Let's Talk Spicy

[Lantyssa]

I love spicy food.  Not jalapenos as I don't like the taste, but anything with habanero or other types of chilies I enjoy.  Spicy thai foods are amongst my favorites.

[Mandrel]

I'm partial to Cholula.  I'd put it on most anything if it wasn't so damn expensive.  Adds a lot of flavor along with the heat.

[schild]

Are you talking about the mild sauce that parades around as a hot sauce that's put on every mexican restaurant across the states?

Please don't be talking about that.

Also, $4.25 a bottle is about the low end of hot sauce.

[Nevermore]

It's not the hottest, but so good.



/not my hand

This stuff is awesome in phó.

[bhodi]

cock sauce. delicious.

[Yegolev]

Did you get tired of the cutting scars? :(

It's the "totally unharmed" part that makes spicy food better than self-mutilation (among other things!), plus the fact that hot chilies hurt far more than a cut.  Then there's the previously-mentioned benefits for the nasal passages and palete... for some people apparently.  Spicy food is unfair to some.  I would have to assume that if the pepper isn't enhancing your tastebuds, you aren't sufficiently high on the Scoville scale.  Jalapenos do nothing for me, so I would advise going higher.

Funny thing, it doesn't bother me on the "other end" anymore, not since I have improved my diet overall.  I regularly eat at a thai joint near the office (Spoon on Marietta St. between Means St. and Boss St., highly recommended for cost/food/view) and although I can feel it burning my belly afterwards, I don't have any evening-terrors.

Besides, if I like spicy going in, what makes you think I'd be afraid of it going out?

[schild]

I am so going to Los Dos Molinos tonight. All this talk of spicy has made me...desire their salsa.

[Stormwaltz]

It's not the hottest, but so good.

Agreed. All the best flavors of chile and garlic.

[voodoolily]

You can get good hot sauces for $2-3 at Latino grocery stores. Hot sauce is never expensive! This stuff will eat through steel, but is delicious:

[schild]

Jesus. Between Cholula and that Yucateca shit, i don't know if I can trust you people anymore.

That shit is NOT hot sauce. Hot sauce is an f'ing art. None of that mass market stuff has good flavor at all.

[voodoolily]

Yucateca has good flavor! It is slightly fruity. I don't just add it for heat. My favorite all-around-eat-it-on-plain-rice hot sauce is gochu jang.



(somebody's bad photo on flickr)

[schild]

Where I get hot sauce.

I need to do another order from them now that we're going to start cooking at the house again. But anyway, they're great. And have nearly everything that's worthwhile.

[WayAbvPar]

A little goes a long way. It actually has a nice flavor to go with the volcanic heat. Now they have an even hotter one, which scares me-

[CmdrSlack]

The Dave's products are pretty hot.

I still remember the time my roommates and I ate two jars of the Dave's Insanity Salsa in one evening. Man, that stuff was pain in a jar, but oh so great.

[Raging Turtle]

Yucateca has good flavor! It is slightly fruity. I don't just add it for heat. My favorite all-around-eat-it-on-plain-rice hot sauce is gochu jang.



(somebody's bad photo on flickr)

I love that stuff - Koreans put it on EVERYTHING; its pratically a staple.  When I lived near Seoul it'd be a rare day when I didn't have some in multiple meals.

[Samprimary]

i'm going to try this 'ghost chili' and let you know how that turns out

[schild]

How about you VIDEO TAPE this ghost chili and show us how it turns out.

[HAMMER FRENZY]

Oh oh, the Mexican is here. First of all the salsa from Dos Molinos is "muh" at best. Man Schild I am bringing salsa back from Tucson from my mama and my mother in law. One will make you cry cause it is so good, the other will make you cry cause that is it's job. home made is the way to go scrubs. 

And last, sauces are an art. Hot is not the only prerequisite. There needs to be a good mixture of flavors and spiciness. There must be EQUILIBRIUM! If the salsa is very hot, the hotness must be offset by the overall flavor of the sauce. That is how good salsa is made... How many times have you said about a good salsa...."It's so painful...so hot...but it's so GOOD!" That is what is good. All this scrub sauce is just that. Scrub Sauce. 


 

[Ookii]

i'm going to try this 'ghost chili' and let you know how that turns out

Unfortunately they only sell the seeds online, it looks like the only place you can buy a plant is at the 'Chili Pepper Institute' in NM.

