Trying 5 Spicy Chili Dishes From Around the World

Riddle me this, how did the chili, a plant that is arguably painful to eat, become so pervasive? The story starts with birds in Central and South America where the plant is native to. Are you talking about me? The spice in chilis comes from a compound called capsaicin, which was first discovered in 1816 by Christian Buchholz. I nailed it, right? Birds, it turns out, unlike mammals, do not have capsaicin receptors. Hmm, I don't taste any spice. Do you, mammal? Bro, this is hot! So birds ate these chilis, flew around, and distributed the seeds. I'm pooping these out across Central and South America. When it came to why humans like chilis, scholars believed two things. I like the way they make me feel. Kind of tingly. And it makes this typically unpleasant food taste a heck of a lot better. It wasn't until the 16th century, though, that chilis went worldwide, being brought by the Portuguese across the globe. At the end of the day, though, you can say it was really the chili that conquered the globe because today we are looking at five different chili dishes from five countries to see how far humans' love for spice really goes. While I am prepping all of these chilis for the recipes to come, I want to thank Misplay for sponsoring today's episode. Misplay is a platform that allows you to play some of your favorite games and earn points to them to collect gift cards. As many of you know, I love playing mobile games, especially while I'm waiting for all of these dishes to cook because some of them take a really long time. The platform has tons of different mobile games to choose from, everything from action and adventure to puzzle, word games, even trivia, which I really love doing. As you play the games, you collect points. You can then take those points and redeem them for gift cards across a variety of different companies. Through this app, I've actually been able to discover some new games that I had never heard of before that I've actually come to really love, one of them being a game called Play Dohku. It's a puzzle game, and you need to use some spatial awareness to figure out how to complete different boxes. The more you play, the more points you can collect, and you can use those points to get gift cards. I'm already a huge mobile game player, so why not put my play time towards something beneficial to me? If you sign up today, you'll get 200 points, and if you use my code Beryl, it'll give you an additional 50 points, which honestly will get you quite close to your first gift card for just signing up. The link is here, but it is also in the description with all of the details. It's time to eat some chilies now. Hi, I'm Benne. I'm from Bataan, and the dish I'm gonna be talking about today is emadatsi, which translates to literally chili cheese in Zoka. Emadatsi is so interesting because it's a mixture of chilies, cheese, and a few other vegetables, and it's a little bit brothy, so it's like a soup too, and it's so good poured over rice. I love it so much. If you're thinking, yeah, okay, you know, five jalapenos, but I want more chili, yeah, there's green chilies in this recipe as well. This is gonna be fun. I'm scared. You come back home from a long day of work, and you can make it in like, what, 20 minutes to half an hour, and it's done. So simple and so easy to make. The second you know that you can't touch your eyes, all you wanna do is touch your eyes. Don't do it. It tastes very warm for me. It's a little spicy, also a little bit cheesy. It's very comforting. It makes you feel very warm inside. This dish is very common for Bataan. Each family would have its own special way of making it. You can make it different ways every time you make it. And because of that, it can be found differently all over Bataan, and I think it's such a beautiful thing. This recipe is a real who's who and what's what of cooking terminology, because we have slit the green chili, slice the onion, chop the garlic, and dice the tomatoes. So you kind of need to know the difference between all of those, and I do. Everyone eats this. It's a national dish of Bataan. You can make it any time, and that's why I think it's so beautiful. That's why I have so many good memories for me, because as someone who's living away from home right now, I can make it any time I feel homesick. And then you can use any type of chili in this dish. You can use dried red chilies, whole green chilies. I don't know. I probably shouldn't use my hands for this, but too late. Or you can even use small red chilies that are known to be a little bit spicier. And depending on the type of chilies you use, it can be from not very spicy to really spicy. For example, if you use a small green chilies, or as you call it, jiji emma back home, which literally means rat chili, it would be really spicy. But if you use something like whole green chilies, or it's a little bit milder in taste, it won't be as spicy. But depending on the type of chili, I could say it could range anywhere from about four to nine or 10 total spiciness. Chilies are a big part of my culture. Back home, you can find chilies in almost every dish. To combat spice in my culture, like I said, we have to eat it