My daughter asked me recently to show her how to make the chili sauce my grandmother taught me. She wanted to perfect her Hainan Chicken Rice serving it with the right chili sauce. And Popo’s sauce was the way to go.
Easy, I said. All you need is red chili, ginger, garlic, salt, sugar, vinegar and water.
Or so I thought. We went to the Chinese grocery store near her home. This is a store with an abundant selection of Chinese ingredients and produce. I think they cater to restaurants. They had huge green chili, and small Thai green chili with a few pieces of red chili in the packet.
But no red chili. Not the kind I was looking for, anyway. Maybe it’s because it’s winter. Who knows where all the red chili have gone.
We went to the International Supermarket nearby. They had manzanos, habaneros, Anaheims, cubanelles, serranos. They were beautiful. But no red chili.
Let’s use green chili, I told Alison.
In Singapore, that would be unheard of. I can’t imagine serving Hainan Chicken Rice there with green chili sauce. Sure we have green chili, but we use it for pickling.
In my mind somehow green chili will make it taste more, well, green. Maybe less ripe? The taste difference would be like the difference in taste between red and green bell peppers.
Weird. Like serving green eggs and ham. What’s a cook desperate for Chicken Rice chili to do?
We bought the chili variety that I use for Popo’s recipe, except in green. Using the exotic Latin chili might compromise the taste, I thought. A pound of green chili was about $2. What’s there to lose?
I have since blogged about Popo’s Chili Sauce in my last post. We made it, just like the way Popo would make her red chili sauce.
And…it was good. We ate it with Alison’s Chicken Rice with our green chili. It looks wrong but it tastes right. And I couldn’t tell the difference. Yay! Hey, we’re in America. It’s winter. And Alison’s Chicken Rice was good! Will post separately.
Like they say in Singapore,”You lucky ah! Got Chicken Rice to eat!”
As it turns out, green chili sauce may be unheard of in Singapore but there is a variety of green chili sauce available here in the International Supermarket near her home. Sauces are from Peru, Mexico, Chile and Guatemala. Maybe I should try those with Chicken Rice!
