Bizzaro Siracha

by M

We have reached a new level here at THSDs.  While I have been overwhelmed with life in general... up to my neck in work, not enough time in the day, and too many freaking weddings to go to! … the THSDs has become self aware.  It’s alive, I tell you, it’s alive.  Without any work, petitioning, or Hot Sauce networking, we are getting new hot sauces left and right.  We can’t keep up, I’m getting ulcers, heartburn, flatulence, high blood pressure, I’m sweating habanero, crying cayenne, and man is it awesome.  

Unbeknownst to us, there is a cousin of the infamous Sriracha.  It’s bizarro sriracha from Hong Kong.  At first taste, I described it as earthy, then musky... yes, a muskier Sriracha.  When you start to describe something with terms like musky, you start walking a thin line.  You know the line when you smell someone cooking soup, and you’re like, “Wow, that soup smells good; at least, I hope that is soup and not BO.”  Yeah, sometimes a good lentil soup or a minestrone can smell a bit like BO.  Or, when I take blue cheese out of the refrigerator and my wife will be like, “Oh man, we need to take out the garbage”... no, that is blue cheese (we both really like blue cheese).  One time I had a salad at a Thai restaurant with a “chili” dressing.  It kind of tasted like an anchovy ate nothing but onions for days and then went jogging.  That salad was not my kind of thing, though I am sure there are many that might enjoy it.  So after sensing this muskiness, I read the ingredients.  Sure enough, fish sauce is on the list.  What the heck is fish sauce?  I mean, I know what it is, but why do they get away with just calling it fish sauce?  There are different kinds of Fish Sauce.  What kind of fish?  What parts of the fish?  How is it turned into a sauce?  I am going to invent Cow Sauce.  Who knows what is in it, but it will be cow made into sauce, Cow Sauce.  Then on the ingredients of Hot Dog packages, it will only have one ingredient: Cow Sauce.

Sauce: Sriracha Chili Sauce
Manufacturer: Lee Kum Kee
Chili pepper: Red chili (Capsicum frutescens)
Country of Origin: Hong Kong/China
Score: 6/10

This Hong Kong Sriracha walks the line with success because it is pretty good.  It gives a much funkier taste then our normal Sriracha and is different enough that if you are a die-hard Sriracha fan, you will want both bottles in your refrigerator.  Not as much heat as the normal Sriracha, which is too bad, because with the stronger, funkier taste, you may not want to apply as liberally or it will overtake your meal.
 

I give it 6/10.  A little more heat would yield a higher score, but I still prefer the original Rooster!

Hometown Hot Sauce

by L

Recently, I returned to my hometown for some quality family time. As I’ve mentioned before, I had not eaten a lot of hot sauce experience prior to this blog. I come from a very large extended family that is very dedicated to meat and potatoes... very lightly seasoned. Occasionally, we spice things up with some freshly ground pepper! That’s about it. I hail from Fairfield, Connecticut, USA. You may have heard of Connecticut; you may even have heard of Fairfield. However, you have probably not heard of it in association with spicy food.

What is Fairfield known for? Being a large suburb of NYC, being burned down during the Revolutionary War, being home to the headquarters of General Electric and Bigelow Tea, being the setting for “Who’s the Boss?”, John Mayer, James Blake, and Meg Ryan. Historically, it was also known for exporting globe onions and carrots, but there aren’t many farms now. What is Fairfield not known for? Hot sauce. Well, that’s going to change with this hometown hot sauce review!

But first, the tale of hot sauce discovery: I went shopping for fresh produce with my sister and her two small children in neighboring Easton, CT. As I picked my way through the apples, my sister called me over to look at something she had found. Bottles of hot sauce from Fairfield! A local brew! She bought it for The Hot Sauce Diaries to try.

 

Sauce: Holy Hannah
Manufacturer: Holy Hannah
Chili pepper: Habanero  (Capsicum chinense)
Country/Place of origin: Fairfield, CT, USA
Score: 7/10, definitely recommended

Holy Hannah’s website shows what a careful operation the sauce-makers run, with pictures of beautiful peppers along with photos of the onions, carrots, and garlic that make the base of the sauce. The ingredients are habaneros, distilled vinegar, onions, carrots, garlic, fresh-squeezed lime juice, and canola oil. These people are not messing around with unnecessary additives and ingredients that don’t belong there. It’s truly homemade style. As for the taste, it is delicious! The habaneros pack a LOT of kick, so go gently at first, but you can still taste the fruity sweetness of the peppers and the carrots and the citrus zing of the lime juice. The carrots also lend a rich, orange color to the sauce, along with a hometown farm touch. Remarkably, you can taste the contributions of each ingredient, and the sauce adds up  to more than the sum of its parts. Our only complaint? A label typo: there’s no tilde in habanero.

