The Sriracha Debacle

Last semester, I wrote a story on the legal issues between the city of Irwindale, California and Huy Hong Foods, Inc. According to the LA Times, the hot sauce factory is now offering free tours so that Sriracha fans can smell the notorious chile fumes themselves. Here is the story I wrote last December.

From Sriracha vodka, to Sriracha lollipops, to Sriracha doughnuts and Sriracha burgers, it is safe to say that the foodie world has found its new trend. Although the bright crimson sauce already had a cult following, it was nothing compared to the hype Sriracha has received over the last two months.

            After a lawsuit, threats of closure and a safety recall that will cause shipment delays, Huy Fong Foods, Inc. has received enough publicity to inspire mass hysteria amongst Sriracha lovers and eateries. This inevitably leads to social media trends—in this case, #Srirachapocolypse on Twitter.

            “I think the lawsuit has made Sriracha more popular than ever,” said Los Angeles Times columnist Robin Abcarian. “Both because of the publicity but also because people are worried there could be a shortage if the factory has to close down for a while.”

            Based in Rosemead, Huy Fong Foods (the company that produces the green-capped, rooster-embossed bottled product synonymous with Sriracha) was sued by the city of Irwindale on October 28, just a day after the first-ever Sriracha Festival in downtown Los Angeles.

            Residents of Irwindale had been complaining that the fumes emitted by the neighboring factory were a public nuisance, causing burning eyes and throats, headaches and, in some cases, heartburn. The city requested a restraining order that would have immediately stopped production at Huy Fong Foods, but Judge Robert O’Brien denied the request, calling it “edgy” and “radical.”

            “We recognize that not 100% of people are annoyed by this,” said June Ailin, an attorney representing Irwindale, in an interview with the LA Times. “But it’s annoying to enough people. It’s a seasonal issue, but when it’s going on, it’s quite intense.”

            Huy Fong Foods processes the chilies used to make Sriracha for only three months out of the year. They were in the middle of a harvesting cycle at the time of the complaint. Huy Fong Foods representative John R. Tate told the Times that a shut down would ruin the delicate harvesting and processing cycle, as well as financially harm the company.

            By the time of the court hearing at the end of November, Judge O’Brien ordered a partial shut down of the company in order to stop any operations that may be the cause of the offensive odors. Huy Hong Foods had already completed their chili processing, so it seemed the mixing and bottling of the sauce could continue. This, however, still leaves the fate of 2014’s batch of Sriracha in question.

            “I would like to see the factory stay open and residents to calm down. It’s not as bad as people are making it out to be, people are just being petty,” said Cal State Fullerton student and Irwindale resident Alexandria Hernandez in an email. “Besides, the city is making so much money from the taxes from the establishment and we are trying to get out of debt, so if people are worried about the well being of the city, they need to just stop complaining.”

And the Sriracha hype began.

            A single packet of Sriracha described as the “last packed of Sriracha ever made” was posted on EBay for $10,000, news of Lollyphile’s Sriracha-bacon lollipop circulated, UV Vodka came out with a Sriracha-flavored vodka and gourmet burger chain Slater’s 50/50 created a Sriracha burger.

            “I am not totally sure why the stuff is so popular, but I think it has to do with the fact that it's pretty inexpensive and is so good,” Abcarian said. “It combines sweet and hot with a kind of smokiness that comes from the roasted chilies. A lot of other hot sauces are just hot and vinegary—like Tabasco.”

            So I chose what I thought to be the most appealing foodie gimmick and stopped by Slater’s in Lake Forest to try the Sriracha burger for myself. Toted as a collaboration between Huy Hong Foods and Slater’s, the burger features a Sriracha-seasoned 50/50 patty (which consists of equal amounts of bacon and beef). The Sriracha burger also includes Sriracha-sautéed mushrooms, slices of Sriracha-glazed bacon, Sriracha-garlic coleslaw, Sriracha mayonnaise and more Sriracha drizzled over it all. The burger is rounded out with pepper jack cheese and grilled onions. It also comes with two packets of Sriracha on the side—and no, I did not have to pay $10,000 for them.

