“What could be more Indian than chilies?” This was a question asked by The New York Times in a book review of Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors by Lizzie Collingham. If it weren’t for the rhetoric nature of the question, I’d probably answer by saying that there aren’t too many things more Indian than chilies. When you actually get down to think about it, they (chillies) are everywhere — from being used as evil eyes on door frames and dangling from trucks, with the quintessential lemon to go with it, to being used as innuendos to objectify women in Bollywood songs (think Hai hai mirchi! Uff uff mirchi!) and of course, in our culinary endeavors. Chillies are quite the fixture in Indian culture.
Using chillies to ward off evil or cat-call women seems a lot more cumbersome than doing the obvious thing — making hot sauce. “We’ve neglected the chilli,” says Nijagunadev Gaddagimath, the managing director and founder of Sarpan Hybrid Seeds in Dharwad, Karnataka, in an interview with The Daily Pao. And I agree. It’s time to move past the Tobascos and Srirachas and indulge in some nose-dripping, eye-watering goodness closer to home.
This love affair first began in the 15th century when the Portuguese introduced chillies to Indian soil and the rest is pretty much history. Fast forward to today, India holds the reputation for being the world’s largest exporter, producer and consumer of chilli, and grows 36 percent of the entire global supply.
Keeping these statistics in mind along with India’s undying obsession with all things flavourful and spicy, we at Homegrown have curated a list of hot sauces made from indigenous varieties of chilli to add to your list of ‘Indian Things You Can Brag About’.
I. Mafia Chef
“He is a sriracha and hot sauce addict and is the creator of the first Indian sriracha amongst several exotic creations,” reads Mafia Chef’s website while describing the man behind the venture — Devansh Jhaveri. Having lived in Los Angeles for close to a decade, Jhaveri moved back to India and found that the place in his heart reserved for sriracha sauce was now nothing but a gaping hole. Determined to get over this loss, Jhaveri decided to put his culinary skills into play and created the first ever Indian sriracha. Apart from sriracha, Mafia Chef has sauces such as Sambal Olek, Peri Peri and Bhut Jolokia to pick from.
Visit Mafia Chef’s website for more information.
Manjusha Barua’s brainchild, East by North East (ENE) offers a range of three hot sauces to choose from — a sweet version, a regular version and an extra hot version. All three sauces are made with different proportions of ENE’s Bhut Jolokia sauce. Bhut Jolokia also known as ghost pepper is not for the faint hearted. Cultivated in North East India, in 2007 it was certified as the world’s hottest chilli-pepper by the Guinness Book of World Records.
You can find all products by East by North East on their website.
III. Pico Sauces
Pico’s Bhut Jolokia Hot Sauce was one of the first locally manufactured hot sauces to enter the Indian market. Chef Nicole Gonsalves, the head of product design at Pico, experimented for nine months and developed 30 different preperations before green lighting what is now Pico’s Bhut Jolokia hot sauce. Pico is definitely making a mark with its signature sauces and its funky bottle art.
Visit the Pico website to view their other products.
IV. Sprig
From the fiery Bhut Jolokia to innovative concoctions of ingridients like mango, jalapeno and passion fruit, Sprig’s hot sauces add a new experimental dimension to India’s hot sauce market. The slender bottles are deceptive and you don’t expect the kick that follows right after, Sprig’s hot sauces need a place on your dinner table if they already don’t.
Visit Sprig’s website to view and purchase their range of hot sauces and other products.
Don’t go by the sauce’s humble appearance, Delectables Fiery Chilli Sauce’s hit is brutal and might need more than a couple of generous servings of yogurt to extinguish the fire in your mouth. An added bonus is the fact that the sauce has absolutely no preservatives.
You can order this sauce off of Scootsy.
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