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    The Essential Chile Sauce Guide
    The Essential Chile Sauce Guide
    The Essential Chile Sauce Guide
    Ebook166 pages56 minutes

    The Essential Chile Sauce Guide

    By Dave Dewitt

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    About this ebook

    They're everywhere! Thirty years ago, the only liquid hot stuff you could find outside Louisiana was Tabasco Sauce, but now hundreds of brands are falling off the shelves and being sold online.

    The love of spicy foods has become a full-fledged movement, and hot sauces are at the molten core of this major culinary change. Now, Dave DeWitt has gone global to assemble this gourmet guide to the tastiest ways to indulge.

    From the nation's hotbeds through Latin American lava and the steamy Caribbean to the sauces of the spice route, DeWitt's rich range of recipes makes clear why hot sauces are more than a trend, more than a cuisine–they're a way of life!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTerra Nova Books
    Release dateNov 12, 2018
    ISBN9781948749343
    The Essential Chile Sauce Guide
    Author

    Dave Dewitt

    Dave DeWitt is a food historian and one of the foremost authorities in the world on chile peppers, spices, and spicy foods. He has published fifty-six books, including Chile Peppers: A Global History (UNM Press). He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

    Read more from Dave Dewitt

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      Book preview

      The Essential Chile Sauce Guide - Dave Dewitt

      Author

      INTRODUCTION

      They’re everywhere, they’re everywhere. Thirty years ago, the only liquid hot stuff most chileheads could find outside of Louisiana was Tabasco Sauce, and now hundreds of brands of hot sauces are falling off the shelves and being sold online. Far from being an insidious plot to obliterate the taste buds of middle America, the love of hot and spicy foods is a full-fledged movement, a major culinary change in our eating habits. And hot sauces are its molten core.

      One difficulty in discussing hot sauces is that the word ‘sauce’ is not always used in a precise manner, observes food writer Tom Hudgins. Sometimes ‘sauce’ is used to mean a liquid sauce that is preserved by bottling or canning—such as the fish sauces of the Orient or such popular modern preparations as Worcestershire sauce. Sometimes ‘sauce’ is used to designate a thicker vegetable sauce which is cooked and then puréed. And sometimes the word is used to designate a fresh or cooked condiment that is closer to a relish.

      It’s time to end all the confusion.

      HOT SAUCE DEFINITIONS

      Here we’re going to descend into a labyrinth of condimental issues. What is a hot sauce? A picante sauce? A salsa? And any one of a dozen other related condiments? To some, a hot sauce can only be a liquid hot sauce such as Tabasco,® which is designed to be sprinkled over food. The U.S. Army, for procurement purposes, defines a hot sauce as: A ready to use sauce from fermented red peppers, distilled vinegar, salt, and may contain stabilizers. The finished product shall be a red to reddish brown colored liquid. It shall be a smooth suspension of uniform small particle size and shall not stratify or separate.

      In Austin and other parts of Texas, a hot sauce is the generic term for the tomato-and-jalapeño-based table sauces that are served with tortilla chips, among other uses. It is also called a salsa or picante sauce. In fact, nearly any sauce can be a hot sauce. The research company Packaged Facts, in its report, The Condiments Market, divides the industry by type of condiment. Here are the condiments that qualify as sauces: ketchup, mustard, Mexican sauce, barbecue sauce, meat and poultry sauce, Oriental sauce, seafood sauce, hot pepper sauce, and chili sauce.

      All of these can contain chile peppers except chili sauce, which, ironically, does not contain peppers. A hot sauce must have moisture in it, either water or oil, but the debate is over how much moisture. Some people define hot sauce as any pepper product that can be poured. All the hot sauce categories below fit that definition except for some particularly thick pastes. Although some people believe that chile pastes cannot be sauces, the question of thickness is almost a moot point because such pastes are designed to be used in cooking and are diluted during the process. There are, of course, many types of sauces around the world that are not bottled, and I examine them in the chapters that follow.

      My definition of a hot sauce is any sauce, regardless of thickness, that contains chile peppers. But concerning commercially bottled sauces, here are my definitions of the primary varieties.

