Sriracha, judge orders partial shutdown

Judge Robert O'Brien, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ordered Sriracha hot sauce plant in Irwindale partially closed due to complaints from residents about harsh odors

The judge did not halt operations altogether and did not order any specific action actually except to stop stinking up the place.

There is no real proof but it sure is annoying.

It's so annoying that the city is likely to prevail in declaring the odor a public nuisance.

Everybody went, "Yay!"

Irwindale officials applauded the judge's decision. 

"We believe it's a strong ruling that acknowledges and is reflective of the concerns that the community has raised about the health impacts of the odor," said City Atty. Fred Galante.

touch.latimes

Nobody really knows just yet what this means for the supply of Sriracha sauce. It's a seasonal thing. The harvest is already done but the bottling continues all year.

They can keep going with their production so long as they don't be so offensive or show that they are mitigating. There is confusion. Confusion that can lead to market shortages. Market shortages that can lead to Sriracha sauce deprivation separation anxiety.

I think I can help.

I have a bottle of that sauce. The ingredients are simple. But before that, I want to mention, this odor-control seems a new nudge thing. Possibly not, some odors really are offensive.

<anecdote alert>In Denver an ordinance was passed limiting pot odors. And now cigarette odors are included along with that. Building management makes smoking policies without regard to ordinance or law. In my own building a survey was passed around and a policy put up.

Mentioning this among a group of people younger than myself and wondering aloud how my identity group became such scolds, they suddenly all became more talkative at once. "Well it is a way of clamping down on the public 420 festivals I suppose," and, "it does smell like skunk when a whole warehouse of plants matures and the air inside is circulated out into the neighborhood. It does smell like a skunk." Together they brainstormed spontaneously, thought up things that I did not think of, they reversed it, took pride in such industry overpowering neighborhoods with odor, "How about Purina Dog Chow? Is that awesome or what?" Everybody laughed because it is awesome. Driving by on I-70, blam, aw, that smells like dog food! "We lived near a pig farm and you can smell that shit miles away. We just accepted it." "And when the stock show and rodeo come to the colosseum you can smell it all the way downtown." "Ha ha ha Really? I didn't think of that. And people love it!" 

That group was for neighborhood odors.</anecdote alert>

<anecdote alert>They would be against odors if they had to walk past the noodle factory we all had to walk past to go to school at Tachikawa. That factory exhausted noodle factory air directly onto the narrow sidewalk, we all had hold our breath as we walked past the fan blowing air like a jet engine of stink right on you. Back and forth. They work very long and very hard at that noodle factory.</anecdote alert>

Okay. If you run out of Sriracha sauce, here is how you can compensate until they get out of their odor-hostile California neighborhood, or mitigate and get back up and running full capacity. 

* dry red Thai chiles in a package
* sugar
* salt
* garlic
* vinegar

That's it.

What to do: Buy a big bag of Thai chilies. They are remarkably inexpensive in Asian markets. In a regular market then any dry small thin red chile will work as well, there is nothing particularly spectacular about Thai chiles. Sriracha says their chiles are sun-dried but so what, they are not like tomatoes that way. 

Do you see what is going on here? It is a typical Thai sweet/sour/hot sauce, with an emphasis on hot. The one element exaggerated beyond all others. All flavors subordinate to the chiles you have.

Also typical to Thai is the duo garlic/ginger, and Sriracha uses only garlic. That is odd. That means you can improve your Sriracha in a typical way by including ginger. 

They probably use powder garlic for industrial convenience. You can use fresh. Fresh garlic and fresh ginger will automatically improve your version of Sriracha. 

The bag of chile is dumped into a cast-iron pan and heated throughout on hot turned constantly, not burning, but activating the oils within each individual pod. Doused with water they swell. Just enough to process to glorious red sludge. Pressed through a strainer or else there will be a lot of gunk from the thin skins. 

Strained mixture returned to heat, sugar added, heated basically to dissolve. 

Add salt, garlic, ginger, I'd consider tamarind paste if you care for that, it is the Asian element in Worcestershire sauce, you know from the British raj, it is very good in things like this. I'd also consider onions or onion juice processed in there too. 

Vinegar in increments, always guessing if you need more sugar. It is a matter of balancing the sugar and vinegar added to the chile pods.

Similar to this red chile sauce except the chile will be much smaller, and more emphasis on sweet and sour.