with rice. And when I say without rice, it's a crime. At least in my family, we do eat a lot of yogurt. I think that really helps. But other than that, I think we just got really used to the spice, I would say. People should try it, because I think it's something new. I think it's very unique to my culture, at least. And I think it's so simple, yet so tasty. And I think the fact that anyone can have access to the ingredients to make it is so beautiful. I'm a little nervous. I've just never like jalapenoed to the face, you know? This is, okay. But it's like cheesy. I'm just, I'm not gonna eat like a full slice of jalapeno. Let's be real. That's so good. It's like a jalapeno popper soup. It's spicy. Like there's definitely heat in this, but the Amul cheese with the spicy jalapeno, bro. I'm loving this. I am absolutely loving this. And to think like five seconds ago, I was so scared to eat this, which honestly might be one of my new favorite foods. This is so good. That green chili that I split up completely disintegrated into this. Like I thought, I was like, oh, it's just there for flavor and you pull it out, but no, it's gone. 10, I mean, 10 out of 10. Budahan. This will be a really interesting episode to see how my spice tolerance has changed since I even like started this show. So I'm not sure, like, is this not that spicy or have I just like grown accustomed to spice? Like this whole jalapeno going in, that's great. Will you taste it and see if you think it's really spicy? I just, I'm curious. I mean, it's spicy. Do you want some yogurt? No, I'm actually fine. I think. I guess this is spicy, but honestly, if you're somebody who likes spice, I think like this is a treat. Pende was not lying. This was so quick to make. As long as you can find a jalapeno, all you need is like a melty kind of salty cheese. The Amul cheese that I used, I found at the Indian grocery store. You can also find it in a lot of Middle Eastern markets. You could use a Kraft white cheddar cheese. That would be very similar. What a way to start the episode. I now feel like so ready for this, but I feel like I'm also going to get put in my place, so. Hi Biral, I'm Rachel Maithili from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. And today I want to talk about a dish from the Chettinad part of Tamil Nadu called Molaga Mandi. My husband is from Karekudi and I learned this dish from my mother-in-law, who is a passionate cook herself. Melaga means green chili and mandi means rice water. These two are the two main stars of the dish. It is a tamarind-based curry that goes exceptionally well with rice. Tamarind-based dishes are quite common in Tamil Nadu because they prohibit the growth of bacteria in food for a longer time, allowing you to enjoy the dish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'm confused because it's not saying how to like chop the shallots and garlic and chilies. You don't. Oh my God. This is all just going in whole. India did not come to play. They came to win. Look at this. Oh my God. Just whole. I understand if you feel startled at how this dish requires 20 chilies. However, this dish is not that spicy at all. It brings out the flavors of green chili beautifully and the tamarind mellows down the heat of the dish. The key is to roast the green chili until the outer skin becomes light brown. God, help us all. And this is the meal right here. These three babies. In fact, this step helps reduce the heat and enhances the flavor of the dish. We have to peel the tomato and I learned the hard way through internet comments that you don't use a peeler. So we're just gonna cut a hatch and boil it. And that's how you peel a tomato. I love malaga mandi because it is easy to make and requires few ingredients. It also has a earthy flavor and it reminds me of home. Malaga mandi is not that known to those outside the Chettinad region and its neighboring cities, but it is an ancient and traditional recipe. India contributes to 43% of the world's chili production and exports 1.9 million tons every year, making us the largest producer of chilies in the world. I enjoy this dish with a bowl of hot rice every time I was at my in-laws' place. It never disappoints me. The chili we use in this dish is the Serrano peppers. On a scale of one to 10, one being mild and 10 being too hot, I'd rate the spice level of this dish a six. As a Tamilian, I cannot imagine cooking a dish without green chili. Sometimes it's for the heat, but most of the time it is to enhance the overall flavor of a meal. I have a box of green chilies in my fridge all the time, ready to be used in whatever dish I'm cooking. While malaga mandi is not hot, should you feel the heat, just add rice to a plate, add a ladle of malaga mandi, and add a dollop of ghee on top of it. Mix them all together and enjoy. Chilies are the star of this dish. Without them, you'd still have a Tamilian curry, but without the chilies, it's no good. This is wild. This is a wild recipe. What am I making? I think I burnt the seeds a little bit, but that'll just give me another flavor other than absolute spice. It is important not to skim the quantity of green chilies. Oh! Ah! Oh my God. Oh, this looks pretty though. Wow. Oh my God. There's so