[schild]

To be fair, HAMMER FRENZY is a mexican that doesn't eat meat. That needs to be stated in this thread.

Sup, yo.

[HAMMER FRENZY]

WAAAAAAAAAIIIIIT!

Eric, Veronica just recently was given the recipe for her mom's salsa....I will have her make some TODAY! 

[schild]

O rly.

I'll go get some chips from AJ's after work. You BETTER HAVE SOME DAMN SALSA THIS EVENING.

[HAMMER FRENZY]

HAHAHAH Salsa and meat have nothing to do with one another. I would have to say I eat more salsa now than I ever did.

[Nebu]

So what's the difference between salsa and pico?  I make and eat what I consider pico (diced tomatos, cilantro, jalapeno, red onion, and some acid like lime juice) but can't stand commercial salsa. 

As for this crazy hot stuff, I think it's the same group that enjoys self-mutilation.  I love spicy, but some of this stuff is punishing. 

[Nevermore]

My understanding is pico is a type of salsa, but not all salsas are pico.

[Furiously]

i'm going to try this 'ghost chili' and let you know how that turns out

Unfortunately they only sell the seeds online, it looks like the only place you can buy a plant is at the 'Chili Pepper Institute' in NM.

So tempting to buy 10 seeds. Can you imagine how it would feel to get in your eye?

[HAMMER FRENZY]

Pico De Gallo is a type of salsa, it is chunky, sauce-less. Just diced chili, tomato, cilantro Etc. It is really good.

Bottled sauces are an American invention, The Term Salsa Picante is registered by some white guy. The idea was that Americans like salsa, but salsa has a single flaw, it spoils, soooo they got the idea of salsa, added vinegar and other stuff to give it a decent shelf life and boom, that is hot sauce. Mexicans and Spaniards jumped in cause obviously being the creators of these types of sauces, can do even the bastardized American sauce better. Really, nothing, NOTHING is better than home made salsa. Mediocre homemade salsa is still better than top shelf hot sauce in my opinion.

Spicy foods using Cayenne Peppers and what not is a Down South thing that most likely has a different history, but this is the history of Mexican style hot sauces. 

[Sky]

I make a kickass pico de gallo. I miss my garden!

[WayAbvPar]

  Pico de Gallo. My wife makes an AWESOME version.

[Lantyssa]

Any opinions on Buffalo Wild Wing's Spicy Garlic sauce?  It's not the hottest, but I like it's flavor on their naked tenders.

[HAMMER FRENZY]

Man I used to have a freaking love affair with the hot wing sauce from Dominos Pizza. I found out what it was made out of from one of my friends. it was something like vinegar, Italian dressing and Red Devil. I tried to make it and it was short something but damn was it similar. It must have been the kind of dressing I used.

[voodoolily]

I make buffalo sauce from scratch. BBQ too most times (we all get  lazy sometimes, though). My fave salsa is stupid Cali-style: diced mango, shallot, and avocado; minced habanero and lotsa cilantro, a fat squeeze o' lime, squirt of rice vinegar and a pinch of kosher salt. SOOOOO good on fish tacos. When mangoes go on the super cheap I eat this shit by the pint.

[Lanei]

Hot chili wasabi sauce.

Link: http://anarchangel.blogspot.com/2007/08/recipes-for-real-men-volume-23-some.html

Ingredients:

4 tblsp water (room temp or slightly warm, not hot or cold)
4 tblsp soy sauce (natural brewed only)
4 tblsp vinegar based chili sauce (I use Franks RedHot)
2 tblsp pure wasabi powder blend (or 1/2tblsp pure wasabi, 1tblsp pure horseradish)
2 tblsp Chinese hot mustard powder (add 1/2 tblsp if you're using pure wasabi instead of blend)
1 tblsp vodka
1 tblsp crushed dried whole chili peppers, or fresh chili paste (choose a pepper to suit your heat)
1 tsp crushed garlic

For proper prep see the article.  Timing is important, good ingredients are really important. 

[cmlancas]

Are you talking about the mild sauce that parades around as a hot sauce that's put on every mexican restaurant across the states?

Please don't be talking about that.

Also, $4.25 a bottle is about the low end of hot sauce.

Nope. I'm talking about the one pictured twice in this thread.

[Samprimary]

Sure enough, I can't get my hands on one of those chilis.

I could try something else I guess. A habanero prolly.