Spicy Food Challenges and Recipes to Try

One of the perks of being Desi is the ability to handle extremely spicy food.

We like a fiery punch to our food, and chillies are known to provide health benefits.

The internet has been inventing and re-inventing various spicy food challenges, some very easy and others with a spur of danger.

Many spicy food challenges involve our beloved chilli, the naga jolokia, which has been ranked as one of the world’s hottest peppers.

Those who have tried devouring this king pepper have at times been met with the absolute defeat while others succeded.

For this reason, DESIblitz brings to you a list of spicy food challenges and recipes that you might want to try.

Are you ready?

The Chilli Roulette – Desi Style

Here’s the chilli roulette challenge, although our Desi aunties and uncles may disagree and say it’s not challenging enough.

This task takes a lot of willpower if you are not used to the kick of the spice. Despite you seeing your elders do it on a daily basis, munching on chillis casually with biryani and roti.

For this challenge, you’ll need a Desi kitchen where you’ll find most of these chillies and if not, these are easy to find in any South Asian supermarket.

Ingredients

• Red bird’s eye
• Green bird’s eye
• Naga ghost peppers
• Pickled green
• Byadagi Chilli

Next, to create the roulette, you’ll need a cardboard cut out in the shape of a plate. Using a pencil, create a pie chart with equal segments for all five chillis.

Write down the name of each chilli in the different segments and be as creative as you want.

Find a small bottle or something similar that can easily be spun to pick a chilli.

This challenge goes great with the whole family, you can engage your parents or try this with your friends during a sleepover.

The rules are simple.

Each person will take a turn to spin the bottle, whichever chilli name the bottle faces, they have to eat the entire chilli.

To spice things up, you can have a time limit such as have the person wait one minute before drinking milk.

Spicy Green Mango Chutney

The mango chutney is a decades-old recipe, passed down from mother to daughter.

A more daring version of the classic, this dish is deliciously spicy and a bit too spicy for some.

Of course, we could not resist and had to add this dish to our list of spicy food challenges.

If it’s not mango season, don’t worry, this recipe goes well with the following fruits: green apple, kiwi, grapefruit and blackberries with raspberries.

Ingredients

• 4 Green mangos (sliced)
• 4 Cloves of garlic
• 2 Green Chillies (Chopped with seeds)
• 1/2 tsp salt

Method

1. Place the garlic over the stove, keep the heat on low as the cloves become slightly charcoaled.
2. Once charcoaled, place the cloves in a pestle and mortar with the chopped chillis and crush.
3. Place the mango slices in a bowl, add the garlic and chilli. Then add the salt and gently stir the contents.

This recipe will take no more than seven minutes to prepare. While it is spicy, this recipe is refreshing and counts as one of your five a day.

The Phaal Challenge (Worlds Hottest Curry)

A Desi-tastic challenge, one you can try with your family and have a little fun.

The ‘Phaal Challenge’ was created by The Brick Lane Curry House.

It involves cooking an intensely heated curry with a special chilli infused sauce.

This may sound like a walk in the park for our fellow Desis as some of us like to enjoy our dishes with a helping of fresh green chillis and others like mixing in naga pickle.

This curry has left individuals in excruciating pain and not many have been able to finish the challenge.

The chefs take great caution in making this curry from hell; armed with masks (which resemble gas masks) as the combination of spices mix in with the air; expect teary eyes.

You have been warned but now we have for you a great tasting deadly recipe; this curry uses 3 different types of chills, enough for you to get the Brick Lane experience.

We hope you have a mango lassi on stand-by.

Before you begin, watch YouTuber Strictly Dumpling tackle his way through the worlds hottest curry.

Chilli Paste Ingredients

• Naga chilli paste
• 2 Carolina reapers
• 5 Habanero peppers
• 1 tbsp Vegetable oil

Meat Curry Ingredients

• 1 Cinnamon stick
• 500g meat (cubed)
• 1/2 tbsp Garlic paste
• 1/2 tbsp Ginger paste
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1/2 tbsp Curry powder
• 1/4 tbsp Zeera powder
• 1/2 tsp Tumeric powder
• 1/4 tbsp Garam masala
• 2 Chopped tomatoes
• Salt to taste
• Vegetable oil

Method for chilli paste

1. First, chop all the chillis and place in the blender
2. Add 1 tsp of vegetable oil and blend
3. Place the mixture in a bowl and set aside

Method for curry

1. In a medium saucepan add the meat, ginger, garlic, onions and cinnamon stick. Add the salt and oil and cook over medium heat.
2. Allow the meat to sweat and stir every 2 minutes.
3. You will see excess water, add the turmeric and stir until the water is removed. Do this on low heat.
4. Once the excess water has gone, add all the remaining spices and the chilli paste.
5. Add boiling hot water (Just enough to cover the meat)
6. Cook over medium heat until the spices come together to create a bhuna.
7.  Once the water has dissolved, the curry will be thick. Add boiling water to your preference and add the tomatoes.
8. Let the curry simmer over low heat for 7 to 10 minutes.