much chili in there. I need a fan. Oh my God. When you are cooking this dish, open a window, turn on a fan. Oh my God. I recommend all of you to try this dish because Indian cuisine isn't just about butter chicken, paneer tikka masala, dosas, rotis, or biryanis. We have a rich and diverse culture that dates back to 11,000 years. I hope you all get to experience the scintillating flavors of Chettinad and Tamil cuisine with this Melaka Mandi. Thank you. Like, this is intimidating. I'm intimidating. I, oof. Okay. Let's take like a smaller piece of the chili. This is also a full clove of garlic. Who wants to make out after? Okay. Hot. I will say that the tamarind with the heat is actually really nice. There's like a sweet, sour, earthy balance. The shallot is super soft, has a little bit of sweetness, and the thickness of the gravy just kind of coats everything in this silky, sour, sweet flavor. I'm gonna go for a garlic clove. Oh my God, it's so soft. It's so delicious and creamy and has like a buttery texture to it. This dish is hot. It is a hot, hot, hot. Eating that chili is hot. Oh my God. I'm sweating. Yes, this is spicy. But there's also a lot of things going on to counteract it. So like, my mouth is definitely tingling and you're getting that like burn of heat, but this tamarind sauce is doing a lot to counteract it. The ghee and the warm rice are also doing a lot. The rice water that you soak the tamarind in, you can either use rice water or you can just mix rice flour in with water, which is what I did for like the instant version. I learned about that online. Cooking this definitely had an effect on us in the kitchen. Like when everything was being fried, everything was fine. But then once the liquid started going in and releasing like all of the oils from everything, it became so hard to breathe in that kitchen. Sister. Literally, my ears are ringing and popping. Like what just happened in here? Definitely have a window open, have a fan going. Like I was coughing. I needed a moment. It was a lot. At the end of the day, this is definitely a chili dish. Like everything feels like it's alive. It's still within the realms for me of enjoyable. And that's just super cool because when you can enjoy the flavor of spice and not just feel overwhelmed by it, it opens up a lot of cuisines and cultures around the world. Look at me just eating chilies. Who is she? Sawadee. My name is Good. I'm from Phnom Penh province, Laos. I moved to Vientiane capital in 2004. Hi, my name is Bella. I'm originally from Germany, but I came to Laos for the first time in 2016 and moved here permanently earlier this year. The dish we want to talk about is Jiao Bong. Lao people love on beef. Jiao Bong is one kind of beef that very popular in Laos. Jiao mean beef, Bong mean pickle. Jiao Bong is simple, but it packs a punch. And you will find different varieties across Laos. Generally, it always has a few key ingredients, which are sun-dried chilies, garlic, and shallots. What makes it special in Xieng Khuong, where Good is from, is water buffalo skin, dried, and pickled bamboo. I like Jiao Bong because it's simple. It's spicy, salty, and perfect with the sticky rice and vegetable. It's so versatile. You can really add it to whatever dish that you're making, and it will elevate it right away. I have two types of chilies. I have, like, a dried Thai red chili and then a guajillo chili. These, I think, are spicier than these, but they're both obviously full of seeds. I'm gonna empty out some seeds so that the chili paste is not, like, so spicy, but we're obviously gonna leave some in. But just a few are gonna go to the compost bin. Sharing food is an important part of Lao culture, and whether it's for a simple office lunch or for a special occasion, you'll always find big portions of sticky rice, big portions of meat, and a large portion of Jiao Bong that pairs perfectly with that. So everyone knows what Jiao Bong is. My brother loves it so much. He will skip any lunch and go with sticky rice and Jiao Bong. I feel like I need to psych myself up for this because it is going to become really hard to breathe in here. I'm intimidated. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I can do it. I gotta get the fan going. Okay. Fan. Okay. We're gonna start with the ginger. This dish remind me about my grandma. She loved to cook it a lot for the grandchild during the Second Indochina War. She and her family went to hiding in the cave during the bombing. This is why they eat Jiao Bong almost every day because it's a simple ingredient to cook and make it, and it lasts long. You can either use Thai dried chili peppers, the long ones or the short ones, or you can use Guajillo peppers or another large pepper variety if you like it a bit milder. That's the beauty of Jiao Bong. You can make it totally yours as you like. Thai red chili peppers are hot. On a scale of one to 10 of how we would rate it, it would probably be six or seven. Oh, God. Fan. I'm breathing through a wet towel. Oh, these are almost ready. Oh my God, thank God this was quick. Oh my God. Okay. But you might not want to trust us because we like our food spicy. We've grown up with spicy food, or at least good has. So it might be a bit spicier