            My Sriracha burger arrived glowing a deep red-orange on my plate. I was warned that the addition of bacon in the patty lends the meat a pinkish hue, no matter how it was cooked. The Sriracha-infused mushrooms, bacon and Napa cabbage coleslaw were delicious in and of themselves. And it was spicy, but not excessively so—although, I did not feel the need to add extra Sriracha to my burger. It was also slightly smoky and sweet, due to a honey glaze on the bacon. At $10.95, it is definitely worth a try if you are a Sriracha fiend.

            “The owner…loves supporting different causes,” said manager Jody Rezner. “He thought it would be a great way to support the company.”

            When asked what would happen if they ran out of the hot sauce, Rezner did not seem worried—each Slater’s 50/50 location has ordered a four-month’s supply of Sriracha. I asked kitchen manager Julissa Esquivel the same question, and she too, was not fazed.

            “We have other sources to get the [Sriracha],” Esquivel said.

            This was an appeasing thought, as the latest update on the Huy Fong Foods lawsuit was an order by the California Department of Public Health to stop all shipments of their Sriracha to food distributors for a month. This means that the grocery store shelf that normally holds a row of Sriracha bottles may be bare until mid-January.

Anita Gore, a health department spokeswoman, told the Associated Press that the order is necessary to “ensure an effective treatment of microorganisms present in the product.”

“I always appreciate concern for people’s safety, but at what point does it become overbearing?” Randy Clemens, author of The Sriracha Cookbook, said to The Christian Science Monitor. “The timing is rather strange, and it does seem crippling, the way this thriving business that’s been going for 33 years can be more or less shut down and have its brand damaged.”

But as of now, it does not seem that Huy Fong Foods has to worry about a ruined image. On the night before the California Department of Public Health mandated a hold on further hot sauce shipments, indie filmmaker Griffin Hammond released a 33-minute documentary online about the origins of Sriracha as well as an inside look at Huy Hong Foods. Featuring plenty of testimonials from the crazed Sriracha cult, it is apparent that the company has plenty of supporters.

“I think the recent legal troubles have shined an increasingly bright light on the Huy Fong Foods version of the sauce,” said LA Times writer Jenn Harris in an email. “But…I don't think people's love for Sriracha will fizzle any time soon. There are people who put it on everything and will continue to do so after the legal troubles have been resolved.”

So what can we do as we witness the fluorescent red and green bottles slowly disappear from store shelves over the next few weeks? As Esquivel said, we have other sources of Sriracha—which made me realize: the extra packets of hot sauce I received with my burger at Slater’s did not come from Huy Fong Foods at all. And neither did the $10,000 packet of Sriracha on EBay. In fact, Huy Fong Foods does not produce individual packets of their famous condiment. It is Spice World International Group, based in the City of Industry, that distributes the packets of Sriracha you will most likely encounter.

Naturally, I decided to conduct a taste test between Spice World International Group’s Sriracha and Huy Fong Foods’ Sriracha, which was conveniently waiting for me in my refrigerator. I found that they did not taste the same, and I have to admit that I am partial to Huy Fong’s Sriracha. But when we are facing #Srirachapocolypse, beggars cannot be choosers.

If you happen to find yourself in dire need of a Sriracha fix, your local Trader Joe’s carries their own version of the sauce for $2.99 per bottle. But if you want to try a more gourmet version, Brooklyn-based Love of JoJo, Inc. produces Jojo’s Sriracha in small, hand-made batches for $14 per jar.

And if all this talk of Sriracha has you itching to cook with the rest of your Sriracha stash, plenty of websites have a variety of recipe ideas—including sweet-and-spicy cocktail almonds, Sriracha tuna tartare, Sriracha gazpacho and Sriracha mac n’ cheese. Or take the easy route and stuff your Christmas stockings with Sriracha candy canes, because although Sriracha may be here to stay, hot sauce candy canes will hopefully be a thing of the past.  

