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flavor Flavor Crafting, the process

Topsmoke

Topsmoke

So what is your creative process for flavor creation?
 
wanted to post this awhile ago but realized I hadnt examined my own process.  so here it is
 
I start with the pepper, what are its attributes what kinds of dishes do i think it lends itself to.  I find overly fruity peppers too limiting in their use so i stay away from them except in my next process, the pairing. 
I believe that the best sauces come from pairing a fruity or floral pepper with a bitter one, Since i stay away from fruit aside from citrus this is how i balance my sauces.  Now i can swing it fruity or bitter by adjusting ratios to which pepper im making the star. 
Then the standards go in salt, garlic almost always onion. 
When it comes to additional seasonings herbs, ect. I look to regional and historical influences i dont try to reinvent the wheel.
in the end it comes down to balance but I guess what changes that equation is your starting point, mine is how do i showcase this yummy pepper. 
 
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Good question. Being someone who is fairly new to homemade sauces I've always based mine off someone else's recipe and then made small changes depending on personal preferences. The general idea for me was always a counterbalancing act between sweet-sour and salty-bitter. Until recently, I was always looking for a unique flavor rather than enhancing an existing flavor if that even makes sense :think:
 
I like your train of thought about making the pepper stand out and using other ingredients to enhance it.
I'm looking forward to other people's thought processes to help me expand my own.
 
Love this forum!!!
:party: :party: :party:
 
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My approach is-
 
what kind of a sauce do I want to make and then find ingredients and peppers to work with.
 
The inspirations are always different.  Back in the Stone Age (2001), after making and selling fresh refrigerated salsa for years, I wanted to make a shelf stable hot sauce.  Chipotles were the latest/greatest new thing, so that's the chile I chose to start with and built the hot sauce around that. 
 
A few years later, after buying a bottled tropical asian sauce (I think the brand was World Harbor) I thought to myself "I can make a better sauce than this" and what came after was a mandarin orange, ginger, pineapple hot sauce glaze with red savina, bhut and red chiles.
 
A few years ago, my husband was working on a large construction project and a couple of his guys wanted me to make personalized hot sauces for them.  One of the guys lived in Inchelium, WA.  Inchelium garlic is legendary so that was the inspiration for that sauce.  Garlic is white, and I thought it would be fun to make a white hot sauce.  The Pear-Garlic with smoked habaneros was the end product.  That pear-garlic sauce was the base for the charity project Fluffy Bunny Hot Sauce.
 
One guy got a white hot sauce, and I was playing around with smoked chiles at that time...I thought the other one should be red, with smoked habaneros also and fire roasted tomatoes to go with the smoked theme. 
 
Last year at a community Making Hot Sauce class, we made a sauce containing pumkin and craisins based on a recipe from RocketMan.  We're going to have another class in a few weeks, and I thought it would be fun to make another sauce with unusual ingredients noone would ever think to put into a hot sauce....stay tuned for Whirled Peaz.....;)  :lol:   I've done a test batch and yes, peas in hot sauce does taste good!
 
The Fluffy Bunny sauce came about after a discussion on FB where someone said "noone would buy a hot sauce called Fluffy Bunny"...one thing led to another and I made a PINK hot sauce that would knock your toenails off.  After that, I made a BLACK hot sauce that contained all kinds of things including squid ink, but it was mildly sweet.  That project kind of fell to the wayside, but I still have a couple test bottles.
 
Different approaches and different inspirations, must be a Mars-Venus thing~~~  :lol:
 
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salsalady said:
My approach is-
 
what kind of a sauce do I want to make and then find ingredients and peppers to work with.
 
The inspirations are always different.  Back in the Stone Age (2001), after making and selling fresh refrigerated salsa for years, I wanted to make a shelf stable hot sauce.  Chipotles were the latest/greatest new thing, so that's the chile I chose to start with and built the hot sauce around that. 
 
A few years later, after buying a bottled tropical asian sauce (I think the brand was World Harbor) I thought to myself "I can make a better sauce than this" and what came after was a mandarin orange, ginger, pineapple hot sauce glaze with red savina, bhut and red chiles.
 
A few years ago, my husband was working on a large construction project and a couple of his guys wanted me to make personalized hot sauces for them.  One of the guys lived in Inchelium, WA.  Inchelium garlic is legendary so that was the inspiration for that sauce.  Garlic is white, and I thought it would be fun to make a white hot sauce.  The Pear-Garlic with smoked habaneros was the end product.  That pear-garlic sauce was the base for the charity project Fluffy Bunny Hot Sauce.
 
One guy got a white hot sauce, and I was playing around with smoked chiles at that time...I thought the other one should be red, with smoked habaneros also and fire roasted tomatoes to go with the smoked theme. 
 
Last year at a community Making Hot Sauce class, we made a sauce containing pumkin and craisins based on a recipe from RocketMan.  We're going to have another class in a few weeks, and I thought it would be fun to make another sauce with unusual ingredients noone would ever think to put into a hot sauce....stay tuned for Whirled Peaz..... ;)  :lol:   I've done a test batch and yes, peas in hot sauce does taste good!
 
The Fluffy Bunny sauce came about after a discussion on FB where someone said "noone would buy a hot sauce called Fluffy Bunny"...one thing led to another and I made a PINK hot sauce that would knock your toenails off.  After that, I made a BLACK hot sauce that contained all kinds of things including squid ink, but it was mildly sweet.  That project kind of fell to the wayside, but I still have a couple test bottles.
 
Different approaches and different inspirations, must be a Mars-Venus thing~~~  :lol:
Click to expand...
 
Where can I get the Fluffy Bunny Sauce recipe? I want to make some for the wife, like quick, as an xmas present.
 
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Redeemer said:
 
Where can I get the Fluffy Bunny Sauce recipe? I want to make some for the wife, like quick, as an xmas present.
Click to expand...
Sorry, Redeemer....the recipe is proprietary...it was made for a charily project in 2013.  I just checked a bottle I have and the color is not what it used to be or I'd send it to you.  Are you looking for something superhot?  I have a sauce called Firestorm made with 7 Pot Jonah, Moruga, fruis and Pure Evil.  Send me a PM....
 
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