 

Oh Canada!

by L

When we think of our neighbor to the north, we think of many things:
1. Great moments in hockey
2. Maple syrup
3. Maple leaves
4. Toronto Maple Leafs*
5. Snow
6. Poutine
7. Tim Horton’s (the coffee shop, not the person).
We do not think of spicy food or hot sauce. In fact, when your esteemed authors first queried the token Canadian of the lab, he said it would be quite difficult to find Canadian hot sauce. Maple syrup? Easy. Something with more kick? Not so easy. We were not optimistic about trying to get a sauce from each homeland of all of our coworkers covered, in part because of Canada.**

But then, a miracle happened. I received a phone call from my best friend, who is familiar with our quest despite living four hours away. She was just back from a business trip to Ottawa, she said. And she had found a Canadian hot sauce.

I was stunned.

A few weeks later, I went to visit her and picked up the rare specimen. Today, we introduce you to the little-known world of Canadian hot sauce, which is apparently lovingly made by a gentleman named Dan.

*That weird spelling choice bothers your esteemed author.
**And Australia. And the UK.

Sauce: Dan T’s Inferno
Manufacturer: Dan T's
Chili pepper: Cayenne (Capsicum annuum)
Country of origin: Canada
Score: 8/10

First, we checked the ingredients: no maple syrup. We weren’t sure whether to be disappointed. Then, we went for the taste test. It turns out that the reason there is no syrup is because this sauce is serious about spice and spice only. This bottle packs some significant kick. We warned our other lunch companions to use it sparingly. (We usually don’t do this, not because we’re mean--although we can’t pretend we wouldn’t find some sauce-induced tears funny--but because usually it isn’t necessary.) I can’t even recall much of a flavor to the sauce because any flavor there might have been was overwhelmed by the burn. This was some very impressive sauce, and would be particularly perfect for those occasions when you really want to make sure your friends don’t want a bite of your food, or an occasion where you are told you must jazz up your entire meal with just half a teaspoon of sauce. 

Peru, Part Two!

We are back to Peru this quick post owing to a new sauce delivery--more delicious flavors! We decided to open up some ají, another AlaCena product in an envelope that looks like a Capri Sun juice pack.

 

Sauce: Ají molido
Manufacturer: AlaCena
Chili pepper: Ají (Capsicum baccatum)
Country of Origin: Peru
Score: 9/10

Once again, a hit for AlaCena. This sauce is a gorgeous yellow, a “really high-vis yellow” in the words of M. The ají is complemented by onion and salt, resulting in a very flavorful sauce with a lot of kick. Although it is the same brand as our previous Peruvian sauce, the flavor is very different due to the different pepper base (ají versus rocoto) in addition to the extra heat. The "Hot Sauces From Around the World" should take note that they are being seriously outclassed by hot sauces from around Peru. AlaCena is definitely our new favorite brand. R says, “This is the kind of sauce that gets spoiled by food.”

Mexico

Mexico by M
I love Mexican food. It is one of my favorite types of foods.  Though I will say there seems to be a lack of creativity in the mexican culinary world.  Someone, somewhere, sometime in history, in Mexico rolled out a tortilla, put some stuff in it and the ‘taco’ was born and it was good.  But then they were like you know what would be really crazy, if we made the tortilla soft instead of hard, and there you have a ‘soft taco’, and it too was good. And that is where Mexican culinary creativity peaked.  Because then someone was like what if you wrap up the soft taco instead of folding it, let’s call that a ‘burrito’.  And then someone was like, what if you serve the stuffing separately on the side, let's call that a ‘fajita’.  Or let’s take the ‘burrito’ and put some sauce on it, now we have an ‘enchilada’.  Or let’s take 2 tortillas and leave them flat, we’ll call that one a damn ‘quesadilla’.  Or let’s take the ‘taco’ and just throw it into a pile with the other stuff we like and call it ‘nachos’, unless the portioning of lettuce is higher than the other ingredients; that is a ‘taco salad’.

