by L
Today, we’re venturing into territory that may be more familiar to our readers than our typical fare: a hot sauce you can actually find in your average USA grocery store. In fact, this sauce is so popular, it was the “ingredient of the year” in Bon Appetit magazine for 2010. It has been hailed as “the savior of cheap, crappy, Asian food” (http://theoatmeal.com/comics/sriracha), which might mean that the foodies at Bon Appetit occasionally deign to consume cheap eats and therefore need this sauce a lot.
It’s...
Sriracha - AKA - ROOSTER SAUCE. Cock-a-doodle-doo.
Okay, so rooster sauce isn’t the real name of today’s sauce, which is Hoy Fong Foods’ Tương Ớt Sriracha sauce. I don’t know how to pronounce Thai, and neither do most people around here, so it usually ends up referred to as rooster or Sriracha sauce. This particular brand of Thai Sriracha sauce can be found in pretty much every crappy Asian restaurant in the USA and is known for the rooster on the bottle. Your writers eat a decent amount of crappy Asian food; it comes with the college town territory. In fact, at least a couple of times a month, M and I find ourselves eating mediocre takeout lunches from down the street. After years of this practice, it’s gotten so bad that when M recently placed his regular order, the woman who answers the phone didn’t even have to ask his name. However, despite her familiarity with the order, she still doesn’t make it quite the way he likes it: extra, extra hot.
I have never seen anyone put so much Sriracha on anything as he puts in his ramen bowl, so we decided to treat you to some before-and-after photos. The soup does not start out red, people! I guess he can rest assured that nobody will ever ask for a taste of his soup.
Manufacturer: Hoy Fong Foods
Chile Pepper: "Sun-ripened chilies"
Country of Origin: Thailand
Score: 6.5/10
The review: Well, obviously M likes it. We’re going to introduce a new method of rating here that includes the flavor-to-heat ratio. Rooster sauce is about a three for flavor, but a nine for heat (3:9). Probably the reasons that it has less flavor are because it’s not your regular habanero-based red sauce and because vinegar is pretty low on the ingredients list. Personally, I kind of like it that way; many of the common sauces add too much vinegar for my taste. The “less flavor” effect might also arise from the strength of the burn overwhelming any other impression of the sauce pretty quickly, at least if you eat it straight. (I did, but I was only brave enough for a drop. Do NOT do the cinnamon challenge with this.) This sauce is not messing around, and neither is Hoy Fong Foods. Wikipedia informs me that they haven’t changed their recipe of chili (red jalapeños), sugar, salt, garlic, distilled vinegar, potassium sorbate, sodium bisulfite, and xanthan gum since 1983 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sriracha_sauce_(Huy_Fong_Foods)). You don’t mess with what works, and it has to be working to be the staple sauce of Asian restaurants.
In case you don’t know what to do with your bottle of rooster sauce, they provide useful tips on the back of the bottle in English, French, and Spanish. “SRIRACHA, made from sun ripened chilies, is ready to use in soups, sauces, pasta, pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, chow mein, or anything to add a delicious, spicy taste.” It SPECIFICALLY says chow mein. They know they are “the savior of cheap, crappy Asian food.” They know.
For purchase: http://www.amazon.com/Huy-Fong-Sriracha-Chili-Sauce/dp/B000LO40AG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1335391034&sr=8-2
Amazon gives it 4.5 stars out of 5. It’s a great bargain at $5.95 for 28 oz. Cheap sauce for your cheap food.
Our rating: 6.5/10: 9 for heat, 3 for flavor. We are not as easily impressed as Amazon reviewers. This Sriracha sauce gets the job done in terms of punch, but it really only adds kick. There’s nothing special here.
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