The Joy of Sriracha

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

From my blog: http://isaac.eiland-hall.com/?p=473

What is Sriracha? It's a spicy thick sauce. Primarily sun-ripened chile, with a bit of garlic (which is not consciously tastable, but is definitely there), a little vinegar and a touch of sugar. That's the primary ingredients in order of import. It's not sweet, but a bit less vinegar than Tabasco, for instance.

Here's the distinctive bottle of Huy Fong brand Sriracha:



So far, the best use I've found – which is, by itself, brilliant, is to mix 1:4 ratio of Sriracha:Mayonnaise, and use as a dipping sauce.

I bought this stuff the other day, just because I wanted to try something new. I'm not a hot sauce aficionado, although I did grow up with Tabasco and Louisiana Hot Sauce, way before they were popular in the mainstream... heh. But I've never believed in hot overpowering flavour. I like to *taste* my food, and just give it a little kick to open up the taste buds.

So after buying it – without a clear picture of what I wanted to try – I went searching for recipes, and found the mayo idea – which sounded good. So I made up about 2oz (approximately four teaspoons of mayo and one teaspoon of sriracha), and tasted it to try and think of what to do with it. MmMMmmmMMM!!!

I had some potstickers on-hand, so I steamed them and used this sauce as a dip. Lemme revisit that "MMmmMMmMMMMM!!!" – very tasty!

I think it would also work well for chicken, or sushi.

I also found a suggestion to mix 1:1 honey:sriracha, which I did, but found to be a bit too hot for my taste, so I will later try diluting that to maybe a 3:1 honey:sriracha and see if it works better. I'll try it as a dip for sweet and sour pork/chicken, or as a dip for eggrolls.

I did also cook a batch of green beans (from raw frozen) that I added some ham, garlic, salt, and sriracha – it was a little bit different flavour from the Tabasco I normally use, but it was quite pleasant.

Sriracha has a little bit of... I don't want to say "gritty" texture, that's much too strong a word – but you can feel the chile just like with chili powder. It's not unpleasant; in fact, just the opposite.

I like the flavour it adds – not just hot, but the garlic is nice. And it's not too much vinegar, which means I can use this stuff in places where that would be detrimental.

Also, it's a brilliantly strong red color, which is really nice. That's natural, too – not artificial. Of course it turned pink in the mayo, but it wasn't an ugly pink.

So, overall, I really like this stuff. I heartily recommend it.