After 80+ Countries, A White Man Attempts To Give Spice Advice

Scooters wizzing by, foggy brain overcome with jet lag , slumped on a plastic stool. A bowl of steaming noodles is plopped down in front of me. Bangkok, 7:30am, fresh from the airport. I reach for the dry chili….

These are the moments that you begin to realize spice in cooking is more than HOT or SPICY it’s a legitimate building block in the pyramid of an eating experience.

I grew up in Canada, my grandfather considered ketchup spicy. In most of South East Asia, it’s not uncommon to have multiple condiments available to add heat to your dish. From pungent, fragrant chili paste, to dry varietals to smoked, crimson chilli oil that feels like it’s been on a table for a century.

What I have done is taken my weak Anglo-Saxon palate and bumped around 80+ countries so I have tried to distill some of that knowledge into deploying heat at home. Hope you learn something.

1. SPICE IS NOT JUST USED TO MAKE FOOD HOT — A dash of tobasco in caesar dressing or a split chilli melted into a stewed lentils give dishes a more round, “full” flavour. Even if people say “I hate spicy food” they will often enjoy a dish that had a “touch of spice”, much like the phenomenon of adding a little anchovy to a tomato sauce resulting in a more delicious, not fishy, end product.
2. When in doubt, give people the option — I had a work assignment that drove me into a cave of making over 50 filipino vlogs at various Tri-State Filipino lunch counters (nothing else would get views). During this unexpected jaunt into adobo and bicol express I learned it is not uncommon for there to be 7–10 condiments on the table for diners to edit their meals. This is THE BEST way to offer spice when cooking for a dinner crowd. A little homemade chili oil, a side dish of sriracha, hell just toss a couple bottles of local or foreign hot sauce on the table and let people have at it.
3. Study how spice is used — Go eat at Szechuan restaurants, Senegalese or West African restaurants, taste how aji chilies are used in ceviche and mulato and guajillo are combined into the complex moles of Oaxaca. Somewhere in or around your town there is an immigrant family who’ve opened a restaurant doing a darn good version of their homeland’s food, be adventurous and eat there and ask questions.
4. Experiment — Go online and order Aleppo Pepper, Long Pepper, Tellicherry Pepper, Pink Peppercorns, there are endless substitutes for something as simple as black pepper. The more you dust a little on eggs or an avocado or some roast vegetables, the more you’ll feel comfortable using it in more complex dishes.
5. WITH SOUPS AND STEWS, ADD A LITTLE SPICE AND WAIT 30 MINUTES — It’s hard to rewind spice and you can always crank it up at the table (see point 2), often spice takes time to permeate a dish, be cautious, unless you want to just ride or die.

Nicely spiced food, a gentle warmth, a comforting tingle does not mean you need to be balling your eyes out like a hapless celebrity on Hot Ones. Adding capsaicin (science!) can be as important to making food taste delicious as salt, sweet, sour, umami or any of the other big guns of flavor building.

I could list 25 points but enough talking, I want to know what YOUR favorite way to add spice / heat / warmth to a dish is?

PS: If you found this helpful, you may enjoy our online cooking school because you’ll learn about balancing spice.