Hot sauce: What's in YOUR cupboard?

[Robin Garr]

Maybe Emeril will publish his hot sauce recipe, if he's no longer selling it commercially.

With all due respect, better to make your own from K Paul's books (for example) rather than buying the pricey name brands. They are simple Cajun classics, layering in heat of complexity from several sources - black, white and red pepper, dry mustard, garlic and onions, similar drill. K-Paul's Louisiana Cooking covered it well before Prudhomme got the idea of bottling the stuff, and Emeril just did that again a generation later.

Robin,

I'm not talking about Paul Prudhomme's seasoning mixes. I'm talking about the Tabasco-style liquid hot sauce that he sells commercially. The recipe for the hot sauce is not, to my knowledge, covered in any of his books.

Regarding the seasoning mixes, which he also sells commercially, I agree with you completely--you're better off making the seasoning mixes yourself from the recipes in his cookbooks. Among other things, the seasoning mixes in the cookbook are fine-tuned to each dish, whereas the commercial ones are just "meat magic blend", "seafood magic blend", etc.

-Paul W.

[Robin Garr]

I'm not talking about Paul Prudhomme's seasoning mixes. I'm talking about the Tabasco-style liquid hot sauce that he sells commercially. The recipe for the hot sauce is not, to my knowledge, covered in any of his books.

we've switched from Emeril to Prudhomme and back, Paul, but no worries. I think the point is one we can agree on.

I have a vinegar jar with left over wine and chillies soaking in the oxidising wine.

I have a vinegar jar with left over wine and chillies soaking in the oxidising wine.

I find that Thai bird chiles tend to be sold in 1/4 pound packages, whereas recipes tend to call for them to be used in oneseys and twoseys (with a few exceptions such as Thai Mahogany Fire Noodles, which calls for 30 at a time). So when I buy a package I tend to have lots of them left over and on the verge of going bad. So I put them in a small rubber-sealed mason jar in the refrigerator, covered with cheap 100-proof vodka (the most alcoholic grain-neutral spirit I can find). It keeps them preserved and useful in recipes for months. And the left-over vodka can be used to add an extra heat kick to recipes, too.

This works even better with ginger root and galangal. Just peel the extra and store it under high-proof vodka in the fridge. It beats having the stuff shrivel up and go bad on the shelf. And the flavored vodka can be put to all sorts of entertaining uses.

-Paul W.