Things start heating up when Tyler Florence, Ted Allen, Ina Garten and others share their best ever HOT AND SPICY dishes.
Things start heating up when Tyler Florence, Ted Allen, Ina Garten and others share their best ever HOT AND SPICY dishes.
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Find episode transcript here: https://the-best-thing-i-ever-ate.simplecast.com/episodes/hot-and-spicy-ft-tyler-florence-ted-allen-and-ina-garten
[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER 1: People ask me all the time.
SPEAKER 2: Where do you like to eat?
SPEAKER 3: What's your favorite food?
SPEAKER 4: What's the best thing you've ever eaten?
SPEAKER 5: That's why we're here now.
SPEAKER 6: Not only to tell you what we love to eat--
SPEAKER 7: But where you can go get it.
SPEAKER 8: You want spicy? Wait for this.
SPEAKER 9: It's just a blast. It's like cannons going off in your mouth.
SPEAKER 10: It's about the perfect meringue of flavors. And it's fantastic.
SPEAKER 11: But you're just like, oh my god, it's amazing.
SPEAKER 12: Start to sweat right here. That's when it gets good.
SPEAKER 9: This is some spicy episode. No wimps.
SPEAKER 12: When I think about spicy dish on the menu, it's something that I always gravitate toward. It's really one of the flavors that makes your tongue really stand up and say, I know what I'm eating today, kind of an element of danger. You know it's going to be delicious about how hot and spicy is it going to be.
You know when you go to a Chinese restaurant, there's a small Sichuan pepper right beside the menu item. You know, oh my god. This one's going to be spicy. That's the one I always go for.
And when I think about the spicy dish, the best thing I've ever eaten, it has to be number 68, the hot and spicy crab at Penang Garden at San Francisco, California. If you're a big fan of getting down and dirty with delicious crab, you're going to fall in love with this place.
If I had to take the hot and spicy crab and chili sauce and kind of put it on a spicy scale from 1 to 10, I would say it's about a 9.5. It is on fire. So this dish is special in a lot of ways because it's not really Chinese as much as the southeastern.
SPEAKER 13: Recipes from Singapore.
SPEAKER 12: It starts out with the star of the show, which is Dungeness crab caught straight out of the bay. For my money, best crab, hands down, in America. Big Dungy's.
So what they do is they take the whole crab, and they break it up in pieces just so it's a little easier to eat. Deep fry it in peanut oil first, and they toss in this really delicious chili tamarind-based sauce. It's got a little bit of ginger. It's got chili. It's got tomato. It just rolls and rolls and rolls.
SPEAKER 13: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
SPEAKER 12: So the chilies inside the dish sort of melted into the sauce and then kind of bathed in this delicious crab Jacuzzi of-- the end of it, they get to scramble an egg into the sauce. It's complex. It sounds weird. But I'm telling you, it's unbelievable.
And they pile all back together with the crab shell on top of it, so it looks like it's kind of whole. It's almost like an angry crab. And it's meaty. It's rich. It's thick. You start to pick the whole thing, and you get that little juicy bit, that big, chunky, golden bit of knuckle.
Chili heat is right there, front center. And then you start to sweat right here. That's when it gets good. It is so fantastic. I'm telling you. Every time I eat it, I've got chili sauce up to my elbows. It's awesome.
Honestly, I've never had crab like this before. This is a really special dish. It's something you got to check out. I used to have a problem with spicy food. Couldn't eat it.
Now, I can't get enough. I gravitate to it. I love the kick that it gives to your tongue back in your throat into your eyes. And I'm a spicy food nut now.
A few years ago, I had this ice cream. And it was sweet and rich and creamy and all the things I love about ice cream. But it was spicy, and it blew my mind. Queen City Cayenne Ice Cream from Jeni's Ice Cream in Columbus, Ohio. If I can handle it, you can handle it.
Spicy ice cream. You heard correctly. They don't go together. But they do. It's not just the novelty of the spice.
