Came up in the LTE and it seems we have some aficionados.
We open with hot sauce. For me, classic Tabasco is a common everyday application on a wide range of foods, but I typically keep 6-8 kinds of hot sauce on hand...Valentina for Latin dishes, Sriracha for Asian stuff, Texas Pete for Southern/soul food, Louisiana and/or Crystal for this and that, and then I usually keep a couple of one-offs that I pick up while traveling and whatnot.
Cholula goes well with a lot of foods.
Texas Pete was the hot sauce of choice in the Green household when I was growing up. No surprise since I grew up in North Carolina. I still like Texas Pete and use it frequently but my horizons have expanded over the years and now my favorite hot sauce is Tapatio (Tah-pah-tee-o).
Bob Green
I really like hot food but I am the only one in the family. Love to cook with habanero but then I am the only one that eats it.
I like my hot sauce with a little consistency, not pure liquid. My favorite is a Belizean brand called Marie Sharpes, particularly their habanero. Not carried in US that I’ve seen except in specialty stores. I’ve been known to order a dozen plus online.
I also make my own hot sauce with dried Arbol chilis. Not bad but still tinkering.
We have some Indian friends who grow their own peppers for a hot pepper chutney. They let the results sit in oil for several years before opening. They’ll breed their hottest plants year to year. My mouth is watering just thinking about the pain. Yeah
This thread should "pair" nicely with the Ymm, Beer thread...
[redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.
From this article:
https://pepperjoe.com/pages/hot-pepper-heat-scale
15,000,000 - 16,000,000 “5 Pure Capsacin
2,000,000 - 10,000,000 “5 Pepper Extracts - ie, The Source, Blair’s Reserve
8,800,000 - 9,100,000 “5 Norhydrocapsaicin
6,000,000 - 8,600,000 “5 Homocapsaicin, Homodihydrocapsaicin
2,500,000 - 5,300,000 “5 US Grade Police Pepper Spray
2,000,000 - 2,200,000 “5 Carolina Reaper
1,150,000 - 2,000,000 “5 Trinidad Scorpion, Butch T, Naga Viper, Common Pepper Spray
855,000 - 1,463,000 “4 Ghost Pepper (Bhut Jolokia)
876,000 - 970,000 “4 Dorset Naga
350,000 - 855,000 “4 Red Savina Habanero, Indian Tezpur
100,000 - 350,000 “4 Habanero, Scotch Bonnet, Bird’s Eye, Jamaican
50,000 - 100,000 “3 Thai Hot Peppers, Chilitepin, Santaka
30,000 - 50,000 “3 Cayenne, Tabasco, Pequin, Aji
15,000 - 30,000 “3 Chile de Arbol, Manzano
5,000 - 15,000 “2 Serrano, Yellow Wax Pepper
2,500 - 20,000 “2 Jalapeno, Poblano, Chipotle, Mirasol
1,500 - 2,500 “2 Sandia, Cascabel, NuMex Big Jim
1,000 - 1,500 “1 Ancho, Anaheim, Pasilla, Espanola
100 - 1,000 “1 Paprika, Mexican Bell, Pepperoncini, Cherry
0 - 100 “1 Sweet Bell Peppers, Sweet Banana, Pimento
[redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.
Your comment about pizza in LTE directly influenced my decision to go with a diavlo pie this evening. Sausage, long hots, whole lot of other deliciousness...
Pizza.jpg
I'm about to go to bed, but this is the thread I've been waiting for.
No time to cover it now, but I'll be back to discuss, at a minimum:
-Tabasco
-Chalulah
-Texas Pete
-The entire Dave's Insanity lineup
-Mad Dog 357
-Blair's Mega Death
-my disdain for Sriracha
-my opinions about various peppers, including fresh Carolina Reapers from the Duke greenhouse
-and participation in various legal-waiver-required hot-wings challenges at restaurants known to Duke alumni, including-but-not-limited-to Chai's (formerly (?) of Erwin Road) and Overtime (discontinued, but in North Myrtle Beach).
I am out of Thai pepper paste, so I tried Tabasco in my phở this morning. Gave some zip but not the taste profile I was looking to achieve.
If I have to go with one of the off-the-shelf hot sauces at my local grocery store, I usually go with El Yucateco or Melindas. But I've been thinking about Marie Sharpe's enough that I might have to order some again!
Anyone grow their own peppers? I have some Big Jim New Mexico Green Chili seeds that have produced sad, anemic peppers in my humid climate. My habanero and jalapeno plants have gone gangbusters the last few years though. My habanero plants are currently inside still producing mid-winter!
While I'm on it, few things anger me more (okay, that's a lie) than a salsa labelled 'hot' that is NOT hot. To remedy that, I can recommend Mrs. Renfro's Ghost Pepper Salsa, which is genuinely hot!
Mateo's salsa is satisfyingly hot.
Also I've learned over the years that every Mexican restaurant, even the most seemingly run-of-the-mill mall parking lot ones, has a "house" hot sauce. I've gotten to where I just always ask for "the good stuff," and it's always good. Tends to be more of a chutney consistency, with good fresh peppers and punch-you-in-the-mouth heat. Love it.
Same here. My parents are both utterly mystified as to how I got my taste for the hot stuff (and I have no explanation either). Whenever I get wings with either of them, they still insist on getting mild ones, which literally taste like plain chicken to me. I don't get it.