Indian-Chinese is its own cuisine, born in Kolkata and now everywhere, and this is the sauce holding most of it together. Schezwan chutney has very little to do with Sichuan cooking and everything to do with what happened when Chinese cooks in India got hold of local dried red chillies and a lot of garlic.

Ching’s is the brand that made it a pantry staple. Thick, oily, deep red, and hot enough to respect.

Stir a spoonful through hot noodles or fried rice. Serve it in a small bowl next to momos. Spread it thinly on bread with cheese and grill it, which sounds wrong and is not. A little goes further than you expect, so start small and build.

On the shelf with the rest of the Ching’s range at Curry Corner, North Melbourne.