What is the word for this culinary technique?
June 1, 2018 5:47 PM   Subscribe

I like lots of different kinds of hot sauce, but eventually the fridge door gets full of a bunch of partially full hot sauce bottles so I started mixing them. Once a bottle of hot sauce gets to the 10% left level, I pour whats left into one old Louisiana style bottle. This bottle is never emptied all the way and it has over time had dozens of different hot sauces poured into it, so its flavor is constantly evolving. It is not really the solera technique, but is it something else? Is this approach used anywhere else in traditional cooking methods or is it just a weird old person thing?
posted by mumblelard to Food & Drink (8 answers total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
Sounds like Solera
posted by exois at 5:54 PM on June 1, 2018 [3 favorites]


You could take a cue from the Swedes and dub it "mumblelard's [age of bottle]-year hot sauce".
posted by Rhaomi at 5:56 PM on June 1, 2018


Perpetual stew.
posted by dilaudid at 5:58 PM on June 1, 2018 [2 favorites]


That sounds a lot like a perpetual stew.
posted by ZaphodB at 5:58 PM on June 1, 2018


Came in to say solera.
posted by LionIndex at 5:59 PM on June 1, 2018


Best answer: Master stock works like this.

I sometimes call this sort of thing "master sauce", or "generational [food type]". I do think you're on to something by focusing on on ever-changing evolution. It's done with sourdough starter, kefir, kombucha, and of course the stews mentioned above. I got into this style in my early twenties, so I don't really think it's exclusively the domain of the old. If you want more words, this method is also low-waste, efficient, and fun!
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:12 PM on June 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Oh in some restaurant/server circles, when they top off a 3/4 ketchup bottle with 1/4 of another bottle, they call it marrying the ketchup or some similar variant.

So you could also call this process marrying the hot sauce, or the product "married hot sauce"
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:18 PM on June 1, 2018 [9 favorites]


I'm not sure if it's really true or not, but many times I've seen a show that involved a Japanese grilled food place that keeps the sauce they dip cooked skewers of meat into before a final bit of grilling to give a glaze and flavor. Just think like thin-ish BBQ sauce or such. Rumor has it that the pot has never been emptied and just has new base ingredients added over time. The story goes that everybody knows that pot is the fist thing to be saved should something happen to the restaurant because it's ancient it is a big part of the shops unique taste.

This is multiple restaurants, it seems to be a common thing.
posted by zengargoyle at 8:49 PM on June 1, 2018


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