“I don't think that Sriracha is a ‘trend,’” said Abcarian. “I kind of think it will have a permanent place in the public imagination—kind of like Spam does. I really think it's here to stay, because it's a staple of so many larders.”

           

Salted Sriracha Truffles (Yield: about 16 truffles)

Ingredients

1-1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips

3/4 c. heavy whipping cream

4 tsp. Sriracha

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

1/4 c. cocoa powder*

1. Place the chocolate chips in a heat-proof bowl and set it aside.
2. Heat the heavy whipping cream in a small sauce pot over medium-high heat until bubbles begin to form at the edges of the pot and the cream comes to simmer.
3. Immediately pour the hot cream over the chocolate chips. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit for five to seven minutes.
4. Uncover the bowl, setting the plastic wrap aside, and gently stir the chocolate chips until they have all melted and the mixture is smooth. If some nuggets of chocolate remain, put the bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds, then stir the chocolate again.
5. At this point, you have a perfectly delicious ganache that can be refrigerated as is to make truffles. But to make Salted Sriracha Truffles, mix in the kosher salt and as much Sriracha as your taste buds can handle and stir until combined. For me, this was four teaspoons of hot sauce. I did notice, however, that the flavor and heat of the Sriracha intensifies after the mixture has been refrigerated. (If you choose not to make Sriracha-flavored truffles, you could replace the hot sauce with a teaspoon of vanilla extract.)
6. Cover the bowl with the plastic wrap once more and refrigerate it for two to two and a half hours. The chocolate will be firm but still pliable.
7. Meanwhile, prepare a baking sheet with a piece of parchment or wax paper. With a small ice cream scoop or a melon baller, spoon out the hardened chocolate ganache, leaving a little bit of space between each ball of chocolate. You’ll notice that as the mixture sits at room temperature, it will begin to soften slightly. It will need to be chilled again before you can handle the chocolate with your hands, so place the baking sheet back in the refrigerator for another hour.
8. Take the baking sheet out of the refrigerator. Place the cocoa powder in a small shallow bowl. Roll each scoop of chocolate in the cocoa and then in between your hands. The goal is to have a spherical truffle, but I am a firm believer in chocolate truffles resembling their fungous counterparts, so there’s no need to strive for perfection. If you want a thicker, more monochromatic coating of cocoa, roll the truffle in the cocoa one more time. Set the truffle on wax paper or in a paper candy cup. Repeat for each truffle. If the truffles won’t be eaten immediately, store them in the refrigerator, but let them come to room temperature before devouring them.

*I used a dark chocolate blend of cocoa powder that was a combination of natural and Dutch-processed cocoa powders. It does not matter what type of cocoa powder you use to roll your truffles in, but it will affect the color of your truffles.  Dutch-processed cocoa tends to be a darker shade of brown than the standard natural cocoa powder. You can use whatever you prefer or have on hand. You can even roll half of your truffles in Dutch-processed cocoa and the other half in natural cocoa for a pretty variety of colors.

Disneyland Inspired Cupcakes

The very last news package I shot in my advanced electronic news production class was a story on the Christ Cathedral, formerly known as the Crystal Cathedral, in Garden Grove, California. My story focused on the renovations and changes the Catholic Diocese of Orange plans to make to the church in order to ready it for celebrating Mass. This happens to be the only story I did for Cal State Fullerton’s “OC News” that did not revolve around desserts…or food in any way. You can watch it here.

            It was so much fun to roam around the cathedral’s beautiful campus—and it was even more fun to have the church doors (which had recently been closed to the public) opened just for me. But there were definitely a couple of highlights.

One involved a moment of creativity and innovation on the part of my friend and videographer Frank. Essentially, technology failed us and the camera refused to record. So we took our iPhones—one nestled in my bra to record my voice over and the other to record my standup—and finished my package. Pure genius.