for you. Every single dish we do chili is significant in Lao cuisine so that's why the most family brought chili at their house, including my family as well. Oh my God, my poor plant got so burned from all of that frying. Oh, baby. To cool down the spiciness of the dish, we pair it with rice, vegetable, long bean, cucumber. It was just really annoying up on the counter. I have better leverage down here. Look, it's perfect now. Cooking on the floor. You think I'm professional but you probably don't think I'm professional. In Laos, jia bong is a dipping sauce or a condiment. It's super versatile, you can really add it to anything. Our favorite way to eat it is with sticky rice. You simply grab the sticky rice in between your fingers, make it into a small bowl, dip it in the sauce and enjoy. Everyone always talks about Thai food, about Vietnamese food, but they forget about their small landlocked neighbor. Lao food deserves more attention. Lao cuisine has many offers and favorites. Sweet, salty, spicy, and it is all delicious. If you like spicy food, jia bong is for you. It has a lovely and strong heat and it'll add a great kick to all of your meals. Come eat with us. This little paste pretty much killed me while making it. You need like a hazmat suit when you're doing this. Like I felt the burn deep within parts of my body that I never even knew existed. Like my bones were rattling. Oh my God, it burns, it burns. Okay, we need to leave this room for a bit. And I'm not even being dramatic about this, only a little dramatic. I think I'm nervous because I think this one is gonna be really hot and like I'm just having it with rice. Maybe a little more rice. I need an adult. I need yogurt. I need more rice. Holy, that is hot. I'm calling this one like a eight or a nine out of 10. Like I'm talking through this, so maybe I'd have to call it an eight out of 10. There is definitely smokiness in this, which is great. Like there's a little bit of flavor that I'm getting. It's good to start. Like right now I'm like, I'm getting like some sweetness from the palm sugar. I'm getting the smokiness. I'm getting things. And then once you swallow it, hell breaks loose in your body. Oh, mom, I want my mom. Rice is not doing what it's meant to do right now. Oh God, here it goes. Some yogurt here. If you are somebody who really likes hot, spicy things, like I'm thinking about my friend, Lisa. I'm gonna tag her in this video. Like I do acknowledge that there are good flavors in this, like for sure. And I'm gonna figure out a way to use it. But for me, maybe it's just like not with only rice. Maybe it needs to be used with a few other things. I'm gonna need ice pops tonight. Hi, my name is James. I currently live in New York City in America, but I was originally born in South Korea. So the dish that I wanna talk to you about today is Dubu Jorim, so-called braised tofu in English. What I love about this dish is that it has that like super savory, spicy braising sauce, but the tofu absorb all the deliciousness and it gets slightly crispy on the pan. And it's just a perfect thing to eat with a side of rice. It really gives you a different perspective of what tofu dishes can be. It's so delightfully spicy because of all the different pepper flakes and pepper paste, but it's just right amount of spice. And when you're eating it with a warm bed of rice, you're just in heaven. One of the main ingredients for Dubu Jorim is chili crisp. I'm really hoping today that making this chili crisp is not gonna be a repeat of Laos and India, actually. I'm hoping it's just gonna be a lot calmer. This smells so good, but the chilies are up next. Let's see. There are multiple chili products are used into this dish. One is Gochugaru, which is Korean red pepper flakes. That's not super spicy, it's a little bit fruity. The second are Sichuan pepper flakes because chili crisp is originally a Chinese condiment. And the last chili pepper flakes I use is Aleppo pepper. Aleppo pepper is a type of a Middle Eastern spice. My God, there's so much going into this. Holy smokes. I think the blend of these three create a perfect balance of a heat and a flavor and the color as well. Oh my God. Woo! Oh no, oh boy. Yeah! The other chili products that I use in Dubu Jorim is Gochujang. So Gochujang is a fermented spicy paste. So that definitely adds a little bit of the earthy fermented taste to this dish. That's so delightful. This dish is not super spicy at all. I will say it's somewhere between three. As a part of Korean culture, we use a lot of chili pepper flakes on chili pepper paste. Anything that you see spicy in Korean cuisine uses either or both. Whenever I use those products into different cooking, it instantly makes it taste Korean to me. I think to me, this feels like a part of the home cooking more than anything. I never thought that chili crisp would mean so much to me. And chili crisp was just a perfect tool for me to express myself and share my story as a Korean immigrant here. Now we wait. And this is also very, very important to serve with rice. You can eat it as it is, but just when you are letting the sauce of the tofu soak into that rice and you mix, you crumble a little bit of the tofu with rice to create the