What Is This?

Non-regional discussions Home Cooking
1

I have an attraction to the canned foods, sauce packets, condiments, and spices of foreign lands. Then I put them away in their proper cupboard, only to come across them months later, wondering, wth is this? It looks tasty.

Also fruit or vegetables I find at farmers’ markets and ethnic grocery stores.

Please post any mysterious items you need help identifying and/or using.

I’ll start with this:

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Chili flakes, product of PRC, which sounds pretty awesome. But are these something I can use to make chili oil?

2

That is the dry Korean Chile Gochugaru, mildly hot it is used as a seasoning, it can be fine or coarse. If the seeds are in the mix it can get quite hot. You can buy it as a fermented paste in a red tub, Gochujang. heat can vary. Use it in a lot of things such as Korean Fried Chicken

1 Like
3

Are you sure that’s the same stuff? Looks different than the Korean pepper flakes I have.

4

It comes in different grinds and can vary with the grind and in color like if the seeds are included.

5

Does it sometimes come from China? The hot pepper I’ve bought at Korean stores was all imported from Korea.

6

That I do not know. We buy at a Korea grocery. I’ve not looked to see. Here in Savannah I feel lucky to get what I can. When we were i Blooington, In we were spoiled. We had the absolute best Asian food options in the Midwest South of Chicago. Even the mall food court had authentic Chinese food. We didn’t know how blessed we were. There is huge numbe of Asian students at IU for Business and Music. If they can’t get the food they want they have opened small restaurants and imported chefs.

7

Yeah, Savannah’s not a real hotbed of diversity :slight_smile:

8

I think Chinese pepper flakes might be spicier and more bitter than Korean.

10

Yes, as noted in the opening post.