Condiment Sauces

flyinglentris said:
I have been trying to find, with no luck, a sauce called naranja agria, - sour orange sauce. Everywhere I look for this, it is out of stock or very over priced.
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I believe naranja agria is a marinade, not a sauce. It's available in Mexican supermarkets here under the Goya brand name. Too bad you won't see this post. Maybe someone will pass it on to you.

CD
 
flyinglentris said:
I have been trying to find, with no luck, a sauce called naranja agria, - sour orange sauce. Everywhere I look for this, it is out of stock or very over priced.
Click to expand...
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.
 
karadekoolaid said:
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.
Click to expand...

The only problem here, is where do I find two bitter oranges?

I think I found some naranja agria under a different brand name. The two prominent makers are Goya and Badia. But I found a maker named Lechonera and it appears to be available at very reasonable cost locally.

I was also looking for Mexican style chili oil macha. This version is very hot and spicy, unlike other chili oil macha sauces which include a more global recipe. But the Mexican chili oil macha sauces I see available look tamed down and it should be super spicy hot. So here, I think that I will make my own.
 
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.
 
karadekoolaid said:
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.
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I believe the type that I like is the Michoacán type. It's a very dark and thick salsa in oil, and very hot. I've only ever had in one particular local restaurant and was thrilled with its flavor.
 
karadekoolaid said:
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.
Click to expand...

I found the last available bottle of Lechonera naranja agria at the local grocery store this morning and got it at the regular price of about $3.00 USD. The web is ripping people off for the same thing for over $15.00 USD.

I got lucky.

full.jpg
 
Congrats! The ingredients are "Water, Citric Acid, Natural and Artificial Orange Flavor, Salt, Sugar, Propylene Glycol, FD&C Yellow #5, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sodium Benzoate, Food Starch, FD&C Yellow #6, Brominated Soybean Oil, FD&C Red #40, and BHA" - but for 3 bucks, you´re better off buying it than making it at home, with all the fuss it involves. It´s $8 plus on Amazon!
 
karadekoolaid said:
Congrats! The ingredients are "Water, Citric Acid, Natural and Artificial Orange Flavor, Salt, Sugar, Propylene Glycol, FD&C Yellow #5, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sodium Benzoate, Food Starch, FD&C Yellow #6, Brominated Soybean Oil, FD&C Red #40, and BHA" - but for 3 bucks, you´re better off buying it than making it at home, with all the fuss it involves. It´s $8 plus on Amazon!
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I guess that's why the Goya version is rated so highly while this La Lechonera doesn't even get a mention.
 
That is very bad, very bad, for a product like La Lechonera which boasts being original since 1970 and being manufactured in Florida, where oranges are grown in abundance. There's not a single orange in their product, just flavorings. What cheats, horrible lying cheats.
 
flyinglentris said:
That is very bad, very bad, for a product like La Lechonera which boasts being original since 1970 and being manufactured in Florida, where oranges are grown in abundance. There's not a single orange in their product, just flavorings. What cheats, horrible lying cheats.
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Here is a recipe link to make your own.

Marinade Magic - Bitter Orange for Outstanding Pork and Chicken

If you can't get bitter oranges, you can substitute equal parts grapefruit, orange and lime juice and white distilled vinegar.

CD
 
La Lechonera's high fructose chemical soup product is something that turns my stomach just to read the ingredient list. I figure now, to give it away or pour it down the toilet.

I will try to make my own naranja agria, soon.
 
caseydog said:
Sugar caught me by surprise as a condiment, especially next to the other three. How is the sugar used?

CD
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Personally I would not add sugar to any Thai foods because I do not have a sweet tooth. However, this is one explanation.......

"While Westerners might consider sugar to be purely a sweetening agent, for Thais it’s a way to enhance other flavours in a dish – something they learn to do from a young age. A popular addition to a pad Thai or to a noodle soup, it helps to balance out the spicy or sour flavours in a dish."

If you watch the Thais upon being served a dish even before they taste it all the four "condiments" are added in greater or lesser quantities. Although I do not add sugar myself, I add copiuos quantities of chillis and chilli flakes. Less so, fish sauce as the dish is likely to contain plenty anyway.
 
I would add the hundred varieties of mayonnaise to this nice discussion. One of the most interesting is sauce rouille, when my memory serves me right, it got invented in the times where the spanish crown got very rich through Aztec gold and one of the generals asked their chefs, how to celebrate it. He came up with the idea to mix some ingredients from the new world like cooked potatoes and roasted bell pepper with eggs, salt, lemon juice, oil and an enormous, decadent amount of saffron. I'm not sure if that's the exact story and there might be more different stories about the creation of sauce rouille, but that's what one of my teacher told me.

Then there are tons of other, very delicate versions of mayonnaise out there in the world, with miso, or horseradish, chocolate, wasabi, mustard/honey and many more.

Another Italian basic is EVOO, balsamic vinegar and herbs like thyme or oregano mixed in one bottle.
 
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