the worlds best spicy foods

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CONTENTS

Caribbean Curry Goat
Caribbean

Crab with Kampot Pepper
Cambodia

Fish Head Curry
Singapore & Malaysia

Mirchi ka Pakoda
India & Pakistan

Nasi Lemak Malaysia &
Singapore

Otak-Otak Singapore, Malaysia &
Indonesia

Pepperpot Guyana
& Caribbean

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Pickled Herring in
Mustard Sauce Norway

Rendang Daging Malaysia &
Indonesia

Samak Harrah Lebanon, Syria
& Jordan

Singapore Noodles
Everywhere but Singapore!

Lime Pickle India, Pakistan &
Bangladesh

Sambal Ulek Malaysia &
Indonesia

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INTRODUCTION

BY Tom Parker Bowles

It started with a drop, beguilingly red and devilishly
scented, poured from a small, elegant bottle onto the
back of my hand.

Go on, try it, my sister implored, her eyes glittering
with glee. All the grown ups drink the stuff. How
dangerous can it be? So I closed my eyes tight, and
plunged my tongue into the unknown. The first taste
was sharp but not unpleasant, like the vinegar that we
splashed on our chips. I smiled, and sighed with relief.
Much ado about nothing. And then it hit, a fierce,
brutally burning sensation that started in my mouth

before spreading, like a raging forest fire, across my
lips and down into my throat.

My eyes brimmed with tears. I tried to scream but to
no avail. Id never felt pain like this. It was worse than
stinging nettles and grazed knees and the slap of a
cold football on rain-drenched flesh. I fell to the floor,
clutching my belly, convinced that this damned liquid
was noxious poison, the killer of small boys.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the agony abated.
I opened my eyes and looked about. The light seemed
brighter, every colour more vivid. Sure, my tongue still
throbbed and my lips smarted. But my whole body was
enveloped in a warm glow. My sister was sheet-white
and trembling, convinced she was the architect of her
brothers demise. I, though, was in love. One drop of
Tabasco sauce, and Ive never looked back since.

Soon, I was splashing this beautiful Louisiana hot
sauce over everything that was put before me, from
toast and egg to steak and shepherds pie. And this
was just the start: Tabasco was the gateway drug of
an addiction that would take over my life. Curries
followed, each more potent than the next, madras
first, then the great leap to vindaloo. I began to cook
with chillies, moving quickly from dull long green
things to the fruity insanity of the Scotch bonnet.
Before long, I was a subscriber to Chile Pepper
magazine, scouring the streets for my next spicy hit.

Visits to Thailand followed, som toms with enough
birds-eye punch to floor a rampaging bull elephant,
let alone a rather pasty Brit. Tom yam gungs, fragrant
with heat and fish sauce, nam phrik pla flowing like
monsoon-bloated rivers. I just couldnt get enough: it
was pain, sure, but exquisite pleasure too. There were
dhals eaten in India at roadside shops, little more than
ten pence a portion, but thick with great lengths of

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dried Kashmiri chilli. And Indonesian sambals, in every
hue and pong.

I visited hot-sauce shows in Albuquerque, New
Mexico: entire conference centres devoted to fiery
foods. And fell in love with the chile con carne of Texas,
plus the entire cuisine of Mexico, from birrias and
ceviches to tortillas and tostadas. I huffed and puffed
my way through incendiary, but impossibly crisp, hot
chicken at Princes in Nashville, Tennessee, breakfast
burritos smothered with green chile in Santa Fe, New
Mexico. And bought Caribbean hot sauces bottled in
old Lucozade bottles from roadside stalls in Antigua.
Then theres kimchi in Korea, harissa-spiked couscous,
Sichuan chilli hotpots and everything in between.

I love the chilli more than any other fruit, pretty
much more than any ingredient there is. Its not all
about heat, rather, huge complexities of flavour and
texture and joy. The smoky heft of a chipotle chilli, the
verdant tang of a fresh jalapeno. But the reason why
the chilli pepper is so damned addictive lies in its active
ingredient, capsaicin, a nasty little irritant alkaloid. The
hotter the chilli, the more of this chemical it contains,
hitting the taste buds hard, sending them reeling in
pain. So the body reacts, and sends in the Special
Forces (better known as endorphins). Thats why the
agony is followed by that blissful state of dreamy joy.
As these endorphins flood the system, putting out the
fires, we experience a truly natural high.

But this book is not about chillies alone, rather spicy
food in its every guise. The pungent, nose-clearing
honk of wasabi, mustard and horseradish; peppers pep
(black, white, pink and Sichuan) and paprikas punch;
the warming allure of cinnamon and mace, the bracing
crunch of piccalilli. These are dishes to make the taste
buds punch the air with elation, flavours that kickstart
the palate and infuse every sense with joy.

As youd expect, there are a huge number of dishes
from Thailand, India and Mexico, the three great
chilli cuisines, alongside Sichuan Chinese and Korean
too. But we also feast upon herrings from Norway,

Turkish kebabs, Czech sausages and African chicken.
Trindadian souse sits alongside Hungarian goulash,
katsu curry shares space with Spanish grilled peppers.
This book is a celebration of spiciness in every form:
ingredients that turn the bland to the brilliant, the
dreary into the divine.

And, like all food, its the finest way to experience
any foreign culture. Forget the funereal silence and
air-conditioned gloom of those insipid international