Hot Sauce?

[MileHighGrowler]

(02-04-2021, 12:10 PM)Truck_1_0_1_ Wrote: I love spicy food to death and love any hot sauce, for that matter; my father and I both have incredible constitutions (me moreso than him), so I can (and do) keep anything down and handle anything.

I will not put it on everything however, simply because there are a ton of meals that don't call for it; I will put chili flakes on pizza sometimes, sometimes I won't. I will put hot pepperoncini on my pasta sometimes, sometimes I won't.

Same for hot sauces.


Bingo.

I actually use it in everything that I make for nachos, tacos (including shrimp, fish and meat), Chinese Stir-Frys, Vietnamese Stir-Frys, even many of our Italian dishes; the heat cooks out and the sauce itself tastes wonderful. It really is a well-rounded sauce that goes well with many things.

I think the distinction must be made with sugar-based sauces and vinegar-based sauces; when it comes to heat, the sugar-based sauces will always taste poor, as the balance of sugar added and sugar in the pepper (of which there is, of course), gets thrown off. As well, if there are specific additives that alter flavor, that will screw it up as well.

Vinegar-based sauces, OTOH (which include the Tabascos and Franks of the world), seem to blend much better with the hot peppers and that enhances the flavor of anything in the sauce, whether it is ginger, coriander, wasabi, lemon, etc., etc. Sugar ***** it all up.

This all being said, as written above, I just prefer heat, from the actual source:

- real wasabi (not the crap that comes at your local sushi place or in grocery stores; I mean the legit plant root, grated down. It becomes like a smooth, watery-sauce-like mixture and it isn't as harsh or as bland as the commercial stuff)
- real hot peppers
- real chili flakes
- Tobanjan/Doubanjiang (Chinese Hot Bean Paste; pure deliciousness)

A local(ish) wing chain here in York Region (just north of Toronto) has, on their heat-level that is right below, "Armageddon," and, "H-Bomb," a flavor called Caligula; it is their third-hottest sauce, combined with a creamy-garlic-type sauce and chili flakes. My God, it is so delicious, the taste of the peppers is phenomenal and despite it being super spicy, the addition of the garlic-type sauce helps tone it down a bit, so the flavor sticks out even more.

But it's hot; I know if my father ate it, he'd have a tough time, even with its deliciousness.

Vinegar-based is my go-to for sure.  And even better when the first ingredient on the label isn't vinegar but actual peppers.  I avoid added sugar in sauces usually (unless it's coming from the addition of fruit or honey or something that contributes flavor beyond sweetness) and I avoid sauces that have "pepper extract" as those are usually pure heat and no flavor.  Sometimes it's used to amp up the heat and other ingredients provide flavor, but a lot of the gimmicky super hot sauces are made with extracts and I just don't like it.  Similar to some super hoppy IPAs over the years that used hop extract to add bitterness, when what I want in an IPA is just a whole lotta flavor and nuance.  

Have you used Gochujang (Korean fermented chili paste)?