Hot sauce

[Helen Thomas]

What's your favourite hot sauce ?
I heard of this one today : Dave's Instant Insanity

In the UK we have Chinese Sweet Chili and Chinese Hot Chili sauces mainly. And Tabasco. I've tried wasabi - it's a bit like horseradish. Horseradish sauce is hot, too.

[peter wooster]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:
What's your favourite hot sauce ?
I heard of this one today : Dave's Instant Insanity

In the UK we have Chinese Sweet Chili and Chinese Hot Chili sauces mainly. And Tabasco. I've tried wasabi - it's a bit like horseradish. Horseradish sauce is hot, too.

Mexican red Chilpotle Salsa is very tasty, and reasonably hot.

[Helen Thomas]

I think the USA has a much wider variety.
Here's some more I found.

Da Bomb, Black Widow, Viscious Cobra, and Sudden Death.

The macho missing link ? And what is this measure of a hot sauce : in excess of 200K Scoville Units?
[ December 08, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Helen Thomas]

Originally posted by peter wooster:


Mexican red Chilpotle Salsa is very tasty, and reasonably hot.

I thought the Salsa was a dance not also a sauce.

[Gail Schlentz]

This will Kick Your (link)

Mmmmmmmm!!!

[Helen Thomas]

Contains the Red Savina Habanero Pepper and 1 million Scoville unit capsicum extract. Extremely Hot!

There goes the Scoville unit again. Capsician count seems another measuring standard.

Anyone else would go AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGH! after tasting a hot sauce but seems Americans go 50K Capsician, 100K Capsician, 125 K,300K AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHH.

[Ray Marsh]

This is the place for hotsauce. Dave's Insanity sauce held the record for the hottest sauce at one point. It really is way too hot for any real purpose other than breaking the record. Even a tiny bit on the end of a toothpick is nuts!

I grew Habaneros one year. They should be genetically engineered to grow with a warning label!
[ December 08, 2004: Message edited by: Ray Marsh ]

[peter wooster]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:
I thought the Salsa was a dance not also a sauce.

Salsa is literally "sauce" in spanish, usually hot, the dance gets its name from its spicy attitude.

[Jayesh Lalwani]

Originally posted by Ray Marsh:


I grew Habaneros one year. They should be genetically engineered to grow with a warning label!

[ December 08, 2004: Message edited by: Ray Marsh ]

Ahh but did you eat them whole?? I did!! I would put jalapenos on cheese pizza, and once the grocery ran out of jalapenos, but they had habaneros. I didnt know they would be so spicy. So, I got them and ate 2 of them with a small 4-inch pizza. I had to lie down. Definetly got a buzz. Wouldnt try it again though

[peter wooster]

Originally posted by Jayesh Lalwani:

Ahh but did you eat them whole?? I did!! I would put jalapenos on cheese pizza, and once the grocery ran out of jalapenos, but they had habaneros. I didnt know they would be so spicy. So, I got them and ate 2 of them with a small 4-inch pizza. I had to lie down. Definetly got a buzz. Wouldnt try it again though

I once tried Screaming Sphincter Habanero Salsa which that source ranks second to Dave's Insanity. I generally try to stay away from Habanero and thier close relative Scotch Bonnet peppers and those nasty little Thai Dragons.

On the other hand they are good in small quantities. Our favorite Thai restauant used to put Scotch Bonnets in their basil squid, it was a great dish if you ate around them and only got their second hand hots. They have the same wrinkled look as habaneros and are both members of the Capsicum chinense species. The scotch bonnets are very popular in the Jamaican community in Toronto. Being of Caribbean origin, this potent number should be readily available in the British Isles.

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:


I thought the Salsa was a dance not also a sauce.

I thought that Salsa is a music genre?

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by peter wooster:


Mexican red Chilpotle Salsa is very tasty, and reasonably hot.

McDonald's owns Chipotle Restaurants across America. I wonder if Chipotle's food is any good?

www.chipotle.com

I have tasted Chipotle salsa. It is way tooooooooo Hot for me.
[ December 08, 2004: Message edited by: Jesse Torres ]

[Jim Yingst]

Chipotle's has pretty good food. Certainly much better than their owner McDonald's. But while they may own the name of the restaurant, they don't own the term "chipotle" - no need to capitalize. It's a public-domain word for smoked jalapeño peppers - which taste pretty darn good, in my opinion. On average they're no hotter than regular jalapeños - which are admittedly considered hot by many, though that's decreased over time (in US markets at least) as they're increasingly cultivated for size more than heat. They're not nearly as hot as habañeros. I like them (jalapeños) because they've got a distinctive flavor. You can always make food hotter by adding more peppers - but that's doesn't automatically mean it tastes better. Chipotles are good for their flavor at least as much as their spiciness.

