"All-purpose hot sauces like Tabasco and Louisiana Hot Sauce certainly have their place on the table, bringing a tangy zing to everything from deviled eggs to mac and cheese. But they're the saucy condiment that will ruin your Mexican food. Mexican dishes are heavily spiced and seasoned with a lot of care and deliberation. Chefs plan every flavor that goes into a highly intricate mole or pork al pastor, and when they hit your plate, they're ready to eat with no further embellishment."
"Hot sauces may be made with peppers, a Mexican crop, but they're also full of vinegar. These vinegary sauces will overpower all the nuanced spices and herbs that make Mexican dishes so complex and delicious. Dousing these dishes in hot sauce will make them taste like, well, hot sauce; you won't be able to taste the difference between refried beans and arrachera."
"While hot sauces like Cholula, Valentina, and Tapatio are mainstays in Mexico, Mexicans use them for other applications. For example, Valentina is a popular condiment used to drizzle over popcorn at movie theaters, while bottled habanero hot sauce and Cholula are common additions to slices of pizza. If canned or bottled sauces are the only options at a Mexican food restaurant, that's a bad sign."
Mexican dishes are carefully spiced and seasoned, with chefs balancing flavors in intricate preparations like mole and pork al pastor. All-purpose vinegary hot sauces (e.g., Tabasco, Louisiana) add tang but also heavy vinegar that can overpower the nuanced spices and herbs. Dousing Mexican food with such sauces can mask distinctions between dishes. In Mexico, bottled hot sauces are common but used differently—Valentina on popcorn, habanero sauces and Cholula on pizza. A restaurant offering only canned or bottled sauces likely lacks in-house salsas. Homemade salsas with varied heat levels better complement tacos, enchiladas, and burritos; ask for pairing recommendations.
Read at www.tastingtable.com
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