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My love affair with all things spicy began at an early age. I was probably 10 or 11 when I discovered my first culinary love. Always a fan of strong flavors, I was something of a mustard junkie until that fateful day when I sat down to a meal of pepper steaks with my family. On that particular day, my father had been in charge of the meal. As was his tradition, the steaks had been charred to the point where they resembled nothing so much as an old work boot, both in texture and in flavor. Thus was the cuisine of my childhood. However, on that fateful day, a new garnish appeared on our table, the pepperoncini.
This pepper had made its arrival in our home following a trip to Sam's Club where for some reason, my father decided to purchase one of those giant jars of pickled peppers. This was his typical style of shopping which, if you're feeling nice you may refer to as thrifty, and if not, penny-pinching. At any rate, they had arrived, and this was my first experience with them. As the steak was as rubbery and flavorless as ever, my curious tastebuds demanded some added burst of flavor. Thus I had my first "spicy" pepper. I found I enjoyed the (relatively) lingering burn so much that I had more than 20 of said peppers. From that point on, it was all downhill as I moved on to the harder stuff.
My next discovery was the granddaddy of them all, probably the most famous hot sauce in the world, Tabasco. For a short time in my late adolescence and early-teens I was Tabasco-crazy. I put Tabasco on everything, potato chips, popcorn, chicken, pizza, even lasagna. For a brief period of time my entire world was flavored with that sweet, slightly vinegary flavor. I probably would have tried it on ice cream had the thought occurred to me. But after a time, I grew bored of this flavor, Tabasco's residual sweetness no longer holding it's appeal.
Enter Louisiana hot sauce. Still my go-to guy, I found Louisiana's vinegar-based taste complemented foods better than Tabasco. Whereas original Tabasco conforms the food, making it take on the sauce's flavor, Louisiana provides a better counterpoint, adding heat, without destroying the taste. Additionally, Louisiana has a more pronounced vinegar taste, of which I am a huge fan. To this day, my refrigerator is never without a bottle of Crystal Louisiana hot sauce, and I probably go through three to four bottles a year.
Of course there was one small problem with Louisiana. It doesn't go with every type of food. Asian food, in particular isn't well suited to vinegary sauces. Luckily, my freshman year of college, I discovered Sriracha. I accompanied my girlfriend at the time, her best friend, and the friend's boyfriend on a trip to Lulu's Noodle Shop in Lawrence, which has since closed. The friend's boyfriend, being in the Whiskey Tango mold, had brought a quarter-pounder with cheese into the restaurant, while the rest of us enjoyed the Thai noodles. As luck would have it, upon the table where we sat, was a bottle of Sriracha Chilli Sauce. You know the one, you see them everywhere, the bottle with blood red sauce and a rooster on the bottle. I perhaps overdid it that day, not knowing what I was in for. I remember using it quite liberally, perhaps more than I should have. But as Sriracha is thicker than your average sauce, with a ketchup-like consistency, I assumed it's flavor would be mild. I was wrong, and shortly thereafter, my forehead beaded with sweat and my mouth screamed in mutual pain and pleasure. After this I knew that I had to add Sriracha to my arsenal. I find it works best on not only Asian dishes, but also thick-cut potatoes, or anything noodle- or rice-based. In fact, at this very moment, I have in my lunchbox leftovers from last night, an Uzbek dish called plov, which is a dish of lamb-fried rice. Guess what I'm going to spice it with? You got it, Sriracha. I also add it to mayonaise to make the spicy sauce for sushi or Thai fish cakes.
My current favorite, however, is none of these mentioned above, but rather a pair of sauces from south of the border, Cholula and Tapatio. Similar in flavor, Tapatio, or Uncle Tapa, as I like to call it (okay my Spanish sucks), is about half the price of the better known Cholula. Thus, being the cheapskate I am, in the mold of my father, I tend to buy Tapatio. However, both are fantastic. They have a definite Latin American flair, no doubt arising from their respective seasoning blends. The next time you're making hot wings, try using one of these Mexican sauces instead of the vastly overrated Franks Red Hot to knock the flavor up a few pegs.Other sauces I've been known to utilize:
-Green Tabasco; An excellent flavor, but not a ton of heat, it's excellent on a Chipotle burrito.
-Crazy Dave's Insanity Sauce; Aptly named, even with my now-high tolerance for capsaicin, this stuff is too hot to enjoy. I once had a dash in an entire bowl of chilli and it was almost to hot to eat. Use with care.
-Senior Stan's Tio Loco Salsa; Made locally, this salsa has great flavor and a ton of kick.
-Cookie's Wing Sauce; Made in Iowa, I used to use this all the time, but have since burned myself out. Not very hot, it has the standard Buffalo flavor.
-Wasabi paste; a different kind of heat, I don't like the horseradish-y sinus-based heat of wasabi so much, but sushi wouldn't be sushi without it.
-Pain is Good, Batch #218; Not for kids. Seriously.
I've tried dozens, possibly hundreds of hot sauce in my life, but even as hot as Crazy Dave's Insanity Sauce, I've never had anything hotter than the habenero that touched my lip once. I didn't even eat it. It touched my lip and burned excruciatingly. And the really crazy thing? That's not even the hottest pepper around. That particular honor belongs to the naga jolokai pepper from India. If you can eat that without them inducing a seizure, then you are truly a god amongst men...
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