SPEAKER 14: Queen City of Cincinnati and Queen City cayenne is inspired by Cincinnati chili, which is chili and chocolate and cinnamon. This is our ice cream version of that. We're going to first make a sugar syrup using Ohio honey, and then we're going to put some cocoa in that, and then add our dark chocolate. And then we're going to add cream and cayenne, red pepper, Saigon cinnamon-- Saigon cinnamon has a red hot flavor-- and a little bit of sea salt. Spin it in our machine, and we're set.
SPEAKER 12: The milk and cream all comes from three local farmers in Ohio, and it works.
SPEAKER 15: We are all about Ohio. There's no comparison to the cream that we get. It's the highest level of purity that's possible in a dairy.
SPEAKER 12: it just makes this creamy, rich ice cream. It's the best you're going to find. I love ice cream shops, and I'm sure Jeni's is a great little classic ice cream shop. But here's the thing. I've never actually been to Jeni's Ice Cream.
The way I discovered Jeni's Ice Cream was in my mailbox. It was a gift to me from someone to whom I would be forever indebted because I could just order it through the mail. This is not a little hint of spice.
It moves across your tongue down your throat to your fingertips up into your eyes. It's just spicy all over, but it's just cool and nice too. It's like you're tricking your mouth because you're getting this icy, cold, frozen, sweet and spicy.
Kick you right in the throat right there. It got me. But it's good. Thank you, Jeni's. There's nothing better than this.
SPEAKER 8: You want spicy? Wait for this. The very best spicy dish that I've ever eaten comes from Los Angeles, California, a little Thai restaurant called Jitlada, and it's called Crying Tiger Pork. They say [? is you'll ?] [? whip ?] a tear. It's so hot.
And I tell you, you do. I'm crying. It's completely delicious. It's just one word that comes to mind when you think of Jitlada's Crying Tiger Pork, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot. It's hot.
Let me tell you how I came to try this dish. Great story. I got there really late one night, and the kitchen was closed.
So the family was sitting down enjoying dinner together. I walked in and said, please, I'm so hungry, and I love your food. She said, OK. I sat down and actually ate with them.
SPEAKER 16: This is the Crying Tiger pho.
SPEAKER 8: Uh-huh. It's the caring. It's the sharing. It's the love. It's the real essence of what this restaurant's all about. [LAUGHS]
SPEAKER 17: You need some corn beer?
SPEAKER 8: Everything is made in-house. Everything's done from scratch. Home cooking at its best. The pork is done in a marinade, and things like some soy sauce, some lime, a little bit of palm sugar, of course, lots of chilies.
They slice it nice and fine, and then they grow up. And then it's served with a Nam Jim sauce. So spicy. But it's full of beautiful flavors.
SPEAKER 18: For the sauce, it's supposed to be sweet, sour, and spicy.
SPEAKER 8: Yeah, it's not for the faint heart.
SPEAKER 19: Going to make someone cry.
SPEAKER 8: As soon as the Crying Tiger Pork hits the table, you smell the cilantro, which kind of freshens it up which lulls you into that false sense of security. Then that secondary smell hits your nostrils and almost burns it because you can smell the chili pepper inside the marinade.
The first thing that you experience is this incredible flavor, and then you get a little bit of the warmth the back of your tongue. Then you eat another piece, and then you get the warmth at the front of your tongue. And that warmth turns into a burn.
And before you know it, your entire mouth is on fire. [INAUDIBLE] I'm starting to cry. I absolutely love it. It's a journey from the very first mouthful to the last time you put your foot down. And you have a head sweat going on. Just incredible.
SPEAKER 20: I like something that you taste everything in it, and then the heat comes behind it as opposed to something that just like knocks you out. I think this best spicy dish I've ever had is the Shrimp and Swordfish Curry at Loaves and fishes. It's especially food store in New York, and it's fantastic.
Loaves & Fishes is a really special specialty food store. There's a big counter, and there's a refrigerator filled with incredibly delicious things. But my favorite thing is the shrimp and swordfish stew.
