The Hot Sauce Topic

[Shelby]

For many years, Ortego hot sauce, made in small batches in Ville Platte, was the best Louisiana-style hot sauce. We used to order it by the case, straight from the maker.

When he retired, I started fermenting small batches aspiring to a similar style. Buy the best local chiles in the tabasco style at a farmers market, ferment them in a beer carboy or a fermentation crock as one would make sauerkraut, and grind in a Vita-Prep with a good mild vinegar such as champagne or rice wine vinegar. Adjust the salt, sieve and bottle. We still miss Ortego but this gets my friends by.

Beautiful looking sauce! May I ask where you purchase your bottles?

[pacman1978]

Encona is a great hot sauce for me - has a real kick but not too much. It is west indian in origin, Idon't know if you can easliy get it in the US though but really common here in the UK

[Syzygies]

May I ask where you purchase your bottles?

Freund Container & Supply.

5 oz "Woozy" bottle + reducer + shrink band + cap = 0.61 + 0.07 + 0.02 + 0.10 = 80 cents/bottle, with price breaks for quantity purchases. Laser printer address labels (full or half sheet) cut up and stick nicely.

http://www.freundcon...les/p/V5014B36/

http://www.freundcon....aspx?p=6046-wb

http://www.freundcon...spx?p=sbc241-wb

http://www.freundcon...px?p=x24-414-wb

[Raamo]

We grow two peppers - Fatalii and Rocoto I'd love to make a sauce out of the Fatalii if I got enough of them. I'm in Minnnesota so it's strickly an indoor project. There's one fatalii on one of the plants right now but I doubt I'd ever get a full pound.

What's the reason for fermenting described above?

[Syzygies]

The Fatalii is a chili pepper of Capsicum chinense that originates in central and southern Africa. It is described to have a fruity, citrus flavor with a searing heat that is comparable to the standard habanero. The Scoville Food Institute lists the Fatalii as the seventh hottest pepper, ranging 125,000–325,000 Scoville units. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatalii

We grow two peppers - Fatalii and Rocoto I'd love to make a sauce out of the Fatali

As it happens, we make two hot sauces, both because we can't buy them: A "Tabasco" style fermented red hot sauce, and a Caribbean style hot sauce from Fatali peppers.

I'd be making something up if I provided a "reason" for fermenting the red hot sauce. I tried making hot sauce without fermenting, and it was bad. Pathetic. I even found similar recipes online by famous authors, and I was embarrassed to read them. As in, the hot sauce was "gee whiz lets make a nuclear accelerator in our backyard using Q-tips" bad. So I read up on the original McIlhenny recipe (no matter that I find the modern commercial version lacking) involving packing in oak barrels for years, carving off the black bits that looked like they'd kill you (I paraphrase) and mixing with vinegar. The acidic fermentation process used to make sauerkraut and kimchi struck me as quicker and more controllable (like modern wine making in stainless steel tanks) so I went for it. The http://morebeer.com warehouse was in my town so I used beer carboys; I've since switched to German fermentation crocks. The results were much, much better, with fermentation. No reason. Rather, an empirical observation.

While I wouldn't call this approach widespread, I would call it obvious (I'm a mathematician and we have a pretty harsh notion of originality; this was an exercise) and I've since seen similar approaches described on fermentation forums. If you want to sound like a troll, go express concern about botulism on one of those forums. They're pretty confident that proper fermentation technique can't possibly lead to botulism. I bought a pH meter, and acidify at the start to a level that can't support botulism. The fermentation bugs don't mind, and they take it from there.

On the other hand, fatali peppers make an astonishing cooked sauce, with little trouble. This sauce is the all-time favorite of various friends, and we grow fatali peppers regularly just for this sauce. A quarter teaspoon can be just the tweak to bring a tomato pasta sauce to life. Or slather it on a sandwich, if your tolerances are higher:

24 Fatali peppers, chopped

1 cup chopped onion

4 cloves garlic

2 TB oil

1 cup chopped carrots

1 cup vinegar (rice, champagne or white)

1/2 cup lime juice

Saute garlic and onions in oil, add carrots and a bit of water, simmer till soft. Grind to puree with chopped peppers, combine with vinegar and lime juice, simmer 5 minutes.

