Sriracha is the hot sauce. Wait, I meant, of the hot
sauces out there, Sriracha is the hottest. Today, you can find
Sriracha-flavored ketchup, potato chips, popcorn, jam and even Sriracha lip
balm. Really. Too bad for Sriracha’s founder that he didn’t secure a trademark
for the name. We’re all free to use it anywhere we choose. Hey, how about
Sriracha toothpaste? Better yet, Sriracha salt?
My challenge – how to infuse the vinegary, garlicy, hot
and slightly sweet taste of Sriracha into my own seasoning blends. There are
times with a dry seasoning just works better than a wet sauce. Suppose you want
to put a dusting, rather than a dollop, of Sriracha flavor over a grilled hunk
of venison or elk. Perhaps you would like to add a hint of Sriracha flavor to
your favorite meat rub. You would want to first figure out a way to turn wet
into dry. My
Weston
Food Dehydrator was the obvious solution.
I searched around online and discovered that I wasn’t the
first person to think of turning Sriracha into a dry rub. No surprise. Others have
spread the sauce onto parchment paper and dried it in a low-temp oven. I’m
guessing that they don’t own a Weston dehydrator. Not having any parchment
paper on hand (I usually do), I used heavy-duty foil instead. I have a bias
against any foil that’s not heavy-duty. Standard-grade foil is good for wadding
into a ball and that’s about it. You might save a couple of bucks at the store,
but it’s going to rip and tear and you’ll have to use twice as much as the
heavy-duty stuff. Enough about foil.
As long as I had the dehydrator warmed up, I thought it
would make sense to see if I could turn a few other sauces into powder.
Valentina Hot Sauce, Búfalo Salsa Clasica and Unagi Sushi Sauce were the other
three that I grabbed out of the pantry. Spread thinly onto foil and placed into
the Weston Dehydrator for 6 hours at 155 degrees, I anxiously awaited the
results as I went about my daily business.
One of the cool things about a dehydrator is that it
requires little attention while it does its thing. Properly set, it’s
practically impossible to “overcook” or dry a fruit, vegetable or meat too
long. Air circulation, moderate heat and time do the job. You just can’t rush
dehydration. And when it comes to making jerky, I really like what a Weston
dehydrator does to meat. My mind tends to wander when I make jerky in a smoker
and, while I’m otherwise occupied, I’ve occasionally turned strips of meat into
something more like pretzels than jerky. Not going to happen in a dehydrator.
As it turns out, 6 hours wasn’t enough to get my sauce really dry. The Sriracha and two other
hot sauces needed about 8 hours to remove all the moisture. The Unagi sauce was
just a bad idea from the start. If you’re unfamiliar with Unagi or Eel sauce,
it’s that sweet/salty/syrupy sauce that’s often drizzled over sushi rolls. The
sweet part just made it stick to the foil and, after 10 hours, it was still
rubbery.
I peeled the remaining three hot sauces off the foil.
Parchment paper would have worked better. Even better still,
Weston’s
Silcone Baking Mats or
Oven
Liners would have made the process much easier. The dried sauces were
processed in a mini-processor for the taste test, but I wanted it to be a
little coarse for added texture. The Unagi sauce went into the garbage can.
The Sriracha tasted like Sriracha and has worked well
when sprinkled over meat, fish and poultry. My friends are surprised when they
get a little taste. “Wow, what is that red stuff?” My favorite was the Búfalo
Salsa Clasica. You can usually find Búfalo (pronounced boo-fah-low) in grocery
stores for not much more than one dollar. They have other flavors and I use
them all.
I’ve since mixed Sriracha with lime juice and blended
with coarse sea salt before placing in the Weston Food Dehydrator. Once dried,
it makes for a great table seasoning, although it’s a little on the salty side.
I actually had better results blending the dried Sriracha powder with sea salt
for a less-salty blend. Hopefully, you’re now thinking, “You know, I wonder about
dried ketchup, or mustard, or Tabasco or…?”