SPEAKER 21: Salad in a takeout shop, and it's quite popular.
SPEAKER 22: Anna and I actually worked together for about a year. And she taught me about simplicity, and I think that's really what the seafood stew is about. It's about the perfect marrying of flavors. But it's really very simple country thing.
SPEAKER 21: It has some interesting ingredients-- lots of onions, one pepper cut into thin strips, ginger and jalapeno. Also, the spices. I make a mixture of spices-- turmeric, cumin, coriander, cinnamon. And then I start adding the liquids-- coconut milk, tomatoes, clam juice. Cook it for 10 minutes. Add the swordfish, and then add the shrimp, and it cooks it in no time at all. Delicious. Ready to serve.
It has big chunks of swordfish, and it's very moist. And the shrimp are cooked just right, and it's just full of flavor and incredibly warming and just wonderful. The good thing about especially a food store is you can pick it up any time.
And then somebody takes it home, put it in a refrigerator and just heat it up when you're ready for dinner. It's a tradition at the [? Garden ?] household on Sunday night. It already smells great. You can smell the curry, big chunks of swordfish.
They never taste like leftovers. They always taste like they've been freshly made. The thing about this stew, it's just really spicy without really overpowering the delicate flavor of the swordfish and the shrimp.
Flavors are better when they're layered. You taste one flavor, and then another flavor, and then the other. And then the heat comes up behind it. It's just delicious.
SPEAKER 12: I love spicy. I love the intensity of what it makes me feel. You put it in your mouth, and it just explodes. One of my favorite spicy places to go to is Bill Kim's Urban Belly. He makes this delicious broth that's spicy hot. Kimchi and hominy. Hominy, kimchi.
What a great little marriage. A lot of great [? little ?] [? dance. ?] I love that. What I love about the soup is how he combines Korean and Mexican. People come in droves for these flavors at Urban Belly.
BILL KIM: It's inspired by my wife, who is of Latin descent. I always look for a different way to enhance the flavor of Asia.
SPEAKER 12: What an experience it is. In a strip mall, mind you. But you know what? You'll go in there, and you'll find something that'll just drive you crazy. So delicious.
BILL KIM: Rice noodles with how many kimchi and spicy pork broth. That's what I want. And this is it.
SPEAKER 12: Bill has worked at the finest restaurants in the world and worked with some of the top chefs. He chose to come to this very nondescript neighborhood in this little strip mall and open urban belly. He is a wizard.
NILL KIM: First and foremost, we have to make a beautiful stock--
SPEAKER 12: Which reminds me of a Vietnamese pho.
BILL KIM: Then we do the braising of the pork belly in our marinade, which is sriracha, Korean chili paste, hoisin, and Korean chili flakes.
SPEAKER 12: And with the kimchi? Hello. I love kimchi. And then--
BILL KIM: Here you go.
SPEAKER 12: He's got hominy. That's like saying-- Hallelujah, Art Smith, you're a Southern boy.
BILL KIM: It's a secret ingredient, so we combine it all together.
SPEAKER 12: And are you in for a feast? Smells incredible. I was raised by a Japanese aunt, so she taught me how to eat with chopsticks and with a spoon. This is one of those two-handed delicious dishes.
It's just like a big bowl of treasures. It has this rich broth, which has hot, sour, salty, sweet flavors. So spicy spices-- all these plates are dancing your mouth, and you're like going, wow, incredible. My most favorite part, pick the ball up and cheers. So, so wonderful. Clean plate club.
SPEAKER 23: Hey, Art, my favorite spicy dish is so hot and spicy that I would use some of that kimchi Soup to cool mine down. [LAUGHS] When you eat something spicy, it's just a whole different attitude. The pheromones get going. It's just exciting. The best spicy food I've ever had is the shrimp cocktail at St. Elmo's in Indianapolis. This thing is just insanely hot. You don't eat spicy food unless you're ready to have a good time.
SPEAKER 24: Say no more because I'm happy to be here.
