I.e. my chef friend had ground jalapeno at her apartment, shit was good. Like cayenne level heat but with a different flavor
I had to go to like an international food market to find some near me which is weird given how ubiquitous jalapeno peppers are
dry spices:
herbs:
Sichuan is just kinda good in a bunch of stuff. I keep some Sichuan peppercorns in a pepper grinder, I think they need to be fried a bit to be activated but otherwise they add a fun flavor/spice to a lot of things
Culantro also features heavily in Peruvian food
i’m only familiar with it from yunnan, lao, viet and thai food, but yeah after reading up on it it seems it’s more common in central/south american/carribean food than in mexican food