The food thread

Sriracha skyrocketed here a while back but has settled back down. Not sure what was behind it.
I know a few people in food distribution and marketing. Stores in general track how the sales of items are doing, and often select popular items for price gouging. Better to make $2 each bottle instead of a dollar, so they'll float a much more expensive price to see how it goes.
If sales drop a lot for weeks, they'll drop the prices to regain sales volume.
Sometimes it is about upstream costs, often it is not.
 
The peppers Huy Fong uses come from a small area and they had a drought, or something like that. The point being that they couldn't get other peppers as substitutes... on account of flavor.

There are other brands, but they taste different. Trust me, I tried them.

So, for a year, -a crop-, Huy Fong was short of peppers.

BTW, I buy Sriracha by the big "gallon" jar. I truly go through a LOT of that stuff. During the Pepper Crisis, I had stacked up with about three gallons so it barely saw me through. I had to make a gallon last four months, whereas normally I use on gallon per month. It was TOUGH.

The whole sriracha shortage was worse than that. The owner of Huy Fong overpaid on a prepayment, then tried to hire the farmers COO to start his own chile grow. Huy Fong was sued for breach of contract and fraud. The farm won. But the overpayment was deducted from the winnings.

BTW, Underwood ranch (the original farmer) has their own brand of sriracha now, and its pretty dang good!
 
Not sure why drums have fallen out of favour but they were the prized piece when I was a kid. Besides, you can have fun and be inventive with them. These are perched on a piece of sausage on a slice of potato.
They were good. I hope the ones tonight are also.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0512.jpeg
    IMG_0512.jpeg
    237.3 KB · Views: 25
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
I don't bother with Sriracha. I haven't caught onto it and I don't always want garlic with the heat, especially since I use so much of it in drinks. I use only my own.

I do agree it has its place. I enjoy various hot sauces. I should make more banana ketchup soon, that was a hit with the missus. She is the primary consumer of all things hot. I enjoy heat, but not for the sake of being hot. It must have good flavor.

Now I need to figure out which hot peppers to plant. Thinking habanero or ghost peppers.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Member
Joined 2010
Paid Member
I, too, prefer Underwood Ranch's Sriracha. One Christmas I gave out 4-bottle Combo Packs as gifts.

OBTW, don't even bother sampling Trader Joe's version of Sriracha. Toilet water from a rural Arkansas gas station + retirement home hot sauce.

TeeJay's is good for cleaning up a slow drain.

Just like their "soy sauce" and "tofu"...

I can't find Underwood in my local supers..... As I wrote, I buy it by the gallon. Usually go through it in less than six weeks. As I cook, I'll lay out a bowl of chip and I'll squeeze a tablespoon's worth of Sriracha on each chip... as I eat them.

Yum.
 
Member
Joined 2010
Paid Member
Red Habanero or red Scotch Bonnets would be my choice. Ghost peppers and Reapers are a little over the top for me.

Have you tried the Chinese hot chili oils? The Thai make some pretty good facsimiles but the Chinese outshine them all.

Try Sichuan and Hunan food?

Nothing like been served a bowl that uses grated dried ghost pepper chilis as.... GARNISH! Even my Mainland China sourced friends thread with some real care in those waters.

Google Meizhou Dongpo in Irvine. In comparison, Thai food is just for babies... I kid you not. It's HOT, SWEET, did I say SCORCHING HOT? As in your cojones will be hairless and trop calientes after eating just their Mabo Tofu ( least spicy thing in the menu, just for foreigners from the other side of the 405 like me...).

Last time I went, I checked my blood sugar four hours after lunch... it was 250!.... Yikes.

My wife doesn't want to go there.

 
Last edited:
Have you tried the Chinese hot chili oils?
I make my own chili in oil. It's pretty easy. I usually use smoked and seasoned Cayennes.
Try Sichuan and Hunan food?
Yes, they are popular here.
Sichuan peppercorns? I dislike Ma La with a passion as to me, it really takes away from the meal.
I do like Hunan creations as they tend to be drier than others. Nothing like ruining a perfectly good crab dish by pouring gooey sauce on it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Member
Joined 2014
Paid Member
If you can post a picture of the bread and list the proportions of each flour and water we can see what may help. Generally with whole wheat and spelt it creates a denser loaf. If its just going stale fast, keep the cut side covered in plastic wrap. Can also pre slice the entire loaf, put parchment between slices and freeze the whole thing. The parchment keep the slices from freezing together.
I'll be making some saturday night and will post some pictures. The current mix for the basic 1lb yeasted loaf is
12floz water
4oz organic malted flour (mix of normal flour, rye malted barley and malted wheat)
2oz dark rye
2oz spelt
2oz wholemeal
6oz lidl white flour
1tsp salt
4-5tsp sugar
1.5tsp dried yeast
1.5oz butter
handful of sesame seed and linseeds

All worked well until I switched to the organic form of the malted flour. In the past I have found organic flours just don't rise as well which I why I use the cheap strong white flour, but this is the first time I've hit bread that is quite so crumbly. Easy answer is to go back to the non-organic forms but that would be admitting failure and I just need to get my head around what I am getting wrong in the mix and which levers to pull.

I have sliced and frozen in the past but generally we get through a loaf in under 2 days in normal use so hasn't seemed worth the bother. And nothing gets wasted as I make breadcrumbs when it does fall apart.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
75% hydration is a good number to be at, though with all the wholewheat flours you are using i think you may need to up the hydration a bit more. Try 80%. Rye, wholewheat, etc are very thirsty flours. You could try adding a bit of seitan to up the protein content a bit, too.

Also, how are you kneading this? If by hand, give it a good 5 minutes of heavy kneading at first. Machine, let it go for 7-8 minutes or more. Ive found that really developing the gluten in the beginning sets the tone for how it turns out in the end.