SPEAKER 23: The reason this shrimp cocktail at St Elmo's is so special is it's just spicier than anything I've ever eaten anywhere. These guys have taken it completely off the chart.
SPEAKER 25: The St. Elmo shrimp cocktail is our only appetizer. If you're good at something, you stick with it.
SPEAKER 26: St. Elmo's shrimp cocktail has been done for 107 years the exact same way it is today. What we're going to start with is grade one horseradish, chop it into chunks. We grind on average 20 pounds a day.
We'll take three of these, and we'll mix it with ketchup. We just mix it by hand. Take five shrimp. We serve the sauce right over the top, and we're done.
SPEAKER 9: On the menu, it just calls it Shrimp Cocktail. And nobody tells you that this is the hottest shrimp cocktail on Earth. They kind of trick you into having it.
SPEAKER 12: It's almost a mean way of delivering the product to our guests when it's laden with so much horseradish. But we kind hit them straight with it.
SPEAKER 27: The guy in the kitchen looks evil, man. I don't trust that guy.
SPEAKER 9: I would call it like insanely hot shrimp cocktail, or blow your head off shrimp cocktail, or make sure you order a glass of milk with this shrimp cocktail.
SPEAKER 23: Oh, man.
SPEAKER 9: Yeah, you're just getting blurry, and your knees are kind of weak. Don't try to stand up while you're eating this shrimp cocktail. The good news is it's horseradish.
It's not like a pepper, so it kind of goes away after the first hit, so you're feeling a little bit better. So you get ready for that second hit. And the waiter will be sitting around the corner laughing at you.
SPEAKER 28: And you think these are going to help me?
SPEAKER 9: It's spicy crazy, but it's really good. This thing is one of the best things I've ever eaten.
SPEAKER 23: When it comes to spicy food, this is my favorite. There's no shrimp cocktail anywhere like this one. It's just hot. That's what it's all about.
SPEAKER 9: Is it going burn your mouth off? Well, maybe. This is a spicy episode. No wimps. Whoo.
When someone says spicy to me, the first thing I think about is Indian food. And the best thing I ever ate that's spicy is Mirchi ka salan, created by a chef in New York City named Suvir Saran who has a restaurant called Dévi. You wanted spicy? I'm giving you a spicy.
Mirchi ka salan is a classic Indian pepper stew. It sounds weird. Do I want a stew made out of peppers? When you're at the hands of a master like Suvir Saran, it could change your life.
SUVIR SARAN: It's a celebration of every flavor you can think of.
SPEAKER 9: What Indians want in their food is a symphony. They want a whole bunch of different things going on all at once. That's what this dish is. It's salty. It's sweet. It's sour. It's spicy. It's hot. So good.
OK. I'm getting hungry. It's a fascinating and complicated dish. And I'm looking here at the list of ingredients-- coconut powder, peanuts, cashew nuts, coriander, curry leaf, tamarind, cardamom seeds, cloves.
SUVIR SARAN: Cinnamon, bay leave, curry leaves.
SPEAKER 9: Yogurt, coconut milk, red chillies, mustard seeds, watermelon seed. You need quite a pantry to make this thing, don't you?
SUVIR SARAN: Preparing Mirchi ka salan, you roast the spices. Grind them into powder. You fry the peppers till they have blisters in them. You fry your curry leaves, bay leaves, the spices. Throw in the peanut powder, and you roast it for a minute or two. And then you add your tamarind water, the yogurt, and the peppers back in. And you cook them for a few minutes, and the dish is prepared.
SPEAKER 9: Oh yeah. This dish is spicy. It's just a blast. It's like cannons going off in your mouth. It's just so intense. It's just so vivid. It's just so powerful. It's like dancing on your tongue. I love this stuff.
And you can sit here and pick it apart and try to analyze why you like it. Oh, I think I detect a little bit of cardamom and some coconut. Or you can just eat the darn thing.
If you're in New York City, go to Dévi and order this dish. And if you don't like it, send me an email. We'll talk. Maybe I'll even pick up the check. But probably not.
[MUSIC PLAYING]