Going back, my interest in spicy foods came from the fact that I didn't really learn to cook anything until I was in college. Then, I sometimes found myself invited to pot-luck parties, which means I was expected to cook something and bring it for others to eat. Well, I didn't really know how to cook very well. I didn't want people turning down my food simply because it wasn't very good. Much better if they said something like "Oh, that's too hot for me!" So I favored the hottest recipes I could find. I decided it was better to be feared than pitied. [img=graemlins/devilgrin.gif] No one ever complained that I couldn't cook well. Of course, I was obligated to eat some of what I cooked myself (someone had to), and it turns out that over time you can develop both a resistance and an addiction to spicy food. So my cooking was not wasted.

Over time I mellowed out (and learned to cook a bit better), having decided it was more enjoyable to savor a meal than it was to simply endure it. So I've toned down the amount of spice that I want in a meal. "Spicy" is good, "hot" or "painful" are bad. I can endure really hot meals, better than most of the people I know - but that doesn't mean I really enjoy the hottest meals. Admittedly, what I consider merely "spicy" is still considered painful by some. And most restaurants in America don't serve the food really spicy unless you very specifically ask them to. (Or unless someone at your table drunkenly proclaims "People from [country X] don't even know what really spicy food tastes like" loud enough for the chef from [country X] to hear. Oooh, now you're in trouble...)

I've had (and survived) Dave's Insanity Sauce, and several of the others found on the sites listed above. I remember Ass Kickin' Cajun Style, Hellfire and Damnation, and You Can't Handle This Hot Sauce. Gotta admit, they've got some colorful names. Overall though, I didn't find them all that interesting. Yeah, you can see how tough you are by proving how much of Dave's Insanity Sauce you can take at once - but that's not really all that fun. I would further generalize to say that the best-tasting spicy meals I've had were those in which the spices were part of the recipe early on, rather than merely added at the end as some sort of sauce. Indian food is probably the best example of this. Indian cookbooks (and cooks) do not recognize the existence of "curry powder" - that was a result of Brits trying to reduce the complex flavors they encountered in India to a simple exportable recipe. No, an Indian cookbook will tell you exactly how much cumin, coriander, turmeric, and other spices to add to a given recipe - while it's cooking. The idea is that if a given flavor is desireable, it should be infused into the meat (or whatever it is you're cooking) rather than ladled on at the end. Plus many spices are more interesting when fresh - e.g. freshly-popped seeds of sumin, mustard, or cardamom. ("Popped" means you boil some ghee (clarified butter) and roast the seeds until they pop.) Powders are evil, as they lose their freshness quickly - while seeds can be kept for some time with little effect. The exception is turmeric, which is a root not a seed, and is too much of a pain in the @$$ to grind fresh - just buy fresh turmeric powder every few months. Anyway - the point is that fresh, distinctive spices are much more interesting to eat than those which are merely hot.
[ December 08, 2004: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

[Ray Marsh]

Originally posted by Jayesh Lalwani:
Ahh but did you eat them whole?? I did!! I would put jalapenos on cheese pizza, and once the grocery ran out of jalapenos, but they had habaneros. I didnt know they would be so spicy. So, I got them and ate 2 of them with a small 4-inch pizza. I had to lie down. Definetly got a buzz. Wouldnt try it again though

You are better than I am. I wouldn't recommend that, however. You could wind up in the hospital. I heard of a guy who ate one and his throat closed and had to be rushed to emergency.

Those bad boyz are no joke!

[Helen Thomas]

The same with mushrooms.

South Asian immigrants who move to the States come across a mushroom variety which looks like the edible ones that they get at home. But the American ones are very poisonous - people who eat them require liver transplants immediately.

[peter wooster]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
Chipotle's has pretty good food. Certainly much better than their owner McDonald's. But while they may own the name of the restaurant, they don't own the term "chipotle" - no need to capitalize

I guess that's one more reason to spell it the traditional Nahuatl way with the extra L, as I did "Chilpotle".

I agree with you about spices, they are at their best fresh and not powdered, and cooked into the dish where possible. One choice when cooking for a group is to spice the main dish to medium level and prepare a fresh hot sauce for the masochists in the crowd, I'd use fresh Scotch Bonnet peppers for this purpose.

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:
The same with mushrooms.

South Asian immigrants who move to the States come across a mushroom variety which looks like the edible ones that they get at home. But the American ones are very poisonous - people who eat them require liver transplants immediately.

That sounds like an Urban Legend!

[Jesse Torres]

Chinese restaurants use a particular sweet / spicy sauce that I find disgusting. It is reddish and has seeds. They shower General Tso Chicken with this sauce. I cannot acquire the taste for this sauce.

I also prefer natural hot sauces and not bottled hot sauces. Bottled sauces are extremely salty.

[Michael Ernest]

Originally posted by Elaine Micheals:
This will Kick Your (link)

Only a woman would think getting kicked in the link could be fun.

[Helen Thomas]

From Jim's post it seems Hot sauces should be treated with respect.

