I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to hot sauce. Some things just demand Tabasco® brand Louisiana pepper sauce. Not Louisiana Hot Sauce, not Frank’s Red Hot, not Tapatio or other Mexican-style sauce. McIlhenny’s Tabasco®.
One of these things is an old-fashioned American fry-up. (Diced potatoes and chopped onions cooked in bacon grease, the chopped bacon put back in, salt and pepper, and a couple of eggs broken on top to ‘poach’ at the end.) Tabasco®, baby. But in the interest of Science (it’s always more impressive if you say something is in the interest of Science) I decided to try McIlhenny’s Green Pepper Sauce and Chipotle Sauce. I’ve had them before, with other dishes, but not as part of a ‘taste test’.
First up was the jalapeño (green) sauce. It just didn’t quite work. It’s good with Mexican food or something with cheese in it, but with what I made it just wasn’t ‘right’. I’ll use it for chicken.
Next I tried the chipotle sauce. Not bad. Chipotle chilis have a different flavour from other red peppers. But it’s smoky. This would be a great sauce for a barbecue. With the potatoes and eggs though, it was a little distracting. The bacon is smoked of course, so why didn’t it ‘work’? I think the smokiness was just a little too smoky.
Finally there was tradtional Avery Island Tabasco®. McIlhenny got the recipe just right: vinegar, red peppers, and salt. You taste the peppers and not the sugar, onion powder, and other spices of the Chipotle Sauce and the red peppers go better with spuds than jalapeños.
Sriracha for Asian foods, Tapatio or one of the many others for Mexican food, Franks’s for Buffalo wings, but it’s Tabasco® for me for American food.
I agree with you. Tabasco (although Crystal and even Louisiana Hot sauce will also work for me in a pinch) is the only hot sauce I like in certain types of American food, especially in creole/Cajun and southern cuisines. Mexican food, for example, just doesn’t taste right to me with Tabasco (although I have seen Mexicans use Tabasco occasionally to season their food). Conversely, I don’t like Mexican hot sauces in, say, gumbo or jambalaya.
However, for a fry-up I will sometimes use El Yucateco habanero sauce if I’m desiring an extra kick. Otherwise, I’m completely with you.
I never understood the gushing love of Crystal. To me, Crystal and Tabasco are quite similar sauces. My personal preference is for Tabasco, but neither seems miles better than the other. My impression was that Crystal is a little milder than Tabasco. I prefer the sharpness of Tabasco.
Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the line (not queue) and let me examine your passport.
Do Americans say fry-up?
I thought it was a skillet or a scramble, or just plain breakfast.
T-sauce is unique, and it’s the only brand that makes me cough on the first bite. It’s not the heat either. Some mysterious thing about the pepper and vinegar mixture. I prefer it on breakfast egg, potato & meat dishes.
Worlds of difference. Tabasco has a much more pronounced “vinegar” taste. Crystal is more rounded, and fuller.
Asian - Sriracha
Mexican - El Yucateco or Tapatio
American - Crystal
Freaking anything - Tiger Sauce
Although I do keep Frank’s and Red Rooster in the cabinet as well. The Red Rooster is a key ingredient in my Chex Mix. Then there are the 50 or better bottles of HOT sauce.
Yes, I guess that would be why I remember Crystal as being “milder” and Tabasco as “sharper.” That’s also why I prefer Tabasco. I love the acidity of it and the way it offsets fatty foods. I grew up in a household where acid (for example, in the form of pickles) was used to counterbalance the fattiness of something like deep-fried chicken, so acid and fat are very much linked flavors to me. Hence, my great preference for Tabasco for these sorts of applications. Still, they’re both variations on the same theme to me.
A skillet is something you cook in. A scramble is something you do with eggs. Breakfast might mean cereal or cold pizza. Fried-potatoes-with-chopped-onions-with-bacon-and-poached-eggs-on-top is too long.
I agree. Crystal is even better than Tabasco. And I agree with the OP too, as much as I love my West Indian and Mexican hot sauces, you gotta go with a Louisiana sauce for American food. If you’re not tough enough for Dave’s Insanity, that is.
Dopers, please…as the great philosopher Rodney King once said, “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along?” Let us learn to live in harmony.
If you want to go all the way with Tabasco, you might want to experiment with their habanero sauce. Normally, habaneros are way too spicy for me, but if you’ve got a steady hand*, just a few drops make eggs taste great.
*Of course, the great American fry up is oft served post hangover - you’d best be careful the next morning.
Truth be told, I don’t think I’ve ever come across a hot sauce I actively disliked. Well, actually, some of the amped-up extract sauces I’m not a huge fan of. They have the heat I like, but they have this, I dunno, “plastic” or otherwise chemically flavor to them that I don’t like.
I like Tabasco scattered in drops across a big ol’ bowl of New England clam chowder. There’s something about shellfish, cream and Tabasco that combines to make one of the great holy trinities of cooking.
It’s also indispensable as the condiment to accompany a robust shrimp ‘n’ andouille sausage gumbo.
I worked at a fine dining restaurant in New Orleans years ago. We had both Tabasco and Crystal in the back and would bring one or the other to a table upon request . . .
EXCEPT when a member of the Crystal family (the Baumers) would come in to the restaurant! The owner of the restaurant would hurl herself through the dining rooms, pantry, and prep areas which would send the floor manager hurling himself through the dining rooms, pantry, and prep areas which would send the Head Waiter hurling himself through the dining rooms, pantry, and prep areas like a hurricane one by one pinning each waiter and back waiter to the walls “No Tabasco in the dinning rooms! Make sure no Tabasco is brought out into the dining rooms! Crystal only!!!”