            The other highlight was my trip to the ladies’ bathroom. I opened the door and, I swear, I think I heard angels singing. Thanks to an anonymous donor who felt it was of the utmost importance to create a bathroom so gorgeous that its glory would rub off on the women utilizing it, I took my first bathroom selfie in the prettiest bathroom I think I have ever seen.

            At the end of the shoot, Frank and I decided to celebrate at Disneyland. I had been fighting the beginnings of a cold all day, but who says no to Disneyland? Not this girl.

            Frank and I circled the park as I looked for the exact thing my sweet tooth was craving after a long day of shooting. After much debate and internal struggle, we—well, I—settled on cake and a cup of coffee.

            After circling the park a couple more times to look for cake, we finally walked into the Plaza Inn. We picked up a tray, moseyed on over to the dessert bar…and it was way too difficult to make a decision. So I picked up two pieces of cake—red velvet and carrot—and I was more excited than I had any right to be. As we demolished the cake, Frank and I discussed whether I should post a recipe for red velvet cake or carrot cake on Rubbing Sugar. But then I had my own moment of creativity.

On each plate was a series of decorative swirls and dots in a ruby-toned red syrup and a sunny, golden yellow syrup. I had been surreptitiously rubbing each bite of my cake into those swirls and figured out that they tasted like raspberry and pineapple. I would never have thought those two flavors would be so delicious together, but they were! It was simultaneously sweet and acidic, fruity and tart. And after a bit of research, I have yet to come across the combination of raspberry and pineapple in a cake. So I got the chance to play around and tweak my own raspberry cake recipe. The pineapple frosting recipe, however, came from here.
 

I have to admit that my favorite part of making these cupcakes was swirling the raspberries into the batter. The cotton candy pink swirls of fruit against the creamy white batter was fantastically whimsical. After baking, the raspberries turn a deep, inky purple. Also, although it doesn’t show up well in my photos, I did add yellow sanding sugar on top of the frosting for a sparkly sheen. Additionally, I used fresh raspberries on top of each cupcake. I found that if they are frozen for a couple of hours before you place them on the cupcakes, they will be less fragile and easier to press into the frosting.

           

Raspberry Cupcakes with Pineapple Frosting (Yield: 12-14 cupcakes)

Raspberry Cupcakes

Ingredients

1-1/2 c. flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 c. butter, at room temperature

1 c. sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

1/4 c. milk

1/4 c. yogurt

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 c. frozen raspberries with juice, thawed and slightly mashed with a fork

1.   Preheat the oven to 350° F. Place a cupcake liner into each well of the muffin tins.
2.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. In a separate larger bowl, beat butter with a fork. Add the sugar and mix until light and fluffy. You could also do this in a stand mixer, but with the butter softened to room temperature, I like to do it by hand.
4. Crack in one egg at a time, mixing well after each addition.
5.  In a measuring cup, combine the milk, sour cream, and vanilla and whisk until smooth.
6. Add half of the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar and, switching to a rubber spatula, fold it into the butter mixture until it is just incorporated. Next, add all of the wet ingredients to the bowl, again mixing until just combined. Then stir the last of the dry ingredients into the batter. Be careful of over mixing—it will make your cupcakes tough!
7. Gently fold the raspberries and their juices into the batter. You don’t need to completely incorporate them—the pink and purple swirls of raspberry are gorgeous. 
8. Fill each wells of the muffin tin until the are three-fourths of the way full. I use an ice cream scoop to keep my cupcakes the same size. Bake 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
9. Let the cupcakes cool completely before frosting.

