6 Spicy and Delicious Dishes You Need to Try
Spicy food isn’t for everyone. Some people simply don’t have the palate to tolerate the heat and others might experience digestive issues. However, regular consumption of spicy food is linked to a variety of health benefits, including lower blood pressure and better heart health. Eating foods with peppers and ground spices can increase HDL cholesterol levels (“good cholesterol), improve immunity, and clear up your sinuses if you have nasal congestion.
Ground spices like turmeric, cayenne, and cumin can add a slightly spicy kick to dishes, whereas chile peppers, including habaneros, bird’s eye chiles, and Scotch bonnets really enhance heat and flavor intensity. The Carolina Reaper pepper is the hottest in the world based on its Scoville rating, which measures the level of active components, including capsaicin, in chile peppers.
Below is a look at some of the spiciest foods from six different countries.
Tom Yum Soup (Thailand)
Thailand is considered one of the countries with the spiciest cuisines, with many dishes incorporating bird’s eye chiles, also known as Thai chiles. Som tam, a julienned papaya and green bean dish with shrimp and other ingredients, is a particularly popular spicy dish in northeastern Thailand, while other high-heat dishes include the ground pork burger pad ka prao and meat/fish served in a thick red curry sauce. Tom yum soup, which also includes bird’s eye chile, is another popular spicy dish.
Tom yum soup blends spicy with sour and usually involves chicken or seafood along with oyster mushrooms, fish sauce, fresh lime juice, and Thai chili paste. Makrut lime leaves, lemongrass, and galangal give the soup its signature aromatic taste. The dish comes together quickly, making it a great lunch option for spice lovers.
Phaal Curry (India)
India is another country with a love of spicy food. The country’s signature dishes, including pork vindaloo, butter chicken, and paneer jalfrezi, incorporate traditional spices and are known for their intense flavors and aromatics. Phaal curry is not only one of the country’s spiciest dishes but it is known as the world’s hottest curry. This is because it usually includes bird’s eye chiles and ghost peppers, known as bhut jolokia in India, among other peppers. Some people put upward of 10 different peppers in the curry.
Phaal curry is a tomato-based curry that also includes ingredients such as ginger and fennel seeds. It’s also a popular dish served at curry houses in England and is so hot that most restaurants require guests to sign a liability waiver before consuming it.
Egusi Soup (Nigeria)
The Scotch bonnet pepper is the signature ingredient that provides a blast of heat in egusi soup, a popular dish in Nigeria. The spicy, protein-packed soup usually includes meat, seafood, and leafy vegetables and is thickened using ground seeds from the egusi melon, a West African fruit similar to a watermelon. The seeds are pounded down and combined with water to form a paste that, when combined with chicken stock, gives the soup a thick and creamy texture.
Egusi soup is commonly served at food or street stalls or in homes throughout Nigeria and other parts of West Africa. People often eat it with yams to balance the heat of the Scotch bonnets.
Beef Rendang (Indonesia)
A popular dish in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, beef rendang is a dry curry dish (minimal sauce) with complex flavors and spices, due to its combination of ingredients such as kaffir lime leaves, star anise, coconut milk, and red chile. The spice paste is made from dried chiles, onion, garlic, lemongrass, galangal, and ginger and added to a pot with the beef, usually chuck steak, and other curry ingredients to be slow cooked until the beef is fall-apart tender. It’s often served on a bed of coconut rice.
Jerk Chicken (Jamaica)
Less spicy versions of jerk chicken can be found at restaurants worldwide, but the authentic dish served in Jamaica doesn’t hold back on heat as it involves plenty of Scotch bonnet peppers. These peppers, which come in various colors indicating degrees of heat, are used in several Jamaican dishes, most notably jerk chicken or pork, which is a popular street food throughout the island. The jerk marinade, which also includes onion, garlic, allspice, thyme, and nutmeg, is also used to flavor goat and fish.
“For Jamaicans, the degree of spiciness starts at medium for children and goes up to purple hot,” notes Jamaican content creator Mark Harvey.
Griot (Haiti)
One of Haiti’s national dishes, griot is an incredibly spicy and crispy fried pork dish, usually made from pork shoulder. Like many of the aforementioned dishes, it has Scotch bonnet pepper along with other ingredients like Maggi or bouillon cubes and epis, a Haitian seasoning blend made from bell peppers, green onions, thyme, and parsley. It’s often served with Haitian hot sauce, and made from spicy pickled peppers, minced Scotch bonnet, and apple cider vinegar.