Edited January 9, 2013 by Syzygies (log)

[Hassouni]

Used to be a big Sriracha fan, but now I find it too sweet and garlicky. I still use it, but not as a universal spicer-upper. My favorites are the Yucateco Kutbil-Ik "Exxxtra" hot Habanero salsa (I initially picked this cos it has no artificial colors, but GOD DAMN is it good), and Busha Browne's Pukka hot sauce (http://www.bushabrowne.com/product_pukka_hot_sauce.php), made from Scotch Bonnets - but I've only seen that in London. Lately I've taken to just adding chopped habanero to my dish when I went a clean hit of heat without any additional flavor like vinegar or sugar.

[Raamo]

On the other hand, fatali peppers make an astonishing cooked sauce, with little trouble. This sauce is the all-time favorite of various friends, and we grow fatali peppers regularly just for this sauce. A quarter teaspoon can be just the tweak to bring a tomato pasta sauce to life. Or slather it on a sandwich, if your tolerances are higher:

24 Fatali peppers, chopped

1 cup chopped onion

4 cloves garlic

2 TB oil

1 cup chopped carrots

1 cup vinegar (rice, champagne or white)

1/2 cup lime juice

Saute garlic and onions in oil, add carrots and a bit of water, simmer till soft. Grind to puree with chopped peppers, combine with vinegar and lime juice, simmer 5 minutes.

Awesome, someone else who actually grows Fatali's - how many plants do you have? Getting to 24 to make this would be rather difficult so I may have to pair this recipe down when we get a crop. The pepper is so hot but awesome we havn't exactly worried about the low production. I'm in Minnesota so it's only 65 in the room with the peppers much of the time during the winter and I'm sure they don't like that - but there's one pepper on one of the plants right now!

Back when I first got into Fatali it was the 5th hottest pepper.. how times change We mostly use it in Fajitas but my wife makes me cook them on the grill because the oil gets so hot it's basically a pepper oil gas in the kitchen. The flavor imparted by the pepers has made resturant Fajita's blah to me and I don't order them any more. I have put them in Chili before and gotten crazy hot chili but it seems to lack some of the double punch you get when the chilis aren't cooked quite as much.

[chileheadmike]

I used to grow fatalii's every year in Kansas City. They were very prolific, and super hot. I dried them and then powered them. That sure cleared the room.

I ordered them from chileplants.com.

[Raamo]

We get the Fatali's from Seed Savers out of Iowa, getting them to grow isn't a problem We've never tried to get them to produce a lot of peppers which we'll want to do if we're going to make a sauce out of multiple.

[Syzygies]

We most recently bought Fatali (and other) plants from http://thechilewoman.com. We need the jump on starting from seed, to squeeze in a decent growing season. A couple plants outdoors will provide many dozens of peppers in a good year.

I discovered fatali by chance, asking a plant guy about peppers at a local farmers market. He pulled out a couple of plants tucked away in back, his personal favorites, and gave me a warning/recommendation. It felt like the beginning of a Stephen King horror movie, "oh cute furry creatures, let's bring you home!" Never saw the guy again. That was our best pepper growing season ever, starting with a very hot June, and the plants went crazy.

From some peppers we'd saved frozen. Next time I'd freeze part way through the recipe, ground in vinegar. And the recipe needs salt to taste.

Edited January 13, 2013 by Syzygies (log)

[Martin Fisher]

Looks real good, Syzygies.

Fatalis are great!

~Martin

[Jaymes]

Just have to put in a plug for my latest personal hot sauce obsession. Felicidad Chipotle Salsa from Rancho Gordo.

