One Hot Rooster

After the New York Times article, it seems the rooster is out of the bag when it comes to Sriracha hot sauce.

So if you want to find out any of the basics about what it is or how it’s made, you’ll just have to read the piece from the Times.  But as a hot sauce librarian, I will help you understand how Sriracha fills a niche within your hot sauce library, and why it is my second most used (by volume) pepper sauce in the house.

First, I’d like to take you on a brief trip down memory lane.

I remember my first time coming into contact with Sriracha.  As with many mind-expanding things, I encountered the sauce in college.

It was my freshman year, and not having much money, the Chinese food truck across the street from the quad seemed like a perfectly reasonable place to get a giant plate of food for $3.  Yes, even then I was suspicious of the quality of their ingredients.  I suspected the chicken might be pigeon and if you told me the beef was dog I wouldn’t have been surprised.

There was really one thing that made this food palatable.

After filling your order, the kindly woman in the truck would ask, “Spicy?”  The correct answer is “Yes, please.”  At which point she would pick up a mysterious bottle of bright red sauce, with some manner of Asian lettering, and a picture of a rooster.  Then she would put several generous swirls all around the plate, and send you off to your doom.

I had no idea what that sauce was.  All I knew is that it made my cheap food taste more like chili peppers and less like whatever else was in the bowl.  And that was a good thing indeed.

Years passed and I came to understand that this sauce is the now storied Sriracha.  But it wasn’t until I read an article in Saveur magazine that detailed why the sauce was so good that I really gave it serious consideration.

And this is a serious pepper sauce.

Most of the other sauces in the library are sauces.  Sriracha too includes vinegar, but it’s not a sauce you pour or that you shake.  Sriracha gets squeezed.  It’s really more of a chili pepper puree.

And as a result, it’s hot.  But it’s much more a front of the mouth heat, which some people find much easier to take.  It is also vibrantly red.  So much so, the bottle has a starburst callout that reads “NATURAL COLOR.”

Beyond its assertive hot pepper flavor (that always gets the top of my head to perspire) I would be remiss if I failed to mention the deep garlic component to the sauce as well.

Naturally it goes beautifully with Asian foods.  I mix it into dipping sauces, top stir-fry and fried rice with it, and toss it with noodles.  I don’t think I could eat pho without it.  Speaking of noodles, one of the unspeakable atrocities I occasionally commit is mixing Sriracha into Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.

Let’s just say it’s versatile.

And it has the awesome green lid, which makes the bottle resemble a chili pepper.  How can you not love it?  Surely I consume an unhealthy quantity of the stuff.  But at least I balance my Sriracha consumption with Frank’s Red Hot and a few other choice bottles I will talk about in the weeks to come.