      Picante sauces are thin, cooked combinations of tomatoes, onions, chiles, garlic, salt, and vinegar, but have no cilantro. They are not thickened.

      Salsas are thicker and chunkier than picante sauce and generally have a wider range of ingredients and spices. They have two forms, uncooked (also called fresh cut or fresh pack), which is sold in the chilled deli case, or cooked, which is shelf stable and usually comes in bottles but sometimes in cans. There are literally dozens of types of salsa. (See below.)

      Taco sauces are cooked and contain finely puréed chiles and onions in a sweetened tomato base; they are, obviously, poured over tacos.

      Enchilada sauces usually are designated red or green (generally getting their color from tomatoes or tomatillos). They are cooked sauces with chiles, spices, a high oil content, and a smooth, creamy texture. These are used in the preparation of enchiladas, burritos, and other Mexican-based specialties. In New Mexico, red and green sauces are so colored by the green or red chiles used to make them.

      Barbecue sauces usually have a tomato sauce base and are then flavored with vinegar, spices, and sweeteners. Generally speaking, they are used to finish a barbecue after cooking; however, many people use them as marinades and grill sauces. An increasing percentage of the barbecue sauce category is now hot and spicy.

      Cooking sauces are used for grilling, roasting, and stewing meats, and include adobos, pipians, moles, and jerk sauces, among others. There are a few commercial brands but a great number of home recipes for these sauces.

      Oriental sauces include soy sauces, fish sauces, stir fry sauces, and condiments such as sambals, which are chile pastes. Depending on the type of Oriental sauce and the country of origin, these sauces can contain chiles or not. There is a subcategory of hot pepper sauces termed Asian. (See below.)

      Hot pepper sauces are thin, pourable sauces (often vinegar based) that are intensely flavored with concentrations of puréed chiles. They are primarily used as a table condiment and are secondarily used as a cooking ingredient. Salsas, picante sauces, barbecue sauces, marinades, and chile pastes are excluded from this category. All types of hot pepper sauces are manufactured in North America these days, no matter what their first origin, so the attribution of a type of sauce to only a particular location no longer applies.

      Louisiana style. Usually a strained sauce made of crushed or ground cayenne, jalapeño, or tabasco chiles that are sometimes fermented and then combined with salt and vinegar.

      Caribbean. Usually containing habanero-related chiles, these tend to be thicker than Louisiana sauces and often contain additional ingredients such as mustard or fruits.

      Asian. The most popular of the thinner Asian sauces is sriracha, made from red serrano chiles. It often is marketed in squeeze bottles.

      Mexican/Southwestern. These range widely in taste and heat. There are chipotle (smoked jalapeño) sauces, New Mexican-based hot sauces, which tend to be milder, and piquin-based sauces, which are quite hot.

      THE SALSA EXPLOSION

      Salsa became America’s No. 1 condiment in dollar sales around the middle of 1992, which reflects a growing love of all forms of this condiment. Salsa experts describe a profusion of different styles of both homemade and commercial salsas. Reed Hearon, in his book Salsa, divides salsas into fiery, mild, modern, and dessert. Mark Miller, in The Great Salsa Book, divides his salsas into chile, tropical, fruit, corn, bean, garden, nut seed herb, ocean, and exotic. And Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby, in their book Salsas, Sambals, Chutneys & Chowchows, categorize these similar condiments as salsas, chutneys, blatjangs, atjars, sambals, chowchows, piccalillies, relishes, and ketchups.

      SALSA IN COOKING

      Are you still using salsa as a dip for chips? That’s so yesterday. With the myriad of salsa combinations and flavors—both bottled and freshly prepared—there are many more dimensions to this simple and spicy condiment. As a marinade and baste, it’s great for preparing just about anything you can put on the grill. As a topping, think grilled meats, baked potatoes, and even pizzas. As an ingredient, imagine adding it to your meatloaf, scrambled eggs, or chili con queso. As a filling, try it with won tons, empanadas, or egg rolls. Here are some additional ideas for

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