Here's a link to a review on "Hot Sauce Blog": http://www.hotsauceblog.com/hotsaucearchives/hot-sauce/rancho-gordo-felicidad-chipotle-salsa-hot-sauce/

I love this stuff. It's hot, but not so hot that people that can't handle spicy food can't enjoy it. Because it's a chipotle sauce, it's particularly valuable to me because I make a great many dishes that call for chipotle and, pre-Felicidad, I'd throw a can of chipotle into the blender, wind up with about a half-cup of chipotle, use 1 or 2 tablespoons, then put the rest into a little plastic bag and then into the freezer to use another time. Of course, I'd forget it was there and, next time I needed chipotle, I'd repeat the same procedure. The result was lots of little baggies of chipotle in the freezer that I never got around to using.

But now, a few shakes of Felicidad, and I, too, am felicidad!

It's available on several gourmet food websites, but here's a link where you can order it directly from Rancho Gordo: http://www.ranchogordo.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=RG&Product_Code=4HSF&Category_Code=#.UPLsgazJLLE

[Raamo]

I discovered fatali by chance, asking a plant guy about peppers at a local farmers market. He pulled out a couple of plants tucked away in back, his personal favorites, and gave me a warning/recommendation. It felt like the beginning of a Stephen King horror movie, "oh cute furry creatures, let's bring you home!" Never saw the guy again. That was our best pepper growing season ever, starting with a very hot June, and the plants went crazy.

That's a great story, I discovered them in the seed savers catalog listed as super hot and decided to give them a try, I still have the first plat we started. We're going to try starting a bunch from seeds this spring and growing them outside, should be able to get plenty of peppers and make enough sauce to last a while. Going to use the one I have right now in the buffalo sauce from MC@H this afternoon just to see how it works out

[phatj]

I got a bottle of Native Treasure Blazing Inferno Island Pepper Sauce in Barbados a few weeks ago. It's made with Scotch bonnets. Seriously spicy, at least for my taste, but with a really nice, sweet, citrusy flavor under the heat. I like it a lot.

[Raamo]

I got a bottle of Native Treasure Blazing Inferno Island Pepper Sauce in Barbados a few weeks ago. It's made with Scotch bonnets. Seriously spicy, at least for my taste, but with a really nice, sweet, citrusy flavor under the heat. I like it a lot.

Does it have an ingredient label? Or are scotch bonnets known to be citrusy? The few times I've made stuff with the SBs I don't recall much citrus.

[phatj]

If the ingredient label can be believed, it contains no citrus. Water, SB peppers, modified food starch, onion, garlic, salt, acetic acid.

[Raamo]

Thanks Phatj, I'll have to pick up a SB some time to play around with

[TylerK]

Over the past month or so I've been trying to acclimatize myself to hot foods and hot sauces. I'm making some progress I think. Currently in my fridge I have (in order of hotness according to the web) Frank's Original, Jalapeño (green) Tabasco, Sriracha and Cholula, and I'm able to enjoy them all for the most part. I'd like to keep going, but I have a few questions I was hoping some of the resident hot sauce experts could answer.

1. The order in which I listed the above sauces was according to scoville units I was able to find on the web. This is not the order I would have given based on my perception of their hotness. I would have placed them something more like this: Jalapeño Tabasco, Cholula, Frank's Original, Sriracha. Any idea why my perception of the heat would be different than the scoville ratings?

2. I'm finding it more difficult to get used to the acid and salt in some of these sauces, particularly the Frank's and the Tabasco. Can you suggest other products that might be more to my liking?

3. I think I'm ready to move on to something hotter. What should I be looking at next?

[chileheadmike]

Your ranking is in line with mine as far as heat levels.

El Yucateco is my go to sauce. Neither too vinegary or too salty, but plenty of heat.

ETA: I really don't care for flavor of sriracha. I must be the only one.

Edited March 14, 2013 by chileheadmike (log)

[TylerK]

I didn't mind the Sriracha, if only because it was the least salty/sour and so had less of a tendency to overpower the taste of the food I was putting it on. My favourite so far has been the Cholula. Toasted/buttered english muffin with a soft boiled egg and the Cholula on top was amazing.

How hot is El Yucateco compared to what I've tried so far?

