Hot Sauces
Years back a definition of longevity was being so old that you had to buy a second bottle of Tabasco sauce. But Americans today like their food spicy, not only including but especially their Bloody Marys.
Tabasco, which has been around since 1868 and is still produced on Louisiana’s Avery Island, controlled the market for decades. In fact, Tabasco is to the hot red pepper sauce category as Kleenex is to facial tissues and Formica is to plastic laminates; it’s a trademarked brand that is used widely as a generic. Although companies like Frank’s RedHot claim to be the sauce used in the authentic Buffalo chicken wings, Frank’s is still a basic recipe of mashed red chile peppers with vinegar and salt.
It appears that most cuisines in tropical areas where chile peppers are grown have a sauce tailored to that country’s favorite dishes; these condiments are more complexly flavored than American “hot red pepper sauce.” More and more we are turning to an international array of products that all deliver a peppery punch. Here’s an overview of some popular options.
Sriracha sauce: Although sriracha has been manufactured since 1980, it wasn’t until this decade that it became mainstreamed into American life. Pronounced see-ROTCH-ahh as if the first r wasn’t there, sriracha is now flavoring everything from potato chips to Heinz Ketchup, and in most supermarkets it’s shelved with the hot sauces rather than the Asian ingredients. The mélange of chile peppers, sugar, salt, garlic powder, and distilled white vinegar (using xanthan gum as a thickening agent and potassium sorbate and sodium bisulfite as preservatives) really has no parentage in a specific Asian cuisine.
The chef’s knives fly when the topic arises about what is the best way to handle fresh tomatoes, on which many of the Bloody Mary mix recipes in this book depend.
Although storage is a thorny issue, there seems to be consensus that tomatoes should be ripened with their stem end down. When tomatoes are pulled from the vine, it injures the fruit and causes a scar. If the stem end is placed down, the “shoulders” of the tomato protect it and keep bacteria at bay. The exception to the rule: If the tomato has some of the stem attached, it should be ripened with the stem end up as its crown.
Now we come to storage. In an ideal world everyone has a wine cellar or wine refrigerator that is kept at 53ºF to 55ºF, and once the tomatoes have ripened they are transferred to that ideal temperature. But realism now rears its ugly head.
If tomatoes are stored at colder than 50ºF, according to a study done by the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, the sugar content and acidity remain the same, but the tomatoes lose their grassy aroma and the flesh can become mealy. But tomatoes rot if kept at summer room temperature, 85ºF, which it can often be the case in our kitchens.
My answer is to buy just a few ripe or almost ripe tomatoes at a time and keep them at room temperature. But it’s better to eat less aromatic tomatoes than to throw out rotten ones.
Gochujang: This Korean sauce, pronounced kah-chu-yang, dates back to the eighteenth century and it is an integral part of Korean life and cuisine. The primary ingredients are red chile powder, glutinous rice powder mixed with fermented soybeans, and salt. There’s always a bit of sweetener added to the dark-reddish paste, which gives it a rich flavor. Gochujang adds richness as well as heat to a Bloody Mary. Make it the first addition to your tomato juice and stir it well before adding other flavorings.
Sambal oelek: Native to the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia, this sauce, pronounced SAM-bell OH-lek, traditionally blends the red chile peppers with varied ingredients like shrimp paste, fish sauce, garlic, ginger, shallot, scallion, and tomato tempered by a range of acids including lime juice and vinegars balanced by sugar. The most common chiles used are habañero, cayenne, and bird’s eye. That’s a lot of flavor in one small bottle, and all are great nuances in a Bloody Mary.
Harissa: Harissa is the national condiment in Tunisia, but it is used over the whole region of North Africa. In addition to chile peppers, the base contains roasted red bell pepper that is combined with aromatic spices like coriander and cumin and flavored with onion and garlic as well as a bit of tomato. Because the ingredients are very common, this is one sauce that’s easy to make at home, so I’ve given you a recipe. Harissa, pronounced har-EE-sah, is used as an ingredient far more than as a condiment.
Peri-peri sauce: This sauce is most closely associated with Portugal’s former holdings in southern Africa, including Mozambique, Angola, and the Cape Verde Islands where peri-peri (or piri-piri) chiles are grown. The sauce blends the crushed peppers with citrus zest, onion, pepper, salt, lemon juice, bay leaves, and paprika; some brands also include additional European herbs like basil, oregano, and tarragon. These additional ingredients add complex flavor to a Bloody Mary.
Pickapeppa Sauce: It’s finally time to scan the shelves for hot products from the New World, because the chile pepper’s lineage starts here. Pickapeppa Sauce was developed in Jamaica in 1921, and it has a flavor profile that is sweet-and-sour and only mildly spicy, especially when compared with the sauces from other parts of the world. It’s made from peppers blended with vinegar, sugar, tomatoes, raisins, ginger, and onion, which are then flavored with orange zest, cloves, and thyme. Because it won’t make you breathe fire, it can be used as a general condiment, and I highly recommend it in the Muddled Masterpiece (here).
Cholula Hot Sauce: If Tabasco sauce is known for its stylized perfume-type bottles, this south-of-the-border contender boasts a round wooden top as its emblem. Now owned by tequila giant Jose Cuervo, the sauce is native to the Jalisco region of Mexico where it was a key ingredient in sangrita, a blend of citrus juices used as a chaser for shots of tequila. Pronounced cho-LOU-lah, it wasn’t introduced into the United States until 1989, and soon became the darling of Mexican-food aficionados. The ingredients are a combination of pequín chile and chile de árbol blended with spices and vinegar.
The only ingredient uniting these sauces is at least one type of chile pepper, but all types contain capsaicin, which is what causes the burning sensation in the mouth. What happens is that the body defends against the pain sensation by secreting endorphins, which are natural painkillers. It’s not the supposed runner’s high, but chile heads don’t care.