Blog Archives
How It's Made: Hot Sauce
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ShareIf you're a fan of the Science Channel program How It's Made and you missed the episode of how hot sauce is made, here's the first three minutes of the segment. It features Tabasco Pepper Sauce as made by the McIlhenny Co. on Avery Island, Louisiana and follows the process from pepper picking up through fermentation and mixing of the sauce:
Never Neglect Good Design
Are you ignoring one of the principal components of any successful product, service, or application? I'm talking about good design. The following is a brief introduction on recognizing bad design is and what to do to test for it...
Review Bites - Alaskan Umami Sauce, Heatseekers Hot Embers & Smokey Jolokia Steak Sauce, and HBD 1542
There is no specific theme to this installment of Review Bites, as all four of the spicy products covered are very different from one another. I review the thick and pungent Sweet & Spicy Hot Alaskan Umami Sauce; the delightful and brow-wiping hot Heatseekers Chilli Smokey Jolokia Original Steak Sauce; the tongue-singing Heatseekers Chilli Hot Embers habanero and bhut jolokia spice mix; and final of their super-hot pepper series, Heartbreaking Dawns 1542 Chocolate Habanero Sauce. For those of you who read these introductions before you dive into the reviews, I'll just spoil the surprise for you and state that I recommend all of these flavor enhancers to a certain degree. Merely read on to find out the details on each one...
Review - Taco Bell Home Originals Bold and Creamy Sauces - Chipotle, Spicy Ranchero and Jalapeno
Kraft Foods has worked a licensing deal with Taco Bell to use the fast food company's name in a number of nationally-available grocery products. For better or worse, a goodly amount of these branded Mexican-style foods are very much like you'd find at your local Taco Bell, some are noticeably different, while other things only exist for purchase at your grocery stores.
One such thing you won't find at a Taco Bell location is the "Home Originals" threesome lineup of Bold and Creamy Sauces. Okay, according to the Taco Bell website there is a Creamy Jalapeno Sauce available to some extent, but the Chipotle and Spicy Ranchero versions are unique to supermarket buyers only.
Uniform in all three of these condiments are...
Recipe Time - Red Hot Buffalo Chicken Dip
Can you imagine creamy, spreadable buffalo wings in bite-sized form without the mess? You can get that with this Buffalo Chicken Dip recipe! If you've never tried buffalo chicken dip and crackers, then you don't know what you've been missing! This stuff is frickin' additive and is GUARANTEED to be the hit of any party or get-together, especially if the audience contains folks who like their appetizers or munchies on the spicy and cheesy side. It's so good I'm gonna make some this weekend!
Ingredients:
2 10 Oz. Cans of Chunk White Chicken, Drained
2 8 Oz. Packages of Cream Cheese, Softened
1 1/2 Cup Cheddar Cheese
1 Cup...
The State of Hot Sauce and Chile Blogs in 2011
It's time to revisit one of my favorite topics - other hot sauce blogs! Despite the advent of social networking streams like Facebook, Twitter and Google+, the now mature tool of blogging remains largely influential not to mention a still easy-to-access method of acquiring news and information about the movers and shakers in the fiery foods industry and the wonderful (and sometimes admittedly not-so-wonderful) products they create.
I'm a huge fan of spicy food blogs. I have an extensive array of RSS feed links dialed up in Google Reader which helps me to stay abreast of the daily talk and happenings in the Chilehead Nation. The vast variety and differences in focus make keeping up on the latest links from my blogging brethren fun.
When I last wrote about this topic ten months ago, I suspected that we were in the middle of a hot sauce blog renaissance, and I was correct in my guess. There existed more web blogs chronicling peoples' peppery adventures and thoughts - both in terms of quantity and quality - in the time since HotSauceBlog.com set the standard for the medium in 2004-05. Virtually all are still online in some shape or form, with a couple of newer ones competing for your attention.
Which ones are still pushing out content on a regular or semi-regular basis? While all possess some intrinsic value of some form (especially in terms of their archival material), I'll attempt to weed out the currently productive ones from the dormant ones...
Review - Born to Hula Hot Sauces
The New Jersey company of Born to Hula presents a quartet of hot sauces that are by no means original. If you give them a try yourself, you will no doubt feel that you've had all of these sauces a dozen times before. There's a big "but" here... Born to Hula takes these retreaded concepts and does them exceptionally well. Think of them almost as "upgrades" to a lot of familiar favorites: Cayenne Pepper Sauce, Habanero Ancho Chili Sauce, Habanero Guajillo Pepper Sauce and last but not least the smoked jolokia-infused Ghost of Ancho...
Scott on Pair of BBQ Talk Shows This Week
Be sure to tune into a couple of barbecue-related radio shows I'm doing this week.
The first one will take place tonight, Monday, July 11th. The program will be BBQ SuperStars, of which I will be a first time guest. I don't have prior knowledge of what all the questions host Darryl Mast will ask me, but I'm sure they will cover everything from BBQ to hot sauce to chile peppers, and it will most likely be a lot of fun.
You can tune into the show to listen at 7:00PM Eastern/6:00PM Central at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bbqsuperstars. In addition to the daily BBQ broadcast, Darryl runs an informative site at http://www.bbqsuperstars.com with videos, audio archives, news, info and more.
In case you miss tonight's episode, I'll post the audio link in this post within the next few days.
Update 7/13/11: you can now listen to my appearance on the BBQ SuperStars Show here!
Tomorrow night, Tuesday, July 12th I'll do my regularly recurring segment on the the BBQ Central Radio Show, where I will join host Greg Rempe and give you the lowdown on some new BBQ rubs and sauces.
