Ever since I tasted the hot sauce served alongside my meal when I went Fine Dining at some Goa Spa Resorts and found that the hot sauce not only enhanced the food on my plate, but it didn’t give my tongue 3rd degree burns, I had to know why. I’ve been experimenting on my own how to make a killer hot sauce or a mild salsa that is tailor made for the dish with which I am serving to my dinner guests. I found that the pepper selection is all too important. Picking the correct pepper to use will not only determine how mild or hot your sauce will be, but can either overwhelm the dish you have prepared or bring out the best flavors of the dish you have prepared.
The popular Jalapenos is ideal for making a mild sauce, yes mild. It has a strong flavor with less of a kick than other peppers. The Jalapeno is typically green and about 1 and 1/2 inches long with a curved shape. Serranos peppers have a similar look as the as the jalapenos, but are twice as hot. I use this pepper for a hotter sauce for my more bland potato recipes. The Piquin pepper which looks like a small red berry have a unique flavor and are also very hot. The difficulty with using this pepper is finding enough to make a good sauce, but well worth the trouble if the dish you have prepared is a thick bean soup or even a meat stew. Now, the Habanero , is one of the most hottest peppers to use. This will burn your mouth. The Habanero looks all shriveled and is usually a bright orange or red. When I use the Habanero, I find cutting with pineapple juice reduces the heat, somewhat, not completely because the heat of the Habanero sauce is best served with any Mexican dish, like beef or chicken enchiladas, topped with sourcream. The recorded hottest pepper of the entire world is the Naga Jolokia, it is 2 to 3 times hotter than the standard Habanero and is 1 to 2 times hotter than the Red Savina which was considered the hottest pepper in the world before the discovery of the Naga Jolkia. I don’t think I will ever us either of them.
I recommend that you do your own experimenting and find out which hot sauce is best for your favorite dishes. Experimenting will give you a wonderful excuse to invite your friends over and use them as your personal guinea pigs. Hopefully, your experimenting with hot sauces, didn’t burn any mouths and your friends keep coming back for more.