The Hot Sauce Cookbook (15 page)

1 tablespoon olive oil

Remove the stems and mince the chiles. Combine with the lemon juice, garlic, ginger, salt, and oil in a mixing bowl. Use immediately.

HOT AJVAR

———
Makes 1½ cups
———

It’s easy to forget that until World War I, the Ottoman Empire stretched from Indonesia to the former Yugoslavian republics. Eastern Europe acquired its own hot and spicy food traditions under the rule of the Turkish sultans. Eggplant dips and spreads are common Turkish appetizers, typically served with pita bread.   
+  
In the Balkan countries, a variation of these eggplant spreads, called
ajvar
, has become a culinary icon.
Ajvar
is typically made once a year, after the autumn harvest in a canning marathon that produces the
zimnica
(winter foods). Jams, jellies, pickles, pickled chile peppers, pickled tomatoes, and countless other preserves are made. But for many,
ajvar
is the most important canned item of all.   
+  
Ajvar
is a popular condiment with the spicy Balkan hamburgers called
pljeskavica
and the kebab-shaped
cevapcici
. But
ajvar
is also eaten thickly spread on buttered bread as an appetizer.   
+  
In Macedonia and Northern Croatia, the
ajvar
is fiery hot. Since we don’t have the long, spicy Hungarian paprika peppers in Houston, my Balkan-Texan friends mix roasted red bell peppers with jalapeños to make hot
ajvar
at home.   
+  
I made my first batch on a charcoal grill and was proud of its smoky flavor. But one of my Bosnian friends had a suggestion to improve the recipe. After the eggplant and peppers are roasted on the grill and the skins and seeds are removed, she said her mom simmered the vegetables with the garlic and olive oil on the stove for a while. The extra step was worth it, and the silky texture that results from slow cooking in oil is amazing.   
+  
Serve as an appetizer with home-baked bread or on fresh pita with feta. Or use as condiment with grilled chicken or Balkan burgers.

6 red bell peppers

3 to 5 jalapeños

2 eggplants (about 1 pound each)

3 large garlic cloves, chopped

½ cup olive oil

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Parsley sprigs, for garnish

Prepare a hot fire in a grill or preheat the oven to 475°F.

Place the bell peppers, jalapeños, and eggplants on the grill and cover, or place on a baking sheet in the oven. Cook, turning occasionally, until well charred, 20 to 30 minutes. Place the vegetables in a paper bag, or put them in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, and let them steam for at least 10 minutes or up to 1 hour. Peel off and discard the burnt skin along with the stems and seeds.

Coarsely chop the vegetables and put them in a pan with the garlic and olive oil. Simmer over very low heat, stirring often to avoid burning, until the garlic is soft, about 15 minutes. Remove the vegetables from the oil and allow to cool, reserving the oil.

When the vegetables are cooled, put them in a food processor with the lemon juice. Pulse five or six times until just combined. For a chunky ajvar, add the reserved olive oil and pulse a few more times. For a creamy ajvar, slowly drizzle the cooled olive oil from the pan into the processor with the blades turning, until the mixture forms a smooth emulsion. Add salt and pepper to taste.

To serve, transfer to a bowl and garnish with parsley. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Green Ajvar:
Substitute 8 poblano peppers or 10
roasted green chiles
for the red bell peppers.

Clockwise, from left:
Green Curry Chow-Chow
,
Red-Eye Mayo
,
Tomato-Coriander Berbere
,
Pineapple Pique
, and
Habanero Cranberry Sauce

———CHAPTER 6———

CHILEHEAD CHEFS’ HOT SAUCES

Most of the chefs I know
love hot and spicy food. After work, they go out for a late night snack and order
pad thai
superhot or taco truck gorditas drenched in chile de árbol salsa. But once they don their whites, the hot flavors get hung up with the street clothes. Why are chile peppers looked down on by classically trained chefs? Is it because the French dominate our culinary training academies and they have “delicate” palates?

Hot and spicy flavors are relegated to the ghetto called “ethnic food.” But lately the line between fine dining and ethnic restaurants has been blurred by pioneering chefs. At his wildly successful Momofuku restaurants, Korean-American
David Chang uses chiles without apology, while at
Zak Pelaccio’s Fatty Crab and Fatty Cue, hot and spicy is part of the appeal.

In Houston,
Bryan Caswell at Reef puts Sriracha remoulade on fried catfish
banh mi
sandwiches and
Chris Shepherd at Underbelly serves a ballsy blend of Southern, Asian, and Latino dishes organized around local ingredients. His dish of braised rabbit in Korean gochujang with chewy rice dumplings is spectacular. The duck tamale and fried duck egg with red sauce and pico de gallo that
Tim Byres serves at Smoke in Dallas is spicy, too.

But in the hippest, Ferran Adrià–inspired, “food as art” fine dining restaurants, you find foams, powders, capsules, and liquid-nitrogen frozen bon-bons, and no fiery thrills. For people with a serious chile habit, this can be real problem. It’s a little shameful to follow a stellar fine dining experience with a crude pepper fix, but that’s exactly what happened when
Francis Lam and I found ourselves sucking down hot sauce–laced tacos after midnight at a Mission Street burrito joint after eating our way through a wonderful twelve-course tasting menu down the street at Commonwealth. (We were in San Francisco for a taco truck conference, after all.)