perfect bite of heaven. I think a lot of people should try this dish because it's so simple yet so flavorful. And if you've never had a tofu dish that you fell in love, I think this will be the one. I have never made my own chili crisp before. And like, that was invigorating and not painful, which is the best thing of them all. This tofu dish is like, oh, it looks really good. I did a whole tofu episode, but this like seems extravagant. Excuse me. This dish is making me feel things, like really good things. It's definitely spicy. I don't think it's too spicy. Although the sejuan tingly numbing effect that kind of makes your mouth feel alive or dead, depending on how you process that feeling. The tofu is so flavorful. My God, I didn't know that tofu could do this type of stuff. Naughty. Chili crisp is obviously having a moment. I love how this is like the confluence of different cultures on this one plate. And I feel like I've never really cooked with chili crisp. I've always just like put a little bit on top to add a little bit of spice and crunch. Using it in the recipe like this, like I feel like it's just opened up a lot of doors. And not to like plug it, but you know, like James did it. And like this cookbook is amazing and just really fun. Buy his cookbook. Oh God, I can't even, I'm not good at Vanna Whiting. Wait, how do you? There are tons of really amazing recipes. I'm obviously gonna leave a link in the description to where you can get his cookbook. So if you are somebody who likes tofu, ha ha, but like you can also do this type of recipe with chicken and that would be amazing. I'm like really impressed. And I have, let me show you how much chili crisp I have. My immediate family is only getting chili crisp for Christmas now. Love this dish. Loved it. Just loved it. Hi Beryl. My name is Jessica. And my name is Emily. And we live in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The dish I want to talk to you about today is called poblano pasta. Poblano pasta is a simple yet very tasty dish. I haven't done this since the eggplant episode. And I'm hoping that I have better success in roasting this than I did with some of the eggplants. The star of this dish is definitely the roasted poblano peppers. It's blistering. Nobody usually says it's blistering with glee, but in this case, it's warranted. That you blend in with Mexican crema, chicken bouillon to form this beautiful green creamy sauce that will then go over your pasta. The flavor of this dish is smoky because of the roasted poblano peppers. It's so crazy. I feel like this looks like dragon skin, although I have been reading a lot of books about dragons lately, so something's on my mind, clearly. Is that dragon skin? I don't know. Just feel like it is. And can be spicy depending on how many peppers you put in it. This is a popular Mexican dish for special celebrations such as birthdays, graduation parties, Christmas, New Year's, or simply just family get-togethers. I remember the first time I tried this dish was at a Christmas party. I think it needs like, I don't think it's like smooth enough yet. With my then boyfriend, now husband's family, and his mom made it for us. And ever since then, it's been a staple at my house. I think people should try this dish because it is an easy Mexican dish to make, but a very delicious one nonetheless. I hope you enjoy it and buen provecho. Adios. After this, I would say that I've mastered the art of roasting things on my stovetop. I don't feel like I've eaten too many poblanos in my life. Mm, whoa. That's like creamy and comforting, kind of like a spicy pesto vibe, but maybe that's just because it's green. It definitely doesn't taste like pesto. Of all the recipes that I made, this one was definitely the fastest. And I feel like thinking about the fact that it's a homemade sauce for a pasta, it's taking what can be like a really easy meal to cook for like yourself or your family, but then like having a homemade sauce to it, that's like, it's nice. It elevates that a little bit. Spice level, I think this might be the mildest of them all, but there's a little, there's like a little something in here, you know? If you can't find the crema that Jessica recommended, you can use Greek yogurt in this, and that will get you like pretty much there. It's just there to add like creaminess and like a little bit of tanginess. This episode was super fun to make. I'm just gonna quickly go through the five dishes and give you a ranking of spice level from the most mild to the spiciest. So the most mild I would say is the Mexican poblano pasta. One step up from that is gonna be the chili crisp that I had in the braised tofu. A step up from that is the emudashi from Bhutan. Then we're gonna have the Indian dish and like obviously the spiciest to me was the Laotian chili paste because I'm still recovering. All of the recipes are linked in my description. They are all on my website along with tons of other recipes from the show that you should definitely check out. Until next week, here are two more episodes from our show to fit the theme if you've never seen them, garlic and ice cream that might help you out with all the spicy foods that we ate today. I will see you all next week.