Travel Day, Salsa and Hot sauce
There was no update during lunch today as I was traveling to a meeting in Austin. At lunch I was probably sitting in a Schlotzkys eating a Turkey and Guacamole sandwich. Today I suppose I should share some notes on another love in my life. Hot Sauce. I'm not quite crazy enough to have an inedible collection of hot sauces, but I can share a thing or two about almost every sauce you'll find in your local market and a few you'll find only by special order.
Flavorful Sauces:
Tapatio is a rather salty and comparatively thin hot sauce. It's in the same league as tabasco for heat but doesn't share the vinegar taste. It has a tomato/pepper derived flavor and goes particularly well with quesadillas, beans, salads, and any jack, or queso fresco derived meals.
Valentina is much milder and slightly thicker. It goes well with shrimp, ceviche, and fresh seafood. It's milder than Tapatio.
El Yucateco is a habanero based hot sauce that's probably twice as hot as Tapatio or Tabasco. It's not hot enough to justify handling with gloves but it certainly has a kick. It also communicates the habanero taste very well, without ruining the dining experience by melting your face. I use it for meats that need an extra kick. Usually pork, or sub prime cuts of beef.
Sriracha Sauce or more aptly named rooster sauce due to the rooster on it, is a vietnamese hot sauce that seems more derived from the very sweet traditions of asian cuisine. It goes well with other sweet items like orange chicken etc.
Dave's insanity sauce. It's probably 20 times as hot as tapatio at the least.... I'll devote a special post to extract sauces later. Right now I'm just concerned with easily found and widely used salsas. This is not meant as an exhaustive list of your local grocer, though you're likely to find all of these sauces in the asian, mexican, or foreign aisles of your grocery store.
Later on this week I'll also share more about my favorite place for purchasing home made salsa online, The Pepper Lady. She has, by far, the best salsas and relishes known to man.
Flavorful Sauces:
Tapatio is a rather salty and comparatively thin hot sauce. It's in the same league as tabasco for heat but doesn't share the vinegar taste. It has a tomato/pepper derived flavor and goes particularly well with quesadillas, beans, salads, and any jack, or queso fresco derived meals.
Valentina is much milder and slightly thicker. It goes well with shrimp, ceviche, and fresh seafood. It's milder than Tapatio.
El Yucateco is a habanero based hot sauce that's probably twice as hot as Tapatio or Tabasco. It's not hot enough to justify handling with gloves but it certainly has a kick. It also communicates the habanero taste very well, without ruining the dining experience by melting your face. I use it for meats that need an extra kick. Usually pork, or sub prime cuts of beef.
Sriracha Sauce or more aptly named rooster sauce due to the rooster on it, is a vietnamese hot sauce that seems more derived from the very sweet traditions of asian cuisine. It goes well with other sweet items like orange chicken etc.
Dave's insanity sauce. It's probably 20 times as hot as tapatio at the least.... I'll devote a special post to extract sauces later. Right now I'm just concerned with easily found and widely used salsas. This is not meant as an exhaustive list of your local grocer, though you're likely to find all of these sauces in the asian, mexican, or foreign aisles of your grocery store.
Later on this week I'll also share more about my favorite place for purchasing home made salsa online, The Pepper Lady. She has, by far, the best salsas and relishes known to man.
It perhaps goes to show what good friends we are that I was thinking just yesterday, while you were having your sandwich, that I needed to call you and get your opinion on some of the other hot sauces out there as tapatios isn't capturing the imagination as it used to. What about Cholua (sp?) What do you have in the smoky category? Is El Yucateco the best habanero for capturing the fruity side of that fiery pepper?
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading my mind as I never did get around to calling you yesterday.
Tapatio is also good on grilled cheese sandwiches. My husband says that's weird, but I find it positively delightful!
ReplyDeleteEl Yucateco has a chipotle hot sauce that can usually be found in the grocery store. It's really good. It's only alternative to just making your own from canned chipotle and another sauce. All the other smoky sauces have been too thin or bland but I haven't searched too much amongst the specialty sauces you can usually only find online. They're fun for their halo sauces but I've been disappointed by their "normal" sauces which are far too expensive for what they offer.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a fan of Cholula. I think that's the official sauce of IHOP. It tries to be a smoky type of sauce but ends up being too bland to do anything.
Oh and you're very right Bekah. Tapatio is awesome with grilled cheese. It's also pretty good on Pizza.
I have not tried it on Pizza. Next time we have Pizza, I will have to remember to try that out. Would you say it is better on leftover Pizza or th fresh stuff?
ReplyDeleteEither
ReplyDeleteLeft over pizza totally. It is also exceptional on pasta salad.
ReplyDeleteMy local mega mart actually carries adobo sauce without the chipotle's. It is very smoky and quite hot. Probably between hostile habenero and crazy gringo. It just doesn't come in a handy little bottle.