediately, you get the black pepper and the salt.
11:08What this is, is a great marinade for meat.
11:11It would add a good texture to any goat, pork, beef, or chicken that you wanted to throw on the grill.
11:17We're now over in Germany.
11:18Loewensniff.
11:19This is one of my favorite mustards.
11:21This is like a traditional Dusseldorf mustard.
11:24It's made for our worse.
11:26Anything from a traditional American hot dog to all the different worse you'd get at an Oktoberfest.
11:33I love the smell of this mustard.
11:35It's got mustard seeds, vinegar, drinking water, and salt.
11:38A Dusseldorf mustard, as we've read from the ingredients, is just straight mustard seed.
11:44Whereas in France, like say Dijon, instead of using vinegar and water, they use vinegar and white wine.
11:51So it has kind of a sweeter appeal to it.
11:54And it's a lot smoother because the alcohol from the wine brings out more of the sweetness in the mustard
12:01than it brings out the bitter tones like you get here in the Dusseldorf.
12:08It's got a little bit of a bold spice to it.
12:10It's not overpowering, but it really goes well with meat.
12:14Every time I'm making sausage, I use a Dusseldorf mustard as a condiment to go on top of it.
12:23So we're going all the way from Germany to Thailand.
12:27The traditional condiment in Thailand, it has tamarind juice in it, which I love tamarind.
12:32Everything with tamarind usually tastes good.
12:34These traditional condiments in Thailand are meant to be cooked with.
12:39And some of them that are extremely spicy are given to you on the table as an additive to your meal.
12:46Instead of eating it directly, you're supposed to put some on your food and stir it in.
12:51There's a lot of oil at the top of this, so you've got to stir it because the paste is really thick.
12:57The aroma that is coming out of the jar is fish sauce.
13:01Fish sauce is very powerful.
13:04I'm not going to eat that much because I know it's going to be really salty.
13:07So let's give it a try.
13:11The first notes that came out of that were very sweet.
13:14The tamarind came right through.
13:16It's really beautiful.
13:17If I had to guess what type of chilies that are in it, it's just a Thai bird chili.
13:21Picked ripe and sun-dried.
13:23That's the traditional method to making these pastes.
13:26Something that this might be good in is a clam chowder.
13:29It would just give it a different vibe that would bring up conversation.
13:35Salsa Macha from Veracruz, Mexico.
13:39Which is slow-fired chipotles, peanuts, and a smoky chili oil.
13:43Four ingredients, canola oil, chipotle, peanuts, and sea salt.
13:47I got a spoonful with a lot of pepper and a lot of the peanut in it.
13:51And I'm really interested to see what it tastes like.
13:55Really a garlicky flavor without it being overpowering.
13:59The chili is very, very mild.
14:01There's a flavor of pepper, but no heat of pepper.
14:04There's just as much peanuts, finely chopped, as there are chilies.
14:09The oil itself is very tasty.
14:11It's been infused with that chili, that smoky chili flavor.
14:15It's absolutely delicious.
14:16Now I would add this to rice and beans.
14:19I would add this to like a goat dish.
14:22This might even be a fun additive to a tuna ceviche.
14:27Salsa Seca.
14:29Chipotle fried nut and seed salsa.
14:31The salsa macha we tried was really from Veracruz.
14:35Whereas this is from the other side of Mexico, which is more focused on being a seed salsa.
14:41The ingredients are canola oil, volte morita, peanuts, pecans, almonds.
14:47Again, there's a lot of oil floating on top.
14:49But when you stir it up, it looks really, really good.
14:52You can almost hear the sound of the seeds rustling together when you reach in for a scoop.
15:00You know, it's very good.
15:01Because of the nuts and the seeds, it's more of a dry oil.
15:06What your mouth is doing is tasting the nuts and the seeds.
15:10Even though chili peppers are an ingredient, they are not the predominant flavor.
15:15They are a complementary flavor.
15:17I could not taste the pepper through the seeds and the nuts.
15:21But I can feel the pepper.
15:23The nuts go really well with the oils in the chilies.
15:26I don't know about the sesame seed because I didn't get any of that sesame seed flavor like you get in, say, a Korean dumpling sauce.
15:32What I got is a texture in my mouth that I've never had before.
15:38What's next?
15:40It's Irides's Salsa Ranchera.
15:42In America, you can get a lot of different salsas.
15:45This company makes excellent products.
15:47I like their smoky chipotle peppers if you've never had them.
15:51And I'm kind of getting that same vibe just from looking at this salsa.
15:55It consists of water, green chili peppers, ancho chili peppers, tomato paste.
16:00These ingredients are cooked down and blended so that all the flavors come out.
16:08The peppers they use in here are not hot peppers.
16:11They are flavorful peppers.
16:13This is an excellent product if you want to enhance the flavor of the food you're eating.
16:19This is what we traditionally use at home when we're making enchiladas.
16:23Alright, the next product we have, Vada Pav Chutney.
16:26This is a chutney based on a product found in Dubai, India.
16:30Coconut is the number one ingredient.
16:32Then we got garlic, oil, chili, salt, sugar, mixed spices.
16:37The blends of Indian spices are just amazing.
16:40Just smelling them gives you a dance in the head.
16:44I want to get down to where it's a little moist so I can taste the flavors.
16:49So there's two flavors that are predominant in this.
16:52Coconut, meat, and garlic.
16:54I think this would be delicious in American stews.
16:58This would be a great additive for chili.
17:00But it could be used for just about anything.
17:03People need to explore and find something that you like.
17:06They're reasonably priced and they're all very, very tasty.
17:11This is a traditional Yemeni zhung.
17:14This is more like a condiment, more like a salsa.
17:16The ingredients are simple.
17:17Jalapeno, cilantro, parsley, lemon juice, garlic.
17:21It's made here in Vermont and it looks really beautiful.
17:27I would use this as a marinade on a chicken or as part of the mix in a sausage.
17:33Even, say, just taking bread and spreading something on bread.
17:37The jalapenos aren't really a predominant flavor,
17:40but you can feel the heat from a green jalapeno.
17:42It's not really that hot.
17:44It's just got a little warmth to it, a glow, I'd like to say.
17:47Green jalapenos and a lot of the herbs and spices that are used go really well together.
17:52That's why people use them.
17:54There you have it.
17:56Different condiments from around the world that you can add to your pantry from A to Z.
18:00Different flavors, different textures.
18:02This is Smokin' Egg Curry.
18:04I'm signing off for Epicurious.
18:06I look forward to seeing you again.
18:08Have a great day.
18:14www.Epicurious.com