Page 20 - Valley Table - Fall 2023

Hot Stuff
Is chili crisp the new Sriracha? Suddenly, everyone is obsessed with it.
Two musicians and an aspiring baker pour their hearts and souls into a new
BY FRANCESCA FUREY
ct
Lao Gan Ma, a brand of chili sauces,
is credited with popularizing chili crisp. It was first bottled in China’s Guizhou province in 1997 and became a favorite condiment in recent years due to the influx of new Asian restaurants and recipes on social media that included it as an ingredient.
“Chili crisp is my best friend— whether I use it as an ingredient or a condiment topping. I especially love it in my noodle dishes and almost any egg breakfast,” says Chef Zach Berger, a private chef based in Woodstock.
A few brands to look for: Momofuku, Lao Gan Ma, Fly by Jing, S&B Umami Topping, Junzi, and Mama Teav’s. You can usually find them at Target, Costco, and many general stores across the HV.
Spicy food is on the rise. According to a global trends poll by Kalsec,
an American
food and spices manufacturer, more than half of all consumers are turning up the heat.
Chili crisp is very versatile. People add it to pizza, noodles, dumplings, grilled cheese, fried eggs, avocado toast, and even vanilla ice cream. Try stirring some into salad dressing or aioli for an extra kick.
The condiment is made by infusing Chinese peppers and chili flakes in neutral oil and then mixing it with fermented soybeans and fried garlic or onions. It’s spicy with the texture of crispy bacon bits.
here’s always room for more coffee. So why not
launch a roastery on wheels? Enter Mercurial Coffee, a mobile coffeeshop stationed at the Walkway Over the Hudson (Highland side) seven days a week from April to November. Passersby can
not only grab a cup of joe or an espresso before they hop on their bikes or head onto the bridge for a walk, but order beans to be roasted and picked up post-trek.
Longtime musicians
Dean Mahoney and Harry D’Agostino have had a lot
of bad coffee on the road. Nevertheless, when they
did find a brew they liked,
the often-unpredictable world of being a musician became a little bit better. When the pandemic hit and their performance schedule came to a halt, they went from “What do we do now?” to “How do you like your coffee?” in just a few months. “It seems many musicians become brewers of booze
or coffee,” laughs Mahoney, quickly naming three he knew of. “We like mornings though,” adds D’Agostino, so coffee became the clear choice.
The business began as a one-pound roaster and a cart, but as it grew, they needed something larger. As a sort of jack-of-all-trades, Mahoney
18 TheValleyTable | September—November2023
Just
Brew It
offee concept.
BY KRISTIN L. WOLFE
PHOTO COURTESY OF MOMOFUKU