Tabasco pepper sauce: the £2 ingredient every kitchen should have


Updated on 28 February 2012 | 0 Comments

The £2 ingredient every kitchen should have... and five surprising uses for it!

As the world’s number one-selling hot sauce, the original Tabasco Pepper Sauce is an essential store cupboard ingredient that no kitchen would be complete without. It turns almost any food into a feast.

Tabasco can be stored in a cool, dark place for up to 5 years – if it lasts that long, that is. It will liven up baked beans, cheese on toast or jacket potatoes, and add zip and spice to meat or chicken marinades for barbecues.

It can also be added to sandwiches, pasta, rice, noodles, stir-fries, casseroles, burritos, falafel, guacamole and hummus. In fact, Tabasco’s uses are limited only by your imagination.

For delicious, inspired recipes from top chefs, try Simon Rimmer’s Aubergine Salad, Ainsley Harriott’s Carpaccio of Beef, or Crispy Bacon with Mushroom Pancakes by Brian Turner.

But first, let us look at the fascinating story of Tabasco and how it’s produced.

A bottled history

For a big international brand, it’s surprising to what extent Tabasco sauce is an ‘artisanal’ product: it’s hand-made by a family-owned company using local and seasonal ingredients.

Tabasco sauce was first created in 1868 by gourmet gardener and ex-banker Edmund McIlhenny in Avery Island, Louisiana. To this day, it’s produced on the same site by the sixth generation of the same family.

McIlhenny had been given Capsicum frutescens peppers from Mexico or Central America. He planted them on the island and eventually turned them into a hot sauce, which he distributed to friends and family members in empty perfume bottles fitted with sprinkler mechanisms. The sauce proved to be an instant hit, and a legend was born.

Today, a small amount of peppers are still grown on the eastern slopes of the island, but the majority are now cultivated in Central and South America, where the more suitable climate ensures a constant supply. The peppers are individually hand-picked; and many of the 200-strong workforce have worked for the company for several generations.

To ensure the correct level of ripeness, the workers compare the colour of the peppers to a small red stick that they carry, ‘le petit baton rouge’. Only peppers that are ripe enough are picked. Once harvested, the peppers are ground on the same day, and placed in white oak barrels previously used for bourbon whiskey along with very small amounts of salt from the island’s local salt mine. They are then left to mature for three years.

Once aged, the ground peppers are sieved to remove skin and seeds, and the remaining liquid is combined with distilled vinegar. The condiment is stored for a month, during which time it’s stirred occasionally with wooden paddles, before being bottled. 

I bet you didn’t know this about Tabasco

Tabasco, a word of Mexican-Indian origin meaning ‘land with humid soil’ or ‘the land of coral or oyster shell’, is sold in over 160 countries and packaged in at least 19 languages. Over 150 million bottles are sold worldwide each year.

The original Tabasco sauce measures 2.500 – 5,000 SCU on the Scoville scale, used for measuring chilli heat. Other than the original, it is also available in mild green, chipotle and, my personal favourite, extra-hot habanero varieties in the UK, plus a few more in the US. The standard bottle (Tabasco comes in various sizes) costs around £1.05 to £1.39. Each contains at least 720 drops of sauce.

So popular is Tabasco that it is included by the US military in their Meals Ready-to-Eat (MRE) pouches, as well as Operational Ration Packs by the British Army. The sauce has sailed around the world with Ellen MacArthur; and is also on the menu of NASA’s space shuttle programme. 

Five surprising ways to use Tabasco 

Treat yourself to these deliciously different ideas:

1)      Combine Tabasco with yoghurt, minced raw garlic and a little hot melted butter, and pour the sauce over poached eggs to make Turkish-style breakfast eggs. Unusual but yummy.

2)      Mix with maple or golden syrup and pour over toasted waffles or crumpets.

3)      Drizzle a few drops over vanilla ice cream.

4)      Tip a little into Martini cocktail to make a chilli Martini.

5)      Combine with chocolate: add to homemade chocolate truffles or chocolate cake, or try this tasty Chocolate Fudge Pudding by Simon Rimmer

What are your favourite ways of using Tabasco sauce? And which is your preferred flavour? Let us know using the comments box below! 

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