Condiment Sauces

Salsa Macha is originally from Veracruz, in Mexico. they prepare it there with chilpotle chiles (dried, smoked jalapeños), but there´s a version from Michoacán which uses chile de arbol - a long, thin, red, hot, dried chile, - you could use a tabasco or red Thai chile to the same effect.
It´s no big deal to make. Just toast the chiles in a dry frying pan, then break them up. Grind them in a pestle and mortar ( or your spice grinder); you can leave the seeds or discard them, no big deal. Then just put them in a small pan with a good quantity of olive oil and a minced clove of garlic, salt - that it. Warm the mixture through then bottle.
HERE´S what makes it hot - or hotter. The capsaicin in chile peppers dissolves in oil, but doesn´t dissolve in water (or vinegar). If the salsa macha is in oil, the oil will gradually absorb all the "heat" - which is why the salsa gets hotter and hotter with time.

I just got my primary ingredient to make Michoacán chile oil macha salsa, - chile de arbol peppers, a lot of chile de arbol peppers.

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Looks good to me!!
Now you´ve got to leave it for a month or so to develop the flavour - although you can try it straight away. I used some I made over a year ago on a dish the other day. O.M.G. - just delicious.

My nose is still running wet and I only just got my breath back. The vapors really caught me by surprise. Whew! This chile oil macha salsa is gonna be sizzling hot, just like the stuff I had in that restaurant so long ago.
 
I picked these condiment sauces up at the market today. I haven't had either in a very long time.

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A1 Sauce

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Heinz 57 Sauce

I had thought to get some Lee and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce, but for some reason didn't.

Maybe next trip.
 
It´s a popular sauce for fish in many Latin American countries. An easy way to make it would be this, taken from a Colombian website:
  • The juice of two bitter oranges
  • 1 Tbsp apple vinegar
  • 1 Tbsp cornstarch
  • 1 Tbsp honey
  • 2 Tbsps olive oil
Heat the orange juice in a pan and add the cornstarch, mixing well until it´s dissolved . Add the vinegar and honey and cook until it thickens, then add the olive oil. Ready to go.
If you want to spice it up a bit, add some chile peppers.

As you know, I am dissatisfied with the Lechonera naranja agria, because its ingredients appear to be all chemical and lacking anything with actual orange in it. And the Goya and Badia products are impossible to find as they are out of stock or overpriced considerably.

Both the Goya and Badia naranja agria products do not use bitter oranges, but a blend of orange and grapefruit. So, I have resolved my own recipe which tends to follow on those products' ingredients, without the preservative stuff. I will post the recipe soon. I am waiting on one special ingredient which should arrive today. And I am waiting on an order of glass sealed dispenser bottles to put it in. Those will be longer in shipping.
 
There is one condiment sauce that has yet to be mentioned here and deserves to be home-prepared for best flavors, that being that the sauce is always made fresh, - a tapanade.

Tapanades use olives, capers and anchovies and are blended, but can be chopped and mixed for more chunkiness.

I will soon make my own tapanade.
 
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Yep - a tapenade is a wonderful thing.
I made my first one thanks to a recipe from a chef friend, June Jacobs, who studied in Provence. She told me that tapená was the provencale word for capers, and that only capers, garlic, black Nicoise olives and olive oil were used. I then found some recipes with anchovies, which I loved. Then I started experimenting with different olives; kalamata, Syrian brown olives, dried Moroccan olives - they all taste wonderful. Sundried tomato with capers and kalamata olives is just the bees knees!
 
Yep - a tapenade is a wonderful thing.
I made my first one thanks to a recipe from a chef friend, June Jacobs, who studied in Provence. She told me that tapená was the provencale word for capers, and that only capers, garlic, black Nicoise olives and olive oil were used. I then found some recipes with anchovies, which I loved. Then I started experimenting with different olives; kalamata, Syrian brown olives, dried Moroccan olives - they all taste wonderful. Sundried tomato with capers and kalamata olives is just the bees knees!

I finally got 'round to making tapanade. I am posting a recipe.

 
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