Edited March 14, 2013 by TylerK (log)

[annachan]

Different brands of sriracha taste quite different. I've always used Rooster brand before. Tried Shark brand recently really did not expect it to taste so different. I'm quite liking the Shark brand.

[Hassouni]

I didn't mind the Sriracha, if only because it was the least salty/sour and so had less of a tendency to overpower the taste of the food I was putting it on. My favourite so far has been the Cholula. Toasted/buttered english muffin with a soft boiled egg and the Cholula on top was amazing.

How hot is El Yucateco compared to what I've tried so far?

Considerably hotter, especially the Kutbil-Ik one, but even the regular bright red and green. I'd say El Yucateco are the hottest sauces you can get at a supermarket.

Different brands of sriracha taste quite different. I've always used Rooster brand before. Tried Shark brand recently really did not expect it to taste so different. I'm quite liking the Shark brand.

I got a bottle of Shark brand and threw it out. It was much too sweet and not nearly hot enough. For what it's worth, this is the original Thai style of Sriracha (or in Thai, Si Racha, which is a place in Thailand). That said, for a while now I've found Huy Fong Sriracha rather insipid and too garlicky.

By the way, I think Huy Fong Sriracha absolutely overpowers the taste of food to which it's added. One reason I like Yucateco is because you need less of it for the same heat level, and it doesnt have that signature "sauce" taste, it's very similar to straight habanero flavor.

For Southeast Asian dishes, I'm more likely to slice up some thai chiles rather than use Sriracha (I do use it sometimes, though).

For Chinese stuff I use Lao Gan Ma chili oil (which also has Sichuan peppercorn and other lovely solid crunchy bits in it), and for Japanese/Korean I typically use either shichimi togarashi, or chile infused sesame oil aka "la yu/rayu"

Edited March 15, 2013 by Hassouni (log)

[Ttogull]

Your ranking is in line with mine as far as heat levels.El Yucateco is my go to sauce. Neither too vinegary or too salty, but plenty of heat.ETA: I really don't care for flavor of sriracha. I must be the only one.

We must be brothers. El Yucateco first, and I want to like Sriracha but just can't.

I have more than 50 bottles of hot sauces, not including backups of my favorites. I pick them all for taste, and specifically exclude any that have names meant to appeal to "show-offs". Cholula and Tabasco are probably the mildest I have, and the hottest are varied. I have a couple of bhut jolokia.

For me, the flavors are very roughly divided by pepper, vinegar, carrot, and mustard. Can't tell you why. The habanero family is my favorite. And for most applications, I prefer no vinegar. This fits El Yucateco perfectly, although they do have jalapeno too. So there is red hab, green hab, and xxx hab, which I guess is really more roasted. I think if you were to use just use normal bell peppers and compare the flavor differences among red, green, and roasted, you'd have a good idea of the differences in these sauces.

When it comes to breakfast, though, for some reason I like vinegar, especially with eggs. I love Marie Sharp for this. Some have carrot, and some not. For me, the carrot makes a big difference, but which I choose depends on the food and my mood. Habanero ketchup is a good idea. I use Melinda's, but I don't think it is special.

Finally, there is mustard. If you want hot mustard, you have to try Lottie's. Absolute fantastic taste. But it might as well be called Lottery's, because 3 bites might be mild while the 4th burns your face off. Really great with hot dogs. I have a couple other Carribean mustards that are nice.

I am less familiar with Asian-style sauces, so I mean no insult by not mentioning them.

ETA: one of my favorites is Two Flaming Arrows, labeled an authentic Indian product from New Mexico. No idea about that, but it's like Tabasco with real taste and heat, and goes well with greens.

Edited March 28, 2013 by Ttogull (log)

[annachan]

I happen to like the sweetness in Shark brand sriracha. It's not for everything, but it works well in dishes that I don't want as much heat. I also like dipping prawn crackers in it. I have others in the pantry when I want the heat.

[chappie]

Has anyone here had Dirty Dick's? http://dirtydickshotsauce.com Amazing, sweet, hot and fruity. I wish it came in a sriracha-type squeeze bottle.