Authors: Robb Walsh

The Hot Sauce Cookbook (17 page)

If you’ve ever dipped a mango in chile powder at a Mexican
fruteria
or had Indian fruit salad with salt, pepper, and cayenne, you already know how refreshing the combination of fruit and chile peppers can be. In
The Sriracha Cookbook
, Randy Clemens takes hot and spicy fruit salad upscale with a sophisticated dressing.

Dressing

¼ cup toasted sesame oil

¼ cup seasoned rice vinegar

½ cup honey

2 tablespoons Sriracha,
homemade
or store-bought

2 tablespoons white sesame seeds

¼ teaspoon low-sodium soy sauce

Fruit Salad

1 medium pineapple, peeled, cored, and cubed

2 mangoes, peeled, cored, and cubed

1 papaya, peeled and cubed

2 bananas, peeled and sliced

2 kiwis, peeled, halved lengthwise, and sliced

1 pint strawberries, hulled and quartered

½ cup sweetened flaked coconut, for garnish

Fresh mint, cut into thin ribbons, for garnish

To make the dressing, in a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, vinegar, honey, Sriracha, sesame seeds, and soy sauce. Set aside.

To make the fruit salad, in a large mixing bowl, combine the pineapple, mangoes, papaya, bananas, kiwis, and strawberries. Add the dressing and toss gently. Serve immediately or store, refrigerated, in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Garnish with the coconut and mint.

CHRIS SHEPHERD’S NUOC CHAM CHICKEN SALAD

———
Serves 1
———

“We hope you will enjoy Chris Shepherd’s refined take on Houston’s New American Creole Cuisine,” reads the top of the menu at Underbelly, Shepherd’s restaurant on Lower Westheimer in Space City.
+
This Vietnamese-style chicken salad on the lunch menu at Underbelly is a perfect hot-weather meal. It’s also a great way to use up leftover chicken. Be sure and add lots of chiles or chile paste to the Nuoc Mam Cham when you’re making this dish.

4 ounces shredded cooked chicken

1 cup shredded green cabbage

½ cup shredded purple cabbage

¼ cup julienned carrots

¼ cup finely chopped scallion, white and green parts

½ cup
Nuoc Mam Cham
, plus more to serve

Toss all the ingredients together and mix well. Serve on a salad plate with chopsticks and extra dipping sauce.

STEPHAN PYLES’S SHRIMP CEVICHE

———
Serves 6 to 8
———

The ancient ceviches of Peru and Ecuador featured raw fish “cooked” in a highly acidic citrus sauce. Mexican ceviches served near the Bay of Campeche in the Yucatán, a center of the shrimp fishery, are often reminiscent of shrimp cocktails. This modern American version of shrimp ceviche borrows from both traditions—the garnish of popcorn is typically Peruvian.

Ceviche

1 pound small shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 yellow tomatoes,
roasted
, peeled, seeded, and chopped

1 jalapeño chile,
roasted
, peeled, stemmed, seeded, and chopped

1 small yellow bell pepper,
roasted
, peeled, seeded, and chopped

⅓ cup freshly squeezed lime juice

½ cup freshly squeezed orange juice

2 teaspoons sugar

Tabasco or
Papaya Fire
sauce

To Serve

½ red onion, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon chopped scallions, white and green parts

1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro

½ cup freshly popped popcorn

To make the ceviche, bring 4 quarts of lightly salted water to a boil. Remove from the heat, add the shrimp, and let sit for 2 minutes. Drain and chill shrimp.

In a blender, combine the tomatoes, jalapeño, bell pepper, lime juice, orange juice, and sugar. Add Tabasco sauce to taste. Blend on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Combine the chilled shrimp and puréed tomato mixture in a mixing bowl and season with salt to taste. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to several hours, or until the flavors meld.

About 30 minutes prior to serving, add the red onion, scallions, and cilantro to the shrimp. Adjust the seasoning as necessary. Garnish with the popcorn just before serving.

STEPHAN PYLES’S HABANERO CRANBERRY SAUCE

———
Makes 4 cups
———

Stephan Pyles served this spicy cranberry sauce during the holidays at his Dallas restaurant. He says it goes great with turkey, grilled quail, dove, or other game birds.

