Do you have certain hot sauces for certain things? Me:
[ul][li]Tabasco: American-style sauce for American food. This is my ‘go-to’ sauce for eggs, hashbrowns, Cajun or Creole food, etc.[/li][li]Sriracha: Asian foods such as ramen. Also, thanks to somebody here, it’s now being used on hot dogs.[/li][li]Tapatio: Mexican food.[/li][li]Frank’s Red Hot: Hot wings. The SO sometimes likes it on her eggs instead of Tabasco.[/li][li]Crystal: Sometimes used in Cajun/Creole recipes, or on breakfast. It’s a little weak-sauce though. Good flavour, but not enough bite.[/li][li]Louisiana: Usually used in recipes.[/ul][/li]Other sauces we have are a hot wing sauce from Dollar Store that only gets used for hot wings, Tabasco jalapeño and Tabasco chipotle sauces that get used occasionally, and several versions of the ‘insanity/zombie/alien/Hell/etc.’ that wind up on stuff from time to time.
Cholula: much thicker and tastier than Tapatio, it has become my choice for eggs. Pickapeppa: Jamaican brown magic. El Pato: Mexican sauce that goes good in bean and rice burritos. Tiger: Pure flavor with little heat, goes into everything. Toad Sweat: Dessert hot sauces that are heavenly over ice cream.
Plus an unknown number of specialty sauces, Asian pastes, and “shop-branded” sauces picked up on a whim for the collection.
I think I kinda starting this hot sauce / category thinking with my statement in the other thread that I basically only keep around:
Sriracha
El Yucoteco Habanero Green
That’s the stuff I always have on hand - I really do keep it simple. I have standard Crushed Red Peppers to add heat with minimal flavor impact.
If I was more on-the-ball, I would also have a sweet-hot hot sauce always on hand - that’s about the only thing I feel like I miss occasionally. I’ve had some called Pure Hell, and also one from Belize (Marie Sharp’s?) - both were very good, Caribbean sweet-hot sauces.
I end up with more around, but really, those three + CRP’s cover me. When I find myself getting geeky about hot sauces due to variety or level of heat, I start to suffer from Internal Foodie Backlash…
I don’t know how, but the Tabasco line of products went from being the king of the hill to being underrated.
Sriracha has become very popular over the last few years I think for a very special reason. It has body to it. I use it for dipping fries, tofu and tots. I tend not to use it for main course stuff but works occasionally.
Maybe it is just that I have a more pedestrian palate, but I have Cholula Louisiana Hot Sauce and Siracha on hand. I use various peppers (Anahiem, Serrano, Jalapeno and such) quite a bit in cooking to add heat and flavor to a dish.
I do’t have a problem with the heat of the spicier sauces, but heat for heat’s own sake isn’t something i enjoy. Habanero based sauces are definitely hotter but. IMO, do not really add a layer of flavor to what I and eating. The Tabasco sauces have an underlying bitterness that I do not like.
El Pato Salsa Picante Chile Jalapeño (the green sauce in the bottle)? I was having a hard time finding it so I went to the factory and bought a case of the stuff. Love it!
Uncles swore that dill pickles with peanut butter are awesome. I’ve never been able to bring myself to try it. PB on a hot dog? Same effect. Still, peanut butter and meat, in the form of Thai dishes, is something I like; and I’ll try just about anything once. I should try both of those things.
You’ll be hooked. Cured pork/beef with a spicy peanut sauce is what it amounts to. A couple of pickles to offset the heat, perhaps. It’s become a standard for us after reading it here on the Dope.
I use a table knife and smear a goodly amount directly on the hot meat, which will render it melty by the time you eat it. Top it with the hot sauce to the extent you can stand the heat. Done.
I suppose you could mix it first, if you’re one o’ them elitist snobs.
Valentina’s (regular and extra-hot, which isn’t terribly hot) and Sriracha are my favorites. I stick with Sriracha for Asian food, and Valentina’s for everything else calling for heat. Daughter prefers Tapatio to Valentina’s. Neither of us much like Crystal or Frank’s. Haven’t had Cholula in a long time; might be time to try it again.