Sriracha

Sriracha ( or  ; ศรีราชา, ) is a type of hot sauce or chili sauce made from a paste of chili peppers, distilled vinegar, pickled garlic, sugar, and salt.

Use
In Thailand, sriracha is frequently used as a dipping sauce, particularly for seafood and omelets. In Vietnamese cuisine, sriracha appears as a condiment for phở and fried noodles, as a topping for spring rolls (chả giò), and in sauces.

Sriracha is also eaten in soup, on eggs and burgers. Jams, lollipops, and cocktails have all been made using the sauce, and sriracha-flavored potato chips have been marketed.

Origin
The sauce was first produced in the 1940s by a Thai woman named Thanom Chakkapak in the town of Si Racha (or Sriracha), Thailand. The Sriracha sauce itself may be an adaptation of a Cantonese garlic and chili sauce originally from Shunde, China. In the early 1900s, Cantonese immigrants settled in Si Racha, and their garlic and chili sauce was sold in Thailand for decades before the first bottles of Sriraja Panich were produced.



Thailand
In Thailand, the sauce is most often called sot Siracha (ซอสศรีราชา) and only sometimes nam phrik Siracha (น้ำพริกศรีราชา). Traditional Thai sriracha sauce tends to be tangier in taste, and runnier in texture than non-Thai versions.

In a Bon Appétit magazine interview, US Asian-foods distributor Eastland Food Corporation asserted that the Thai brand of hot sauce Sriraja Panich, which Eastland distributes, is the original "sriracha sauce" and was created in Si Racha, Thailand, in the 1930s from the recipe of a housewife named Thanom Chakkapak.

United States
In the United States, sriracha is associated with a jalapeño-based sauce produced by Huy Fong Foods and is sometimes referred to as "rooster sauce" or "cock sauce" from the image of a rooster on the bottle. Other variations of sriracha have appeared in the U.S. market, including a sriracha that is aged in whiskey barrels. The Huy Fong Foods Sriracha was first produced in the early 1980s for dishes served at American phở restaurants.

Various restaurants in the US, including Wendy's, Applebee's, P.F. Chang's, Jack in the Box, McDonald's, Subway, Taco Bell, White Castle, Gordon Biersch, Chick-fil-A, Firehouse Subs, Noodles & Company, Starbucks, and Burger King have incorporated sriracha into their dishes, sometimes mixing it with mayonnaise or into dipping sauces. The word "sriracha" is considered a generic term.

In 2022, Huy Fong Foods Sriracha sauce temporarily halted production due to a shortage of chili peppers, causing the price to increase to $30 a bottle or higher. The halt in production lasted for over a year.

In popular culture

 * In 2013, American filmmaker Griffin Hammond released Sriracha, a documentary about the origin and production of sriracha sauce.
 * Rapper Tech N9ne released the song Sriracha in 2016, in which he compares his style of rhyme to the condiment.
 * In 2017, the Korean trio Bang Chan, Changbin and Han debuted in the group 3Racha, taking inspiration from the sauce. Now they are part of the k-pop group Stray Kids.
 * A bottle of sriracha sauce makes a "cameo" in episode 5 of 2021 American television miniseries Hawkeye. The scene in which it is used was apparently improvised by actress Florence Pugh.