Serve with white rice or naan bread.

Remember not to touch the curry with your bare hands, it may irritate your skin as this curry will be extremely spicy.

A risky challenge that could hurt you, try it at your own risk.

Cold milky products such as ice cream. milkshake, lassi or even a cold glass of milk will be good for dealing with the effect of the spice.

Spicy Tandoori Wings

Do you love chicken wings?

The internet is storming with people participating in the ‘spicy buffalo wings challenge’, a challenge where people coat buffalo wings with various hot sauces and try to finish them all.

What do you say to desi style spicy tandoori wings with hot chilli sauce?

Let’s spice up this challenge with traditional tandoori wings with a helping of Crucials hot sauce.

Ingredients

• 1 kg Chicken wings
• 2 tsp Coriander powder
• 1 tsp Cumin powder
• 1 tsp Garam masala
• 1 tsp Chilli powder
• 1/2 tsp Mustard powder
• 1 tsp Dried fenugreek leaves
• 2 tsp Salt
• 1 tbsp Ginger
• 1 tbsp Garlic
• 10g Green chillies
• Coriander leaves
• 1 tsp Dried mint
• 20g Tamarind
• 14 ml Oil
• 60g Yoghurt
• Red food colouring

Method

1. Use a heavy spoon to remove the pulp and excess water from the tamarind. Place it in a blender.
2. Take all the herbs and spices and add them to the blender.
3. Add the blended spices to the yoghurt and mix with a fork.
4. Pour the yoghurt mixture over the chicken wings and coating both sides of the chicken.
5. Cover the chicken wings with foil or place in an airtight container.
6. Leave in the fridge to marinate for 12 hours.
7. Preheat the oven grill and place the wings, turn the wings over after 10 minutes.
8. A slight char on the wings will indicate the wings are fully cooked.
9. Remove from heat

Roll each chicken wing in the hot sauce if you want to get a hint of the spicy wing challenge. Serve with a refreshing mango lassi.

This recipe was adapted from The Spoontress.

Flaming Hot Cheetos

Hands up if you cannot live without flaming hot Cheetos.

To our UK readers, for this challenge, you will need the American version as it is intense in flavour and truly flaming hot.

The first few bites are harmless but addictive. A quarter into the packet and the heat starts to kick in.

With Cheetos, the heat is not severe and fades away quickly.

Some YouTubers have gone a step further and added Takis Fuego and hot sauce.

Method

1. Take a flat plate and layer Cheetos and other hot crisps. (We recommend Doritos Chilli Heatwave)
2. Pick two of your favourite chilli sauces and lightly drizzle over the crisps.
3. Add pickled jalapenos if you want a hint of tanginess (Optional)

Best served with a glass of milk or ice cream.

Samyang 2x Spicy noodles

There have been a number of spicy noodles challenges involving noodle brands Samyang, Mala and Padlo.

We focus on the Samyang 2x spicy noodles as they are unbelievably tasty but also agonisingly painful.

Samyang has these noodles available as a pot but also in a packet like the usual ramen noodles.

The noodles take no more than seven minutes to prepare.

With the noodles, you are given two additional packets; one contains the sauce which when handling – take caution. The second packet contains seaweed and sesame seeds.

With only half a packet of the sauce, the noodles become incredibly spicy and carry a flavoursome aroma.

The heat continuously builds up and lasts up to an hour.

We have yet to come across a noodle that is as excruciatingly painful like Samyang.

Check out how YouTubers Bilal and Mima handled the spicy noodles.

Deadly Tortilla Chips (aka #onechipchallenge)

If you surpassed the Cheetos challenge and found it rather fun and easy, this one’s for you.

Behold, for we have found the King of all spicy crisps… the ‘Paqui-Haunted Ghost Pepper’ tortilla chips. The deadliest chip to be ever made with a lethal hot pepper.

“World’s hottest Chip made with the hottest chile pepper on the planet” – Paqui

Paqui sends one tortilla chip in a packet shaped like a red coffin with an image of a grim reaper. Possibly as a warning sign but it hasn’t stopped the countless daring individuals from taking on this challenge.

If you want to try this challenge or get a little taste of the tortilla chip, you can order the chip from different online sites as well as Paqui’s own official site.

But before you do, Watch how the Crude Brothers dealt with the deadly chips.

These are some of the spicy food challenges we thought are fun but also risky.

If you have found something you’d like to try, always check out the ingredients and but never risk your health for a challenge.

These challenges are not advised if you are on medication or suffer from any illness.

It is best to try certain challenges in smaller quantities just to get a feel for the level of spice.

So, if all is good with you, is it time for you to pick your challenge and win?