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

½ habanero-type chile, stemmed, seeded, and chopped

2 cups cranberries

Juice of 2 oranges

Juice of 1 lime

1 teaspoon cider vinegar

¾ cup light brown sugar

1 tablespoon pasilla chile purée

1 cup chicken stock

1 teaspoon dry mustard powder

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Salt

Heat the oil in a small saucepan over medium heat until lightly smoking. Add the onion and sauté for 1 minute. Add the garlic and habanero and continue to cook until the onion is translucent, 2 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the cranberries and cook over medium heat for another 5 minutes. Add the orange juice and lime juice and reduce to a glaze, about 3 minutes; the cranberries will be a paste.

Whisk in the vinegar, brown sugar, and pasilla purée; cook until thick, about 3 minutes. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 5 minutes. Whisk in the dry mustard and Dijon mustard; simmer for 2 more minutes. Strain through a fine sieve, pressing hard against strainer to get as much pulp as possible. The sauce should be thick at this point. Season with salt and serve as a condiment. Stored in the refrigerator, this sauce will keep for up to a week.

FIRE AND ICE CREAM

———
Makes 1 quart
———

Last year I asked food blog readers to submit their ideas for innovative hot sauce dishes by way of a recipe contest. Many thanks to Hot Sauce Cookbook Recipe Contest grand prize winner Mary Frances Fatsis for her spicy coconut ice cream recipe.
+
It’s the perfect ending to our hot sauce adventures.

1 (16 ounce) can cream of coconut

1¼ cups half-and-half

½ cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons Tabasco Green Pepper Sauce

½ cup sweetened shredded coconut

Grated zest from 2 limes, plus more for garnish

4 to 6 graham crackers, each separated into 4 sections, for garnish

Whisk together the cream of coconut, half-and-half, cream, Tabasco, coconut, and lime zest. Chill thoroughly.

Process the chilled mixture in an ice-cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions. Transfer to a freezer container and freeze for 1 to 4 hours.

Serve sprinkled with extra grated lime zest and a few sections of graham crackers.

GLOSSARY OF HOT SAUCE–RELATED TERMS

chil
Nahuatl prefix for chile peppers.

chilmole
Nahuatl for ground chile sauce.

chile
Spanish word for a chile pepper, also the name of a dish in New Mexico consisting of green or red chiles in a stew.

chili
English spelling of the Spanish word
chile
, also short for chili con carne, the meat and chile dish from Texas.

chile pepper
Though somewhat redundant, this term makes it clear you are talking about the pod, and not the New Mexican dish called chile, or the Texas dish called chili.

enchilada sauce
A chile sauce used to make enchiladas. Enchilada is an adjective meaning “chillied,” and the full name of the dish is tortillas enchiladas.

green chile sauce
A salsa made with New Mexican green chiles.

chile Colorado sauce
Any red chile sauce.

chile con queso
Cheese dip made with chiles.

gochujang
Complex fermented Korean pepper sauce.

hot sauce
Any spicy sauce.

mole
A sauce made by grinding, such as guacamole or mole poblano.

molcajete sauce
A sauce made in the lava stone grinding bowl called a molcajete, or in a similar style.

nuoc cham
Generic name for a thin Vietnamese dipping sauce.

pepper sauce
Name used to describe shaker bottle sauces like Tabasco.

picante sauce
Tex-Mex for salsa picante.

pico de gallo
Freshly chopped, uncooked salsa picante.

ranchero sauce
A thin tomato and chile sauce used to make huevos rancheros, ranchero steak, cabrito in ranchero sauce, etc.

red chile sauce
A salsa made with New Mexican red chiles.

salsa
While this is the Spanish word for a sauce of any kind, the term “salsa” has entered the English lexicon and is defined by Webster’s as “a spicy sauce of tomatoes, onions, and hot peppers.”

salsa picante
Spanish for hot sauce.

salsa verde
A green sauce, such as tomatillo sauce or green chile sauce.

sambal
Name given to a wide variety of chile sauces made in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore.

Sriracha sauce
Thai hot sauce named after the coastal city of Si Racha in Chohburi Province.

taco sauce
Any sauce used on tacos.

Tuong ot toi
Thick Vietnamese chile garlic sauce.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A three-time James Beard award winner,
ROBB WALSH
is the author of ten previous books, including
Texas Eats
and
The Tex-Mex Cookbook
. As the former editor-in-chief of
Chile Pepper
magazine and the founder of the annual Austin Hot Sauce Festival, Walsh is recognized as one of the foremost hot sauce authorities in the country. Visit
www.robbwalsh.com
.