You can tune in live starting at 9:00 PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central at http://www.thebbqcentralshow.com (my segment starts at approximately 34 minutes into the show), or listen to the show at a later date by subscribing and downloading the podcast at http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bbq-central-radio-show/id279116889.
The New Orleans Hot Sauce and Gourmet Show is Next Weekend!
What could be better than having than a hot sauce show in the the heart of Cajun Country?
If you live ANYWHERE near New Orleans, you need to high-tail it to the Second Annual NOLA Hot Sauce and Gourmet Food Show next Saturday July 16th or Sunday July 17th. It promises to have some big names in the specialty fiery foods arena, including Black Swamp Gourmet, Boudreaux Cajun Kitchen, Ole Homestead, Intensity Academy, Ole Ray’s Sauces, Captain Thom’s, The Extreme Gourmet, Wicked Cactus Sauce Company, Cin Chili, CaJohn’s Fiery Foods, JAC’s Tailgaters, Cajun Heat, Flaming Joe’s and Red Hot Robin’s, Deano’s Jalapenos and more!
Are you a chilehead and want to brave the fires and to vanquish your opponents with speed and strategy in a spicy eating contest? Try your hand at the Intensity Academy Lick-a-Thon Lollipop Contest, the Jalapeno Eating Contest, the first-ever DEFCON Buffalo Frog Leg Eating Contest, and the infamous CaJohn’s Execution Station!
For more info, mosey on over to the Official NOLA Hot Sauce Show website.
Pet Peeves: Restaurant Websites
I'm sure a lot of you foodies spend quite a bit of time on your computers and smartphones looking up restaurants, both when you're traveling far from home and when you're scouting out new haunts in your own neck of the woods. Websites maintained by these restaurants can be very helpful for both the business and the customer, giving pertinent information such as specials, hours of operation, menu items, their street address and contact information.
But there are annoyances committed by some dining establishments that I've found to be a hindrance to getting the type of information needed by potential customers. These are my restaurant website pet peeves...
UK Mom Force Fed Hot Chilli Sauce To 7-Year-Old Daughter
Here's another incident where the media equates a spicy food condiment with "torture"...
A UK mother who left her seven-year-old daughter screaming and gasping on the floor after force-feeding her hot chile sauce, has narrowly avoided jail.
The "cold and callous" single mom would pour spoonfuls of the sauce straight into her daughter's mouth as punishment for bad behaviour.
The 24-year-old brute would then stand over the distraught child laughing as she pleaded for water...
I Talk Scoville Scale, Blair's Sauces on Seattle's Brad and John Show
Usually whenever I do these occasional radio appearances I forget to grab the podcast link from the RSS feed before it's eradicated from the stream forever. I actually remembered to download the podcast clip from when I was a guest last week on the Brad and John Morning Show on KISM in Seattle.
I did not know the specifics of the subjects that were to brought up beforehand, but Brad and John inquired me about Blair's Death Sauce, the Scoville Scale and what the world's hottest chile pepper would do to a person's body.
At the onset of the segment, the hosts did mention the local Washington Black Market Hot Sauce Company. I was hoping to be able to deliver a plug for my friends Sam and Tina McCanless of Zane & Zack's World Famous Honey Co., based out of Renton, Washington, but never got an opportunity.
Click here to download an MP3 of the 8-minute-long segment.
Tabasco Streaker Commercial
While I think Tabasco Pepper Sauce is very weak and vinegar-y, you have to admit that this TV spot from them is very amusing:
23 BBQ and Grilling Tips and Tricks You Need to Know
It doesn't matter if it's Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, or the dead of a blizzard-plagued winter...Millions of meat lovers across North America are now venturing outdoors to grill succulent pork, beef, chicken, and other delicious types of animal flesh. Mmmmm! The following is a list of handy tips to ensure in your grilling and BBQ successes.
1. Wash everything after handling raw meat, and don't reuse the plate that you used for uncooked meat.
2. Have a spray bottle full of water nearby your grill in cause of flare-ups.
3. Using charcoal briquettes for your grill's heat? Then light the coals about 30 minutes before to cooking. If you're using lighter fluid, make sure the fire is completely out before slapping the meat on the grill, or else you'll have the nasty fuel taste in your meat (believe me, I know this from experience). At this time, the charcoal should be mostly an ash-gray color with a little bit of glowing red underneath.
4. Using a smoker? Light the charcoal with a chimney starter. It's relatively quick to get some hot coals going and you won't have to fret about getting nasty lighter fluid fumes in your smoker.
5. If you're a charcoal fan, first line the inside bottom of your cooker with a couple of sheets of aluminum foil before you put your briquettes in. This will give you a quicker and easier clean-up of the gray coals and ash once you're done barbecuing. The only downside to this is that the opening holes in the bottom of your cooker will get covered up. So when you first light your fire, make sure it gets plenty of oxygen to stay lit longer, thereby giving you hotter and longer-lasting coals.
6. If using a smoker, minimize the amount of times you open it. I know you're anxious to see how the meat is doing, but opening it frequently will keep the smoker below the necessary heat levels. The old adage says, "if you're looking, it ain't cooking"...
Review Bites - Four Hot Sauce Mini Reviews
This time out in Review Bites I've got four hot sauces that all vary widely in their style and flavor tones: Uncle Brutha's Allsauce No. 10 Hot Sauce, a rich, complex food enhancer strong in the umami department; Blackstones Dragonshead Pub Style Fire Roasted Hot Sauce, an offering with a bold tomato/olive edge; Dragonfire Naga's Revenge Hot Sauce, a super-hot scorcher; and Bello Hot Pepper Sauce, a powerfully all-purpose table mate. After putting these through their paces, what exactly do I think of them? Read on to find out...