Special Note by R, Media Relations Specialist and Mexican Citizen
Thanks to the American assassination of Mexican food, there seems to be not much creativity in “Mexican” cuisine served in the US.  In reality someone, probably in Texas, dreamed up that stuff without even realizing that a hard shell taco belongs in Mexico as much as a whale belongs in the Texan desert. After all, in Mexico, tortillas are nothing else than the staple bread and therefore, tacos are just bread with fillings.

Back to M
To me, Mexican food is all good.  It doesn’t hold back on hardiness or flavor and it is best when spicy.  What would Mexican food be without a variety of hot sauces or salsas picantes?  Salsa actually translates to ‘sauce’.  Mexican Salsas are such great condiments and cooking ingredients that people dance about them all the time.  You don’t hear about people taking ketchup lessons or going out for a night of soy sauce, do you?
Sauce: Salsa Norteña estilo Chihuahua
Manufacturer: Cocina Mestiza
Chile Pepper: Chipotle (smoked dried jalapeño)  Capsicum annuum
Country of Origin: Mexico (Estado Unidos Mexicanos)
Score: 8/10

The hot sauce we are reviewing today is Salsa Norteña.  Hot sauces like this are the reason I got into this business.  It is much different than any hot sauce I have had in the states, and it feels closely related to our Peru review, which was really good too.  If you remember, that sauce had a great roasted red pepper flavor, where this one has a great chipotle flavor to it.  Ok, Chili lesson.  What is a Chipotle? Besides a McDonald’s-owned food chain that shortens your life span.  Chipotles are actually jalapeños that are smoked, often packaged in an adobo sauce, which is like a spicy bbq sauce.  This gives the jalapeño a really strong, unique, smoky flavor.  See, there is some culinary creativity.  I had my Norteña sauce with a guacamole burger.  This sauce easily upgraded my burger to elite burger status, a ‘Burger Deity’ if you will.  The sauce has a ton of flavor but a smoothness to it from the vegetable oil.  It is pretty calm in terms of spice, which makes it optimal for folks who like a lot of flavor but can’t handle the heat.  

We give this sauce an 8/10.....We are starting a new kind of Salsa dancing called Norteña dancing.

The Hot Sauce Committee Part 2

Special shout out to Adam “MCA” Yauch and Maurice Sendak, two great New Yorkers, both inspirational figures to me and many others.  We pour some hot sauce out for our fallen homies.

NYC-By M


Ok, if you have never been to New York City, then you should feel shame.  It is certainly not the prettiest city in the world, nor does it have the countless centuries of history many great cities do, but it may be the best city in the world.  Now many people are getting offended, saying Paris or London or Djibouti or Mabooty or whatever is clearly the best city in the world.  While other cities are very good at being other cities, New York takes the best the world has to offer and packs it all tightly into this little space, readily connected by a train ride or two.  Not all restaurants, diners, food trucks, and food stands are good, but most of them are, and not just good, they are great.  In NYC you can get the best $5.00 meal or $500.00 meal, depending on your choice, and anything in between.  Now having said that, what does ‘best city in the world’ really mean?  There is no way to actually quantify what makes a city great nor would that assessment translate from person to person. But, what I can say is that the Yankees are the best professional baseball team of all time. That is a measurable thing, and it is not even close, so suck it, Red Sox fans.

Sauce: NYC Hot Sauce
Manufacturer: NYC Hot Sauce Company
Chile Pepper: Habanero  (Capsicum chinense)
Country of Origin: U.S.A.
Score: 2/10

Review: NYC Hot Sauce
I picked up some ‘NYC Hot Sauce’ from the Chelsea Market.  At $7.00 a bottle I was pretty stoked to try this stuff, hoping the steep price tag meant some quality hot sauce.  On the bottle it says “hot sauce made in NYC, for NYC”.  This should have been a warning sign.  Like this hot sauce is somehow cool and you are cool for eating it?  Kind of a hot sauce for hipsters.  Let me eat this hot sauce while I listen to independent music and shop at Urban Outfitters.  You know what would be cool?  If this hot sauce had some flavor.  It is a Habanero-based sauce and habaneros are known for their intense heat and fruit-like flavor.  But somehow, this sauce just falls flat in both heat and flavor.  In fact, go to Trader Joes and buy their Habanero hot sauce for $3.00 and get twice the flavor.  Hot sauce by suckers, for suckers... do not recommend.

2/10-Not much of a meal enhancer for a hefty price tag!

Back to Basics: Rooster Sauce

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. 

 Sauce: Tương Ớt Sriracha
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.