Raisinhater Favorites – A Very Special Sauce

As a result of Saturday’s excesses, as well as spending 8 hours outdoors in the cold cold rain, I’ve developed a nasty cold. Please forgive any resulting incoherence or typos. I was away on Saturday (see aforementioned excess and cold rain), so today I’m going to share another of my favorite foods. I’ve mentioned it a few times already, but it certainly bears mentioning again.

SRIRACHA!



I first discovered this hot sauce in Richmond, Virginia, of all places. Richmond isn't generally known as a culinary destination, but its the home of one of my favorite little restaurants, Millie’s Diner.

Although Millie’s is housed in an old diner and bills itself as such, the food is innovative, modern and precise, and it was one of the only places in Richmond that concentrated on fresh seasonal foods. But it is without pretense; the atmosphere is casual and the lines stretched way out the door. To give New Yorkers a basis of comparison – it is very similar to Prune.

Millie’s brunch is legendary in Richmond. When I lived there, my friends and I would wake up early to get there before the “churchies” got out of services and the line got too long. (As I mentioned before, I worship at the temple of food.)

The first time I had Sriracha was on the Devil’s Mess, a house breakfast specialty of sausage, eggs, cheese and other breakfast deliciousness, along with Millie’s absolutely fantastic home fries. The home fries were more like roasted red potatoes coated in garlic and spicy stuff, and were always served on a plate with red dots or squiggles around the exterior. Although they were too spicy for many brunchers, those red dots and squiggles drew me back every Sunday. I watched the chefs (working in an open two man space the size of a NY closet right by the front door) and I saw the bottle with the green lid. It never appeared on the table and I thought it was a secret ingredient at Millie’s. It wasn’t until I moved to NY that I saw it in other restaurants and, finally, to my overwhelming delight, in a Chinatown grocery. I bought three bottles.

Cooking With Sriracha

First, it is an excellent marinade. Spicy fried chicken cutlets thrive in a marinade of buttermilk and Sriracha. See...



Second, and more importantly, it makes all condiments better. Many times I have spiced up my salsa with a squirt of sriracha, or added a bit to ketchup for a little extra flavor. But it truly shines when combined with mayonnaise. J loves this so much he tried to convince me to bottle it and sell it. Just mix Sriracha with Hellman’s mayo (light mayo is ok, I guess, but do not use cheap mayo, nasty miracle whip, or any other substitute). I guess about a 5:1 or 4:1 ratio of mayo to Sriracha. Here it is before mixing (so you can get a sense of amounts)…



And after…



I use it on tater tots, French fries, and all other potato products. For Mexican food, you can substitute sour cream for the mayo. And I was delighted to see the ever-foxy Tyler Florence use Sriracha mayonnaise on last night’s episode of food 911.

Go to your local Asian market and stock up. If you live in an area where Sriracha is unavailable, the lovely folks at Huy Fong Foods will happily ship it to you.