If you’ve been following along on Instagram or you’re a subscriber you’ll already be familiar with a few of the items in our Hot Stuff box. Last month’s box celebrated Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t difficult finding items for my Asian themed spicy food box but there were challenges along the way. The difficult part was narrowing down my selections to 6 items! As you know, Asian food covers broad regional areas and it was impossible to represent all the countries. Hopefully you will find a few new favorites in this amazing collection of Asian spicy food items, they’re definitely on my go-to list.
Asian Spices & Condiments
OCCO Spices
Have you ever bought a jar of spice for a special recipe and never used again? I think I still have a jar of Aleppo pepper I purchased ages ago and used only once. Note to self, get rid of expired spices! Well here is some good news, this woman owned, AAPI business figured it all out for us. OCCO is a micro portion spice company offering a wide variety of herbs and spices for all your cooking needs. You get just enough spice, 1/2 tsp, in their new recyclable pods so items stay fresh longer. OCCO also has recipes on their site to show you exactly how to use their spice packets.
What I love the most about OCCO is that you can shop for recipe kits or individual spice cards. The recipe kit includes all the seasoning you need for a recipe. I chose both types for my Hot Stuff boxes, giving each subscriber a surprise packet of one of the four.
Yellowbird Hot Sauce
Clean ingredients, well balanced flavors and a nice garlic forward red jalapeno heat makes this Sriracha a great red rooster alternative. Based in Austin, TX, Yellowbird gets its name from a chile pepper loving yellow bird in Thailand. Most birds aren’t affected by the capsaicin in chile peppers. This yellow bird snacks on the tiny, super hot, bird chiles, making their skin spicy, which protects them from predators. I selected the Blue Agave Sriracha for it’s natural ingredients, flavor and their new squeeze bottle is awesome too. This was the perfect addition to our Asian-themed subscription box!
Mama O’s Kimchi Paste & Mr Bing Chile Crisp
I sent out two different items for subscribers so they either received Mama O’s Premium Super Spicy Kimchi paste or Mr Bings Chile Crisp. Both of these condiments are amazing and deliver great flavor. The Kimchi paste can be used to make kimchi (get the recipe) or can be used to season meats, poultry, fish or veggies. Check out their recipes on their site. The other goodie was Mr Bing’s chili crisp which would be great on dumplings, drizzled in noodles or soups/stews. It’s an amazing, flavorful crisp, I just wish it was more spicy!
Sweets and Snacks
Twenty Four Blackbirds Chocolates
I couldn’t put together a Hot Stuff gift box for February without including some sort of chocolate! I was a little worried shipping chocolates to some of our Southern states and hopefully everyone’s truffles arrived intact. It’s still cold in most parts of the US, but shipping chocolates always gives me anxiety because you just never know what USPS does with these packages. I did have one customer in FL mention the chocolates were a bit soft and deflated but at least the flavor was still there. Well melted or not, these Togarashi Sachimi caramel truffles would be divine either way! A little bitterness from the organic dark chocolate, mildly sweet caramel and a lingering heat from togarashi made it the perfect bite. Each package included three gorgeous, delicate truffles. Check out their story here.
Forkin Good Nuts
Based in Pennsylvania, Forkin Good Nuts has a nice collection of spice nuts and the Asian Spice GochuNut was perfect for our box. Forkin Good Nuts doesn’t use any artificial stuff and keeps things simple by blending quality ingredients at their restaurant in Shohola. The Gochujang spiced nuts were the bonus gift for box subscribers and a nice way to celebrate Chinese new year. You get fantastic umami flavors of sweet, salty, Earthy, and spice from the soy, mushrooms, gochujang and sugar. Other flavors like Hopanero made with hops and habanero spices, Cocoa Coffee Chipotle and the Curry & Spice all sound amazing too and just the snack with a cold pint of beer.
Hot Stuff T-Shirt
Last month’s Asian themed spicy food box also included Hot Stuff’s signature t-shirt inspired by NYCs iconic bag design. I don’t always include a t-shirt in our Hot Stuff boxes but always include a non-food item. In December I shipped a Hot Stuff embroidered beanie and for April I’m thinking of something a little different. I started designing my own spicy themed t-shirts because I could never find spicy t-shirts I liked. I wanted to create designs that you wouldn’t see anywhere and shows my spicy food love without screaming it out. So yes, they’re more tame than the devil worship, zombie tees but still fire!
If you like the types of items included in this box head on over to Hot Stuff Subscription and subscribe. Next month’s box is Mexican themed and shipping by April 15th, just in time to have a fun party and Cinco de Mayo, if you celebrate that. When you think of Mexican foods and spices, what would you expect to see in that box? I have some nice surprises coming up for next month! All of my Hot Stuff boxes are carefully curated to deliver quality goods to my spicy community and help elevate spicy foods. Often times spicy products contain chemicals, food coloring and flavors and that’s not what Hot Stuff boxes are about. The majority of the items are from small businesses around the US making products with clean ingredients. I also like to include a recipe card of some of the dishes I’ve made in the past. Hopefully it inspires you to cook more and add a little spice to your life!
Here’s the recipe I included for the spicy pork wontons. Did you get February’s Hot Stuff box? What was your favorite item? Chime in below!
