Last night for lunch I had some Hormel potatoes au gratin (sorta like an MRE without all the extra goodies). That particular heat’n’eat entree is kind of bland, so I looked in the condiments shelf of our snack bar, and could only find some Dave’s Insanity Sauce. I would rather have had some tobasco, but there wasn’t any.
This stuff is very, very, VERY hot. There’s even a warning lable:[ul]Comments: Great cooking ingredient for sauces, soups, and stews. Also, strips waxed floors and removes driveway grease stains. This sauce is among the hottest we offer. It will make you INSANE![/ul]I’ve had this stuff before. I’ve never been able to apply an acceptibly small dose of the stuff, so this time I poured the smallest drop I could into the bottle cap, then touched the tip of my spoon to that drop and stirred my meal with it.
It was still too hot, but tolerable. However, I discovered something I hadn’t expected. With most hot sauces, as long as you don’t overdo it, you get some very pleasurable flavors to go along with the heat. This stuff is all heat. No flavor to speak of. It’s almost like freebasing habañeros. It wasn’t as hot as before, since I used a small quantity this time, but it still wasn’t pleasant. Eating anything with that stuff in it is (in my opinion) counterproductive. You might as well just shoot yourself in the face with pepper spray when you sit down to eat. The effect is similar but at least your food will still taste okay.
Today, I’m going to bring a bottle of tobasco in to donate to the snack bar. After all, some of us like our hot condiments to have some flavor.
First: For those of you who don’t know what an MRE is, it is a “Meal: Ready to Eat”, courtesy Uncle Sam. Basically, little foil packages with prepared meals in them. They all taste exactly the same, except for the omlette one, which is too disgusting for words.
Second: I totally agree Baloo. This stuff has no taste. I may use 1 drop of it in a pot of chili or jambalaya someday. Other than that, it is going to sit on my shelf looking good.
Haven’t tried Dave’s, not sure they carry it very often in stores around here. Sounds like its an example of a pet peeve I have about hot sauces though.
I don’t like Tabasco Sauce for a similar reason, it has virtually no flavor in my opinion just a moderate amount of heat. That bugs me, I like spicy food, but I like it to be a spicy flavor, not a spicy feeling.
When I buy, I get Cholula Hot Sauce. I think it has one of the better tastes of the brands typically availbale in Chicago. Best hot sauce I ever had was brought back by a g/f’s (at the time) dad who did alot of work in Costa Rica, very very hot, but very very tasty too. Probably never get a chance to have that again since I never could pronounce the name, let alone remember it.
No good hot sauce is good straight from the bottle. Just as some liquors are best served mixed in something else (scotch & water, anyone?) most good hot sauces don’t necessarily taste good unless mixed in with whatever you’re trying to season. Pepper (for example) isn’t all that delicious until you put it in a steak or on some eggs (or biscuits & gravy – Mmmmmmmmmmmmm!). Tobasco is good when diluted somewhat – perhaps 1 or 2 drops in a bowl of soup. I don’t eat it on everything, but it’s good on some things. Tobasco imparts a mildly sweet, savory flavor to whatever it’s added to. I wouldn’t drink it from the bottle, however. Frank’s hot sauce (bottled in New Jersey) is also pretty good, if you like those vinegary flavor notes – I do on some things.
Pete’s, however (it’s the next step up from the Insanity sauce we have in our snack bar – don’t recall the name) is just plain hot. It’s like the difference between 151 rum and Everclear. One is an ingredient used to enhance one’s culinary experience, while the other is used mainly to turn ordinary things into stuff you consume just to prove how tough you really are. (Yes, I know Everclear can be used to make some very nice drinks, but many folks buy it because it’s 98% alcohol – no waiting to get bombed, just mix to the desired strength and blast off!)
I keep a bottle of Dave’s Insanity Sauce on my desk at work.
Occasionally, the fellas and I have the typical “Whose Penis is Larger” type contest, in which we see who can eat the most of it at once. One kid last year ate three tablespoons at one time. Of course, he was almost apoplectic at the end, but it all came out in the wash.
