Friday night is date night where we leave the kids at home and try out a new restaurant…or at least one new to us. We went to David Fong’s which is a venerable institution coming up on 51 years old and had the classic kitschy atmosphere I would expect from a chinese restaurant that old. We ordered a plate of cream cheese wontons and a couple egg rolls and on the stately silver platters we were served with accompanying sauces. The sweet and sour was predictable but the waitress warned us that a little chinese mustard would go a long way.
She was right.
I put less than a 1/2 teaspoon on a slice of egg roll and popped it in my mouth. I’m sure I put it in my mouth although it felt like I shoved the thing directly up my nose. After I downed my glass of water and my eyes regained focus, I grabbed another piece of the intoxicating pain and served myself up some more.
There’s something more enjoyable about this type of spiciness than the pepper tobasco or sriracha that’s in chinese mustard and horseradish.
Unfortunately, I’m stumped on what dishes and snacks to add these delightful condiments and ingredients to. So I’m pleading to the sensible chefs in Cafe Society to show me recipes which will shock my olfactory into submission.
Almost all “wasabi” that is served in sushi places in the U.S. is really colored horseradish. Real wasabi is extremely hard to grow and very expensive so it is rarely used. I hear that the horseradish version is a reasonable approximation.
Foor some reason a mustard powder and/or horseradish olive… or just a general pickle jumps into my mind. Some savory pickle with special sinus tickling effect for me. Go great with a Bloody Mary or Clamdigger. You could outmarket the hot pepper… fresh horseradish, mustard powder, and sugar.
Even those chineese takeout hot mustard packets aren’t up to par for me. The recipe shows a minimal blend of mustared powder and Hot Chili… I feel totally gypped with those ubiquapacks… duck sauce… WTF? That’s Plum sauce… not even though brcause ot’s OJ and Corn Syrup… I feel totally let down.
Chinese Mustard hot wings are awesome. Personally I like to make a full-effect hot wing sauce, with Habanero for the front of the tongue, Cayenne for the middle, Chipotle for the back of the throat, and Chinese mustard for the nose. Let’s you know you are alive.
And the dry chinese mustard in the tin seems to be potent forever. It only develops the ‘heat’ after mixing with water and letting stand a bit.
If I had an ice cream maker, I’d like to find out what spicy vanilla would be like. Not mustard ice cream, but rich vanilla with an underlying heat. Cold is a psychological salve, and milk fat is very effective at taming capsaicin (don’t know if that’s in horseradish too) – it would be a fascinating tactile experience. Taste? Well, I have to try it first!
There are such things as dessert hot sauces, for use on ice cream and the like. I’ve never tried them myself, but I’ve heard they’re good.
And the last time I was in a Chinese restaurant with my mom, I commented to her that they seemed to be using ordinary yellow mustard instead of Chinese mustard, since it didn’t seem hot at all. She tried about one drop of it on a piece of egg roll, and was practically breathing fire. Apparently, I’m highly resistant to the stuff, for some reason.
For that matter, I also find that “wasabi” (the stuff you actually get in restaurants) seems milder to me than regular horseradish, while most folks say the reverse. So it’s apparently not exactly regular horseradish colored green.
I always eat roast beef with straight horseradish (vinegar brine) from the jar, so what could be a better sinus scrubber than horseradish and hot mustard mixed? Maybe a nice Horseradish and Hot Mustard cream, amped up, to enjoy with Roast beef or as a sandwich spread?
Sinus Scrubber Sauce
1/4 cup Colman’s Mustard Powder
1/4 cup of water
1/2-3/4 cup of sour cream
3-4 tablespoons of Horseradish with brine from the jar
1 tsp. Worchestershire Sauce
1 tbsp. Tabasco
Mix the mustard powder and water and let stand for an hour to develop its full pungency, mix all of the ingredients together to make a consistent sauce. Serve as a side to beef, or a dip for snacks. Use with Caution.
Here’s an idea to make those hot mustard and horseradish pickles… Simply drain the brine from a jar of your favorite olives or sweet pickles into a clean bowl, add suitable (copious) amounts of Horseradish and Hot Mustard Powder (to taste) to the brine- whisk well. Then simply pour the brine back over the pickle, screw the lid on and let it sit for a couple of days. I’m thinking it would probably develop better pungency unrefrigerated… mnmh- maybe, maybe not.