The first time I ever saw these two world views collide was at The Inn at Dos Brisas, a luxury dude ranch near Washington, Texas. The Inn is a member of the exclusive Relais & Chateau group, a portfolio of properties that includes a lot of European castles and Caribbean islands where very rich people relax. I was there writing a story about the gardening operation and the rare heirloom tomatoes. At the time, the kitchen was under the direction of superstar chef
Raj Dixit.

Dixit works with the international restaurant group run by the Egyptian-born chef
Michael Mina these days. But when I met him, he was supervising twenty-four acres of amazing organic gardens. While we rode around in a golf cart, checking out the exotic plants, Dixit told me his father was Indian and his mother was Filipino and that he grew up eating spicy food in California and New Jersey.

Dixit graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park in 1998 and worked with farm-to-table pioneer
Craig Shelton at Ryland Inn in New Jersey for nearly a decade. In New York, Dixit served as chef de cuisine for
Dennis Foy and later for
David Bouley. In 2009, he received a scholarship and traveled to Japan where he studied cooking in Sakai City. He was, in short, a big deal for such a young chef.

Seated in the bar at the inn, sipping Veuve Clicquot, my wife, Rose, and I chatted with the chef about dinner. He asked us if we had any dietary restrictions. And then he made a fateful mistake: he asked us if we had any special preferences. His face contorted slightly when I told him we liked extremely spicy food and that I was writing a book about hot sauce. He had an eight-course tasting menu already planned for the evening; it included lots of heirloom tomatoes, but no heirloom peppers.

“But you have all those chiles growing out there,” I pointed out. Finally, he capitulated.

“Okay, I can give you something hot on the side,” Chef Dixit conceded.

Seated at the table, we were pleasantly surprised when the first course, a gorgeous composition of several kinds of heirloom tomatoes with tiny cubes of sushi tuna, several basils, and a dusting of Parmigiano Reggiano Vacche Rosse, was served with a trio of bowls on the side. In the bowls were two Japanese chile powder blends and a bright red chile-infused sesame oil. I nursed the condiments with the intention of keeping them around for the whole meal. But I didn’t need to worry.

Each course came with a freshly made hot sauce that was designed to accentuate the flavors of the dish. There was a pineapple pique and
dried chile dipping sauce
to go with the langoustine, coconut tofu, borage flowers, and three preparations of cucumbers; a
green curry chow-chow
to go with the porcelet with plums and mushrooms; and a Ethiopian
coriander-tomato berbere
beside the saddle of lamb served with chickpeas, green olives, and artichokes.

A tasting menu with a flight of accompanying hot sauces—it was all my fondest food dreams come true. I asked the sommelier to steer us toward some wines that resonated with the chile peppers. He responded with some inspired picks, included a Collio Pinot Grigio with the seafood and a Sonoma Pinot Noir with the lamb.

The concept of these upscale hot sauces is to start with concentrated chile bases and combine them with flavors that complement the dish. Dixit married Thai green curry with Southern chow-chow and Ethiopian bebere with Indian tomato-coriander sauce. It’s an enlightened way to make hot sauces that are used all over the world, from Indonesia to Africa, to the Caribbean, and it is becoming more common in American restaurant kitchens.

Dixit kindly agreed to provide me with the recipes for several of the inspired hot and spicy condiments he created for us at Inn at Dos Brisas.

Other recipes in this chapter come from the great chefs who have served as judges at the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival, as well as several other fire-eating chefs who have agreed to help us out. So here’s a collection of hot recipes designed for fine dining. Enjoy!

RAJ DIXIT’S TOMATO-CORIANDER BERBERE

———
Makes 2¼ cups
———

Raj Dixit served this pleasantly spicy table condiment with saddle of lamb with chickpeas and olives. It goes well with grilled or broiled lamb or chicken.

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, chopped

Cloves from 1 head garlic, chopped (about ½ cup)

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1½ cups white wine

¼ cup coriander seeds

2 large beefsteak tomatoes, chopped

1 cup tomato juice

2 stalks lemongrass (trimmed with tough outer leaves removed), chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon fresh lemon thyme

1 teaspoon grated orange zest

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

¼ cup
Berbere Paste

Heat the olive oil in a sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until wilted, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic and stir for a few minutes, or until lightly cooked. Add the tomato paste and white wine, and cook until almost all the liquid is reduced, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, toast the coriander seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until the seeds are fragrant. Use a glass cup, jar, or second skillet to crush the toasted seeds.

Add the coriander seeds, tomatoes, tomato juice, and lemongrass to the sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, and continue cooking for 15 minutes.

Remove from the heat and add the lemon thyme and orange zest. While warm, pass the sauce through a food mill or a mesh sieve. To the strained mash, add the lemon juice and berbere paste to taste, stirring vigorously until it is dissolved and well combined. Serve at room temperature.