I fully agree, in that I have never once found a taste in it that I find even remotely pleasant. It’s here for fun, that’s it.
And Omni, Cholula is good stuff. I keep the Dave’s here, and the Cholula at home, where it is more apt to be used.
lurkernomore: What about - Meals Refusing to Exit? A fitting name as well. Demo says they all taste the same, but I found the Beef Stew and Chicken A`la King to be flavorful, especially if you beat up your fellow diners, and took ALL their salt.
I have to disagree with Omni. Tabasco isn’t particularly hot, but it does have a nice flavor. I have consumed it straight from the bottle (out of curiousity). Cholula is decent though.
I love Sriracha. That stuff is fairly hot, and tasty.
Hey Baloo, don’t even think of trying Dave’s pure capsaicum oil. This has a Scoville rating of 500,000 units. You have to sign a waiver and release just to purchase it. (I will not use this to torture people or as a practical joke.)
I used to swear by Tabasco until a friend challanged me to try Crystal hot sauce. It has twice the flavor as Tabasco. Try a straight dab of it side by side. Crystal has an almost tomato like flavor from all of the peppers in it. I have also finally found a decent green sauce. Please try Lousiana (all natural Jalapeno) Hot Sauce. This one beats the band. Decent heat and miles of flavor. Perfect on omlettes.
One word of warning about freebasing Habaneros. Back away from the table before lighting up. We don’t need another Richard Pryor incident around here.
My problem is that I love hot sauce for the taste of the pepper as well as the hot, but really hate vinegar in the sauces. Tabasco is nasty stuff that covers all of the beautiful pepper taste by vinegar. Habaneros have the best taste of any pepper I have ever tried, unfortunately they are too hot to eat straight(not too hot on the way in, too hot on the way out, anything that causes my ass to ignite doesn’t get repeated). I would really love to see a pepper with the same taste as the habanero, but in a more ass-friendly heat level. As for all the brands, you can keep em, I make my own stuff from the plants in my kitchen, with no vinegar at all.
The network kids around here have one of those “I’m more macho than you” contests going on here too. The hottest thing they’ve come up with so far is Habanero 750 - Habanero chili extract, 750,000 scoville units. That stuff comes in a bottle with an dropper. Personally I think they’re all crazy.
I’ve tried Dave’s Insanity and agree with you all - I want taste, not heat.
I’ll have to look for that Crystal sauce Zenster., thanks.
Baloo - while you’re looking at the Tabasco sauce on the shelf, look to the left at the other Tabasco product, the green jalapeno sauce. It’s very mild with a good jalapeno taste. I use it on nachos a lot.
Trappeys also makes a decent jalapeno sauce, IMHO, but it’s harder to find.
The Daily Show had a story recently on super-hot sauces. I just remember the one called “Screaming Sphincter.” The reporter asked, quite sensibly in my opinion, why someone would want their sphincter to scream. The inventor didn’t have an answer.
If you’ve ever handled any of those “insane” sauces (the ones necessitating flame-retardant toilet tissue) you may have had the unpleasant experience of discovering there was an imperceptible trace on your fingertip. Imperceptible, that is, until you dabbed at your eye. The effect is similar to jabbing a lighted match in your ocular organ (I’ve done both – no fun, but fortunately no damage either).
When handling high-scoville refreshments, I’ve found that an effective way to wash the offending substance off your hands is to start, not with soap, but vegetable oil. Pour a small quantity of vegetable oil on your hands and rub them together just like you would with soap and water. Once you’ve scrubbed the affected area(s) thoroughly, you may then wash the oil off with soap and water (Dawn or any good grease solvent will do). Unless you missed a spot, this should remove enough capsaicum oil that any traces wil be truly imperceptible. I’ve done this a couple times now, and it works fine (tested it myself using the Dave’s incredibly nasty sauce we have at work – whatever it is). The fingerprints on my eye were not unusually painful (the sacrifices one makes for science ;)).
I’ve had Crystal and Cholula sauces, but I still prefer the Encona brand sauces. They’re from the West Indies, and I’m not 100% sure you can get them in the States. They’re all tasty except for the “Bajan Habanero Sauce,” which is just lethal.