Pineapple Frosting

Ingredients

1 c. butter, at room temperature

1/4 tsp. salt

5 c. powdered sugar, sifted onto a sheet of parchment paper

1 (8-oz.) can crushed pineapple

1. Open the can of pineapple and strain the fruit, setting the pineapple aside as well as reserving the juice.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter on medium speed with the paddle attachment until it is smooth.  Mix in the salt.
3. With the mixer on low speed, gently pick up the sides of the parchment paper so that you can carefully funnel in the powdered sugar a little at a time. Be sure to only pour in small amounts at a times so that your kitchen (and you) doesn’t get covered in sugar.
4. Once the butter and sugar are combined, you can bring the mixer speed back to medium speed. Place five tablespoons of the crushed pineapple fruit into the bowl of the mixer, then add just enough of the pineapple juice to make the icing spreadable. This should take approximately two to three tablespoons of juice.
5. Taste for adjustments—add a pinch more salt if the frosting tastes too sweet or more fruit if you want more texture. If the frosting is too thin, you can add more powdered sugar (1/4 cup at a time until you reach the desired consistency) or place it in the refrigerator for a couple hours so that the butter has time to firm up. Before frosting the cupcakes, re-whip the icing until it is smooth.

I'm Alive (and Eating Guava Jam)!

        Let me begin by stating that I have survived.
        I survived both finals and the holidays and came out victorious - victorious because I will be graduating summa cum laude in the spring. This was my goal going into college, so all the sleepless nights and anxiety and resultant acne paid off.
        But needless to say, Christmas and New Years have been keeping me busy in the kitchen these last few weeks, so I have had more to do than stare at my computer screen until my grades came out. There were gingerbread cookies and mini cannolis and honey-coated struffoli and baby rum cakes and date-stuffed maamoul and citrus biscotti and walnut shortbread and Nutella drop cookies.
        I gave most of it away and then didn’t touch the sugar jar for over a week…other than to put it in my coffee in the morning. And I wouldn’t have touched it at all (really, I swear*) if not for the bag of overripe guavas sitting in a corner of my kitchen.
        My friend Vidhi has a guava tree in her backyard, and it produces fruit at the end of November and into December. So for the last few years, Vidhi has given my family a bag of guavas during the holidays. And sometimes, if I'm lucky, we get to pick the guavas together.

(My friend Vidhi reaching for a guava. I totally took this creeper shot of her.)

        The first time I tasted a guava (which was when Vidhi first started bringing me the fruit from her yard), I remember being instantly hit by a wave of nostalgia. It was still faintly green and under ripe, which is how my mom likes to eat them, and it tasted like sunshine and freshly cut grass and early summer. It was glorious. Both the smell and the taste of the guava unlocked something stored away in the dark dusty corners of my mind.
        Apparently, my mom craved guavas a lot when she was pregnant with me and would take walks as an excuse to steal the fruit that hung over the side of a neighbor’s fence. If that’s not some sort of sign, then I don’t know what is. I just thank my lucky stars that my mom never encountered an evil witch wanting a baby like Rapunzel’s mother did. If she had, my life would have been very different and I would have probably been named Guava, which isn’t attractive. But I digress.

        I had 27 small, ripe guavas on my counter, and their pungent scent was saturating my kitchen and giving me a headache. So I set to work making jam. Using this recipe as a guide, I came up with a guava jam formula—because you never know quite how much guava puree you will end up with. Essentially, you stir in an equal number of cups of sugar as you have cups of puree. The amount of fruit puree also dictates the number of tablespoons of fruit pectin you add (fruit pectin helps the jam to thicken and gel). And for every cup of puree, I added two tablespoons of lemon juice. You can adjust my recipe accordingly.

        The color of this jam is just gorgeous. It is the exact shade of coral that tinges the clouds at sunset. Just looking at my little jar of guava jam makes me happy, but I am going to be honest. I overcooked it. It tasted delicious but the texture was wrong—the jam was thick and chunky and rubbery. But I saved it by reheating it with a few tablespoons of water. On another note, I did not bother canning my guava jam. The batch was not large, so I don’t think it will ultimately last long enough to go bad. Plus, I’ll be keeping it in the refrigerator…and I may also be turning them into tropical thumbprint cookies before long.