There's a Portuguese one in my cupboard - it doesn't get touched a lot - after two years it's still full near the top. A drop is enough to set the house guests on fire. In South Africa they toss heaps of it on everything like we use Tomato ketchup. Nando's Traditional Hot Peri-Peri sauce. On chips, fries, rice, vegetables, Braiies (BBQ).

[Marco Davids II]

Helen,

that is surprising seeing that i do actually love the Nando's peri-peri
sauce ...

but then again as you said here in South Africa we use the stuff
like tomato sauce ... oops sorry ketchup
[ December 10, 2004: Message edited by: Marco Davids II ]

[Stan James]

I stick with Tabasco for most dishes - the smell alone sends me into wonderful memories of visits to New Orleans. We have a nice green sauce that's good for Mexican or Tex-Mex, not so hot but very flavorful. And we (ok, the wife & daughter) make our own salsa that cannot be beat.

[Jesse Torres]

Originally posted by Stan James:
And we (ok, the wife & daughter) make our own salsa that cannot be beat.

What ingredients do you use?

[Jeff Bosch]

Dave's Hurtin' Habanero wins my vote. Just a few drops will do ya! It's also great in chili, but be careful how much you add. Tabasco is a distant second...

[Helen Thomas]

Originally posted by Marco Davids II:
Helen,

that is surprising seeing that i do actually love the Nando's peri-peri
sauce ...

but then again as you said here in South Africa we use the stuff
like tomato sauce ... oops sorry ketchup

[ December 10, 2004: Message edited by: Marco Davids II ]

I checked the bottle and no wonder ; it's main ingredient is the African Bird Eye Chili, one of the small really hot varieties.
[ December 10, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Bear Bibeault]

My favorite is Liquid Stoopid. Just one drop in a vat of chili gives it a nice (reasonable) heat level and a great flavor. As a bona fide chile-head, I think heat without flavor is just "culinary macho".

I embark on making my World Famous (ok, maybe not so famous, but popular among family and friends) Red Chile Jelly this weekend with chiles that I've grown in the side yard this season.

[Mapraputa Is]

Jim: having decided it was more enjoyable to savor a meal than it was to simply endure it.

The System spoiled a good man.

[Madhav Lakkapragada]

I like and can handle Jalapenos. Habarenos' aren't spicy, they just tend to burn your mouth/tongue. And I don't like their flavor, it dominates (changes) the flavor of any disk if you choose to add them. OTOH, Jalapenos add spicy flavor to the dish without stealing the flavor of the main ingredients. They (Jalapenos) just add a bit of spicyiness to the dish.

Over the years, we have mellowed down too. Now-a-days we don't get Jalapeno topping on the Pizza's anymore, we substitute Banana Peppers. In those student days, that was the number ONE toppoing. The most preferred toppings were Jalapenos and Pineapple - kinda sweet 'n spicy touch. Slurping all over the keyboard........

- m

[Joyce Lee]

My favourite is Sambal chilli. I love it slathered thickly on BBQ stingray. It may be considered too hot for people who are not used to eating chilli.

[Ray Marsh]

Originally posted by Madhav Lakkapragada:
Habarenos' aren't spicy, they just tend to burn your mouth/tongue. And I don't like their flavor.

Spicy is not an appropriate descriptor, for sure. However, I do like the flavor, very much indeed. I have never met anyone who didn't use too much Habanero this first time. Even the second and third times. It is very easy to under-estimate their potency. They are easily 50 times more potent than Jalapenos. In fact Jalapenos are quite low on the scoville unit heat scale commonly used measure pepper potency. Still very tasty to be sure!
[ December 13, 2004: Message edited by: Ray Marsh ]

[Madhav Lakkapragada]

Originally posted by Ray Marsh

In fact Jalapenos are quite low on the scoville unit heat scale commonly used measure pepper potency. Still very tasty to be sure!

Man, that link even has Pepper Drinks.

- m

[Ray Marsh]

Originally posted by Madhav Lakkapragada:
[qb]
Originally posted by Ray Marsh

In fact Jalapenos are quite low on the scoville unit heat scale commonly used measure pepper potency. Still very tasty to be sure!

Man, that link even has Pepper Drinks.

- m[/QB]

Some folks passion for peppers is amazing. I like them, but not like some. There are books written on the subject. How to grow them, make them hotter, how to preserve them, cook with them, create alters for them, graven images... Well, maybe i exagerate a tiny bit.

[Helen Thomas]

Anyone recommend Chilli with chocolate ? Some people say it's aphrodisia.

[Madhav Lakkapragada]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:
Anyone recommend Chilli with chocolate ? Some people say it's aphrodisia.

I think its suicidal! I like sweets, my wife likes spicy stuff. I can't imagine aphrodisiacness in that combination!
I don't want to mix my passion for sweet with Haberenos.

- m