Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Goya Hot Sauces are a fairly broad group of
specialty hot sauces that have become popular recently. These are, in
my humble opinion, the finest hot sauces sold today. Before these,
there was a trend toward one of two things: amping up flavorless sauces
with extract oils (ala Dave's Insanity Sauce) or taking generic vinegar
sauces and slapping absurd labels on them, usually involving the words
"ass", "nuclear", "hell", or a combination of the three. In contrast,
each of the new Goya sauces focuses on a specific chile (smoked or
plain), ranging from ancho (pictured) to habanero to jalapeño
and so on. Each of these sauces captures the spirit of these wonderful
fruits (yes, chiles are fruits), without adding overpowering vinegar or
other competing flavors. Now, don't get me wrong. I love complex sauces
that have ginger, cumin, carrot, honey, mustard, or any number of other
ingredients. For sandwiches a complex sauce is quite nice, but when I'm
cooking I want a pure, simple sauce that I can combine with whatever
ingredients are appropriate or even none at all. Goya delivers with
just enough secondary ingredients to bring out the flavor of the chile
in question, and no more.
The best part about these sauces, though, is their
availability. Most major supermarket chains are carrying them, even
here in the northeast. Go find them. Try them. If you don't like things
that are too spicy, start with the smoky and alluring ancho sauce. Add
small dabs of it to your mayonnaise or mustard when making sandwiches
or just a bit to your scrambled eggs. Before you know it, you'll be
slathering the super-hot habanero sauce on your hot dogs like it was
ketchup!
