Huy Fong Sriracha, Red Rooster Louisiana, Tapatío, and Frank’s Red Hot are all great mild-medium sauces that add flavor to just about anything. And they’re cheap!
Dave’s Insanity Sauce
I’ve never tasted one, but I like the story it was banned from the National Fiery Food Show
because of visitors claiming it was to hot.
From the thread:
BasicLiftingService • 5y
Why were you banned from Fiery Foods? I’ve always wondered why you guys didn’t have a stand, when Blair’s is prominently featured. I’d love the chance to directly compare your sauces.
46
davesgourmet • 5y
Our Insanity Sauce was banned from the show because a guy had a minor respiratory issue requiring medical assistance. Note that he was fine an hour later. We also had a guy pass out for a few seconds after eating Insanity bombs that we were serving.
I don’t think Subway uses the same sauce! I can’t be entirely sure though, but whatever I taste in fast food joints is somehow weird.
Have been cooking for a decade on my own now, maybe that’s why.
What is considered a hot sauce? Any hot, spicy or burning sauce? If so, consider myself of the DIY crowd.
I always have a small jar of dry cayenne pepper at home, like these:
The key here is dry and milled, as it maximizes the power and surface to weight ratios.
Milled a few rounds of this stuff in my coffee grinder and now it's waiting to be dumped, somehow the pepper substance got into the bearings and no @#$% way now.
When milled this way this inexpensive midrange spice kicks ass, and it's easy to mix with whatever sauce.
Trader Joe’s Green Dragon. You can get it at Amazon if you don’t have a Trader Joe’s near you.
It goes great with tamales, tacos, etc… Because it has jalapeños, tomatillos, cilantro, garlic, and habanero pepper powder in it, I find it a lot more flavorful than something like Sriracha.
Now there’s a first. Someone from California who’s not well schooled in hot sauces. :laughing:
Sounds like you’re right about at the stage I was 30 years ago. Mom always had Pace salsa in the fridge. Can’t stand it now but it was a starting point. I’m a bit of a salsa snob these days. A Mexican friend of mine taught me how to properly make it years ago and now I rarely find any as good as my own. :zipper_mouth_face:
I have to disagree on Tabasco. The heat is fine but the flavor is awful. That of course is just my personal opinion. They’ve been around forever so obviously many disagree. Now green Tabasco on the other hand is delicious. Wonderful on chicken and a handful of other things.
For an entry level hot sauce you can’t go wrong with Franks Red Hot. It’s probably the most versatile at least to my taste.
Sriracha is very good but only on certain dishes IMHO. For any example on a good omelette or a frittata Huy Fong nails it. There’s a very cool documentary on the guy who started the company. He came over as a refugee fro Vietnam in the late 70’s and the company is named after the boat that brought him here. Dude is crazy rich now and just a kind humble man. Good watching. Huy Fong also makes my favorite soup spicer-upper Sambal Oelek.
Add some of this to cheap store bought Ramen and you’ll think that 25 cent meal is liquid gold!
Another very tasty one you’ll see in lots of restaurants particularly Mexican is Cholula. That’s a pretty versatile one and almost as good on egg dishes as Sriracha.
One overwhelming theme in my hot sauce usage is variety. Hot sauce pairing are like wine pairings to me. Each one has its place. It’s also very fun to explore. There is an insane amount of variety in the hot sauce world these days so your options are limitless. Great topic by the way. :+1:
Now let’s just wait for The Miller to chime in. He’ll have his own homemade hot sauce made from peppers grown on the slopes of a vineyard near his Castle that can only be harvested on a full moon at midnight then aged in sun, tied in hand woven sacks tied at precisely 8 feet to a Bamboo stalk where the fairies guard them at night for 3 weeks when they’re ready to be ground by hand with a mortar and pestle from the 14th century.