A few weeks back, @[email protected] posted a thread talkin shit about about a recipe posted on the official Cheeto's website: CHEETOS® FLAMIN' HOT® Spicy Vodka Pasta |. Not one to take slander of my American cultural heritage lying down, I vowed to prepare this dish and post a review.
Before I get into my thoughts, I should mention that I didn't copy the original recipe verbtatim, because I didn't have all ingredients available 1:1 and because I saw a couple of ways to improve it without dishonoring it.
The base recipe is just some version of penne ala vodka, afaict, which is a lot like the Penne Rosa recipe from Noodles and Company, where I used to work 20ish years ago.
The biggest modification I made here was that I used pasta sauce (Rao's Homemade Pasta Sauce) instead of tomato paste. Spicy Hot Cheetos are rather tangy, even crass in flavor. The sweeter, almost metallic flavor of tomato paste struck me as the wrong way to go for a base flavor for this dish. I also added chicken and mushrooms to it.
I started by butterflying and pounding the chicken out and searing it to completion while the pasta boiled.
For the sauce, I browned the onions in a bit of neutral oil (I used red because its all I had, but would have preferred yellow), then tossed the sliced shrooms in til they browned, then the garlic, all over med-high heat. I added a bit of water to the pan as needed to control moisture and browning. Then I added the red pepper flakes for just a few seconds before addind the red sauce.
I added enough of that to coat the amount of pasta I made and cooked it for 30 seconds to a minute, then added a shot or two of vodka and cooked until the harsh alcohol smell was gone, about 15 seconds.
Finally, I cut the heat and added a cup or two of cream. The original recipe has you adding sauce and cream at the same time, which strikes me as a mistake. I want the alcohol to deglaze the marinara because there's some chemical reaction shit that happens with tomato and alcohol, and I DON'T want the cream to cook hot enough for milk solids to burn. Also, it keeps more sweetness this way.
I tossed the pasta into the sauce, then topped it with chicken cut on the bias, just like my manager taught me.
Instead of cooking the crushed cheetos into the sauté, I crushed them and used them as a garnish, like bread crumb, to add some texture. I added feta instead of parmesan because frankly feta and hot cheetos just sounded betta togetha. I didnt have basil, which sounds amazing in this tbh, so I added cilantro for color.
This fuckin' slapped. Normally, a Penne Rosa is kinda sweet, slightly spicy, but mostly inoffensive. This was THE most popular dish at Noodles and Co for people over the age of 12 and I think it's because it's rich and satisfying, but also a little bit boring. Spicy Cheetos are aggressively flavored, almost intolerably tangy, but with a corporate-tested umami that keeps you snacking. This smack-you-in-the-face quality gave the Penne Rosa the kick that it needed, and the feta bridged the two wonderfully. I tried parmesan on a second bowl of this, and it was decent, but not as good.
I'd probably pair with with a dry red or white, but I didn't have any booze with this.
I'd give it a B. Would make again if I had spicy cheetos on hand, but I usually dont.
hell yes. after that thread, I spent a few hours developing a recipe for homemade Flamin' Hot powder to make an EZ Mac style bechamel/rouz. I tested it once side by side with the actual commercial stuff. i have dialed the salt/heat way back because the first iteration fucked me up lol.
I'm gonna try it again sometime with rice instead of pasta. I'm trying to get the color right this time with a little tumeric and paprika, because my first iteration was just sorta brown and sad.
Brad Leone kinda looked at a similar topic on “It’s Alive” (replica Doritos maybe? or maybe I’m conflating episodes…), and one of the ingredients he used was kimchi that he dehydrated and powdered - anyway I feel like that could give good color and flavor.
dehydrated and powdered kimchi is interesting!
I'm using some powdered powdered dairy products first (like they seem to do in the commercial version) to try and get the heat/spicy right, and then I'm gonna start swapping the dairy out for nutritional yeast to see if I can't construct a vegan version that maintains the texture. if I make too many substitutions at once, it will be too difficult for me to register what to adjust. right now the powder is like 14 ingredients, most of which are like 1-2 grams. it's an absurd project sometimes when I step back and look at the counter.
anyway, my endgame is to have a jar of mixed shelf-stable (cool, dry) powder that I can then add/mix fats--depending on what's available (dairy, oils, coconut milk, etc)--to a just finished amount of pasta/rice etc and have my own "house brand" Flamin' Hot EZ Mac, which is really a bechamel roux shortcut.
in the last year, I've gotten a lot more into curries and using curry pastes, and now all I can think about is hot swapping flavors (like a homemade paste or powder) and using them with the seasonal/availability of proteins and fresh vegetables I can snap up locally. like maintaining a shelf stable flavor bank so I can do whatever I want (ex. spicy EZ Mac) to whatever I can find (ex. broccoli & spinach over red beans and rice) or whatever fits the dietary restrictions/preferences of the eaters. like how rice and beans would be better than pasta for people with gluten sensitivity.
and if I can make the mixes/pastes meet the most stringent dietary restrictions, they'll be universal.
That’s awesome. Good idea. I barely know anything, but I feel like a freeze drier would be fun to mess with for that too - just powderizing various food to put on other food lol.
I’d think some kind of paste of nooch and dried kimchi powder (maybe with some smoked paprika/saffron/annatto for color) with cashew milk/boiled cashews, might be a good base for a Mac and cheese “sauce packet”. I’ve done a similar for vegan Mac and cheese (hadn’t heard of kimchi powder at the time though) and I really like how it turned out with the cashews. Might need a stabilizer to keep things from separating - maybe mustard powder?
On a similar note - I use a dehydrator for herbs and try to make various blends - and they’re not always good - so uhhhh ymmv 😆
Edit: I also snagged a shaker of msg for the first time and it’s incredible haha I was raised with the sinophobic fear of it, but since I learned it doesn’t “automagically give me migraines”, adding just a shake makes flavors absolutely pop.