Fish Tacos with Indonesian Sriracha

 So, I'm on a quest to find uses for 20+ bottles of sriracha from the Sriracha Smackdown, and I'm always curious if the srirachas taste better in food than on a plain cracker. Most folks feel pretty safe and secure with a fish taco served with something remotely Mexican, like Valentino, Tapatio, or Cholula. Well, sorry, ain't nobody got time for new hot sauces, let's look into the existing inventory!

ABC Extra Pedas, an Indonesian brand, only scored a 12 out of 19 on our original list. And in looking at the raw score, it was me that brought it down! Take away my taste score and discard the bottle art as criteria...and it was number 2 (and HT Traders wins). Well, there is a reason for that. This sauce has a time and place. And it is on a fish taco.

Sriracha Smackdown ROUND 2

Update 7/16/2013: The results for Round 2 have been posted by Oz! Check it out. Full SFB analysis coming soon!

And just when you thought it was over. There has been an outpouring of new data/recommendations on srirachas we didn't try. So you know what that means. ROUND 2!

How will this work? This time, we want more judges. And you don't have to be here. Here is the list of new brands we will be trying. If you can get your hands on any one of these, you can participate. We're going to limit Round 2 to about 5 more brands, and compare them with the results from Round 1. Blindfolding is optional.

Scoring will work the same as the last round so we can compare results - simply rank on overall taste (1-5), heat (1-5), bottle art (1-5).We'll run it through our algorithms and come up with the new winner.

Send me a note if you are interested in participating! And send me some additional srirachas! We may even do this live!

Here are the list of newcomers so far:

1.) Saigon Sisters T-racha Awesome Sauce (only available if you live in Chicago)
2.) Yuzu Pao Sriracha (only available online)
3.) "Pain is Good" brand (only available online and in some specialty shops)
4.) Dark Star Sriracha (only available online)
5.) Thai and True "Sarachee" (available online and in Oregon specialty shops)

We wanted to find Polar brand which was a winner on a recent Serious Eats sriracha contest, but they are out right now (probably had a run as a result of the blog).

We will also be re-testing the following brands with the newcomers:

1.) Huy Fong (available everywhere)
2.) Lee Kum Kee (available at many asian markets and some regular grocery stores)
3.) Sky Valley (Whole Foods sells this brand)

We will be doing this live at an upcoming Google Hangout!

Help support the Srirachumentary

Griffin Hammond, valorous independent filmmaker, has decided to pay homage to the holy grail of hot sauce, our beloved sriracha. Get ready for Sriracha the Documentary! Or shall we say... cockumentary? Griffin is pulling out all the stops - palling around with Randy Clemens (author of the Sriracha Cookbook... I smell a "cooked-through" project coming...) and David Tran (the inventor of the rooster sauce), and even travelling to Sriracha, Thailand to learn more about the original/authentic inspiration to the American version (we wonder if he'll be swayed by the well-scoring Sriracha Panich... or to other local brands we can test in Round 2).
You can check out more about the film on his page. For a 5 dollar donation through Kickstarter, you can get your name in the credits. For more, you can get a poster, pre-releases, video chats, etc.

Photo of the poster courtesy of Griffin and his fans.

The Sriracha Smackdown

And the winner is...

Well hold on, I don't give away answers for free...you'll need to read to the bottom (or just scroll, lazy reader). For those of you who haven't kept up, here is the premise of the test. Bascially, we went in blindfolded and tasted a ton of srirachas to determine which had the best flavor and texture - and see if we could identify the rooster. Check here to see our list. We made some tweaks to the original concept - didn't do the food round since we had so many srirachas (19 to be exact) and were afraid of burnout. Better to go naked.

Update as of 7/21/2013: We've also completed ROUND 2! Be sure to check it out!