Technically, sriracha is Thai (it's named for the city where it originated) and it is heavily used in Thai and Vietnamese cooking. Chinese chili is typically chili oil (basically dried chilis cooked in oil until the oil turns red) or a chili sauce mixed heavily with garlic. The use of chili in Chinese cooking is purely to enhance flavoring and to raise the heat. Sriracha is used as a condiment (basically a spicy ketchup). Most sriracha available in the US is US-made (it's also called rooster sauce because the bottle has a picture of a rooster on it). For a while there, there was a shortage of sriracha in the US because the only manufacturer was ordered by the city where their factory is to shut down the factory because the smells from the production of the sriracha was escaping the plant and residents were complaining.Oh. Chinese chili sauce? Yikes! That might be too hot for me. But I've got some good Jalapenos in the freezer...
~Lannie
The original Thai-style sriracha tends to be tangier and also more watery (the consistency of Tabasco) than the US-made sauce.
When my daughter was in grade school she used to use a FM system (basically a mic that sent the teachers voice right to Nicoles Hearing aids). Well this teacher used to always forget to remove the mic when she would go into the bathroom so Nicole would get some pretty funny, awkward, and sometimes gross situations with that teacher. I remember once that teacher got a bit upset with me because I refused to discipline Nicole for repeating something she heard her teacher say in the teachers lounge. Nicole was in 2nd grade and the teacher called another student a little snot to another teacher while the mic was on. Well, Nicole being a kid made the Oh no face and told the kid that the teacher had called him a name. This teacher wanted me to punish Nicole and I refused saying it was her fault and not Nicole's. I never wanted to change teachers so much as with her but we all made it through the year.
