Everybody knows what the most overhyped food product is. Entire restaurants devoted to it. Books, shirts, games made about it. The eternal darling of every fast food chain. Dominating all aspects of food news and clickbait for, like, 15 years now.
I thought the most overhyped food product was sriracha. Are you talking about ghost peppers? Until you said fast food, I was thinking maybe it was quinoa.
Beet salad with goat cheese, pistachio, and balsamic vinaigrette or bacon.
2 Likes
I think of sriracha as more of a condiment than a hot sauce. Its awfully sugary. But this is splitting hairs.
I can report a food fail, but one where I think I will have a better outcome on my second go.
Having seen Jose Andres make a tortilla espanola with potato chips, I was inspired to do something similar: a chilaquiles frittata.
My general method was to fry the salsa, add the chips and let them soften, then add the eggs, and flip to cook both sides. Where it fell apart (literally) was that it didn’t hold its shape completely. I assume this was due to too much moisture and that what I should have done is drain more of the salsa from the chips and added it back after cooking as a topping. It’s also possible that I should not have let the chips soften as much, but I think I made the right decision to cook them. I could also consider cooking the salsa longer to reduce it.
I also used store-bought chips instead of frying cut-up tortillas. I don’t think that’s a huge deal. I could also consider making the frittata by baking rather than flipping, but I don’t really have the right pan for that.
I felt that the flavor worked and I look forward to trying it again in the future.
1 Like
Good idea, chilaquiles are awesome and naturally suited to combine with eggs.
1 Like
I was really excited about Lao Gan Ma, but I don’t like it as much as I thought would. It’s not bad, but it seems to have this chemical, medicinal aftertaste. Is that just me? Maybe I got a bad batch? Without that it would be 10/10.
1 Like
I’ve never had it so can’t say.
I’m imagining it to be like Sambal Olek w/ Garlic. Is that more or less what it is?
What about the brand you’ve got?
Chili crisp specifically or did you get one of their many other oils/sauces? Start with a little bit and add more if necessary - I could see the salt tasting a bit metallic if you overdo it.
Kinda sorta maybe? Idk, it has a brightness I find difficult to explain.
I also had the idea of maybe mixing French-style spoonable soft scrambled eggs with (warmed) salsa and using that as a dip for tortilla chips.
I believe I’ve mentioned before the idea of poaching eggs in chilaquiles in a take inspired by shakshuka. I actually tried that, but I didn’t have the depth of liquid in the pan to do a good job of poaching. I prefer salsa verde, so I tend to be limited with how much I have on hand or want to use. If I were using salsa roja, it would be easier to add tomato sauce or juice to have enough volume to poach an egg in.
In some ways, a breakfast burrito can be conceived of as a reconfiguration of chilquiles ingredients with the tortilla left unfried. Thinking about it that way may give you ideas about taking an ingredient you’ve seen successfully in one (or a similar dish like migas) and putting it in the other.
I’m talking about the Spicy Chili Crisp.
I do put in a lot, because I like everything very spicy.
I did not get an aftertaste but I’ve only had it in small doses and mixed with other sauces to some extent (I put it in a falafel sandwich in addition to harissa and tahini).
I think that might be my problem. I never use less than a full teaspoon of the solid stuff and that is the absolute minimum.
Btw this probably sounds weird but I really wanted my faster sandwich and I ALSO really wanted to try the chili crisp, so I did both. And it was great
Country ribs going into the oven. Just salt, pepper, oregano and garlic powder for seasoning. They sit atop half a chopped white onion. I’ll cover with foil and cook on 350 for one hour, remove, paint with bbq sauce, then back in for about a half hour. Got peppers and the other half of the onion in the frying pan, will make garlic toast and salad and (maybe) baked beans but probably not because it’ll be too much.
ETA these will yield a lot of jus which is great as sauce/gravy for mashed potatoes or rice as well
5 Likes
This is fair. They overlap in the “add heat to food” domain but I would agree that sriracha is distinct from what I would normally consider a hot sauce.
(I was just thinking about this now because I’m eating some eggs at work and I wish I had some sort of hot sauce or spicy oil from home. At least they brought the Chulula back here, for a while we only had Texas Pete’s or something awful).