*This is a lie.

Guava Jam

Ingredients
1-1/2 c. guava puree
1-1/2 c. sugar
Grated zest of 1/2 a lemon
3 tbsp. lemon juice
1-1/2 tbsp. dry fruit pectin

1. To make the guava puree, clean and peel the fruits. Then cut them in half and scoop out all of the seeds with a small spoon. It seems like a lot of waste, but trust me, the seeds are extremely hard and you won’t want them in your jam.
2. Place all the guava halves in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth. Set aside.
3. Rinse and dry the food processor then pour in the sugar and lemon zest. Pulse until the sugar and zest are combined and the zest is fine. This allows the lemon flavor to be distributed more evenly and fully as well as prevents there from being rubbery strips of zest floating around in your jam.
4. Combine the puree, lemon sugar, lemon juice, and fruit pectin in a large saucepot and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently with a heat-resistant rubber spatula. Be careful! The jam will splatter!
5. Continue boiling and stirring the jam until it thickens. This took me roughly 10-12 minutes, but as I said, I mistakenly continued to cook mine. Take the jam off the heat when it is able to drip off your spatula in large, thick, delicious blobs.
6. Let cool for a few minutes then pour into a clean jar. Store in the refrigerator.

Schardé's Sweet Teeth: Sidecar Doughnuts & Coffee

Sidecar Doughnuts & Coffee from Schardé Vallone on Vimeo.

            As a broadcast journalism student, I am required to participate in the university's news program. I have the opportunity to not only produce content, but also to anchor, produce, and help out behind the scenes.
            At the beginning of the semester, I decided to create a segment for the program called "Schardé's Sweet Teeth" in which I feature local bakeries and desserts. The title comes from the fact that I have such a sweet tooth, I must have more than one! Get it...?
            Here is the latest package I shot - enjoy! 

Vanilla-Scented Doughnut Holes

2 c. flour

1 tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1/3 c. sugar

Grated zest of 1 small lemon

2 eggs

1/4 c. vegetable oil

1/4 c. water

Vegetable oil for frying

3/4 c. vanilla sugar* in a shallow bowl, for coating the doughnuts

1. In a medium-sized bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to combine.
2. In a large bowl, combine the sugar and lemon zest. Rub them together with your fingertips until the sugar becomes moist and fragrant. Whisk in the eggs, vegetable oil, and water.
3. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and mix them together with a rubber spatula until everything comes together in a smooth mixture.
4. Fill a small pot with about two inches of vegetable oil and heat over medium-high heat. You can tell if the oil is ready by dropping a tiny piece of the dough into the pot—if it immediately begins sizzle, then the oil is hot enough.
5. Using a small ice-cream scoop or two spoons, gently drop rounded portions of dough into the oil. Be sure not to overcrowd the pot. (If you’d like, you can roll the dough into neat spheres between slightly floured palms. Personally, I don’t mind irregularly shaped doughnuts.)
6. Cook the doughnuts until they are golden brown and cooked through, being sure to carefully flip them every so often so they don’t brown too much on one side. It should take about two minutes per side.
7. Take the doughnuts out of the oil and place them on a plate lined with a paper towel to blot off the excess oil. Quickly transfer the doughnuts to the bowl of vanilla sugar. Roll them around to coat, making sure they’re fully covered in sugar. These doughnuts are delicious both fresh from the oil and after they’ve cooled and set for a few hours.

*Vanilla sugar is simply granulated white sugar that has been marinating with a split vanilla bean until it becomes flavored and fragrant. It takes at least a couple of weeks. I keep a small jar of it in my pantry—when I start to run low, I simply top it off with more sugar and give it a good stir. If you’re in a pinch, you can place sugar in a food processor with a bit of the vanilla bean seeds and process until combined. These doughnuts would also be perfectly fine with plain granulated sugar. Conversely, you can stir in about a teaspoon of cinnamon into the sugar before coating the doughnuts.