Hello from Austin

Hi. My name is Chuk.

I'm a baker by trade but my passion is really cooking. I've been making hot sauce and salsas for about 13 years now. I've entered the Austin Hot Sauce contest only twice; once in '94 and again this year. I haven't placed yet but have gotten honorable mentions both times.

I am a home gardener with tomatos being my main focus ( just can't get good ones in the store!) but I always plant habaneros, jalapenos and a few other odd chili pepper plants. I've had a bumber crop of beautiful orange habs this year.

I've been especially interested in hot food this year after reading about Nashville's "Hot Chicken". I hope to make it to Prince's one day soon to try that devil bird they make. That interest lead me to find Hot sauce Blog which in turn lead me here.


My other interests include BBQ ( I've got a Weber and a Texas style smoker in the backyard and use them both quite a bit. ), beer ( especially fancy, high alcohol beers.....ones with "Imperial" in the name are usually good),movies ( I post on 'dvdmaniacs.net" a lot) and music.....I play in weirdo Austin bands sometimes....there's lots of those here.

I don't have a product to plug, I'm just here to talk hot stuff!
 
im gonna be in texas in november cooking for the world championshiop how far is austin from terlingua (near the mexican boarder)
 
chuk hell said:
Hi. My name is Chuk.

I'm a baker by trade but my passion is really cooking. I've been making hot sauce and salsas for about 13 years now. I've entered the Austin Hot Sauce contest only twice; once in '94 and again this year. I haven't placed yet but have gotten honorable mentions both times.

I am a home gardener with tomatos being my main focus ( just can't get good ones in the store!) but I always plant habaneros, jalapenos and a few other odd chili pepper plants. I've had a bumber crop of beautiful orange habs this year.

I've been especially interested in hot food this year after reading about Nashville's "Hot Chicken". I hope to make it to Prince's one day soon to try that devil bird they make. That interest lead me to find Hot sauce Blog which in turn lead me here.


My other interests include BBQ ( I've got a Weber and a Texas style smoker in the backyard and use them both quite a bit. ), beer ( especially fancy, high alcohol beers.....ones with "Imperial" in the name are usually good),movies ( I post on 'dvdmaniacs.net" a lot) and music.....I play in weirdo Austin bands sometimes....there's lots of those here.

I don't have a product to plug, I'm just here to talk hot stuff!

A baker huh? I'll have to trade you some recipes. We've gotten some great results with hot pepper breads.
 
Hi Chuck! I actually need the help of a baker, and your Austin location is convenient for me. Do you have a commercial kitchen? Are you willing to work with peppers there (I know that many commercial bakers will not as it could influence the flavor of other items)?

Please send me an email at brian@locoluna.net if this is something you'd like to discuss! Thanks!

Brian
 
Tina Brooks said:
A baker huh? I'll have to trade you some recipes. We've gotten some great results with hot pepper breads.

I'd like to try that out. I've made toamto bread before ( you substitute tomato juice for the water in the recipe ) and it's wonderful. I bet you could do something similar with salsa.


Brian....YGM.
 
chuk hell said:
Tina Brooks said:
A baker huh? I'll have to trade you some recipes. We've gotten some great results with hot pepper breads.

I'd like to try that out. I've made toamto bread before ( you substitute tomato juice for the water in the recipe ) and it's wonderful. I bet you could do something similar with salsa.


Brian....YGM.

We've been adding the peppers as if we were making olive bread, but now you've got me wondering. If we add one of our pepper sauces to the yeast, would it halt the growth... I wouldn't think it would, but it might be worth a looksee...

If you want my shortbread recipe though, you'll have to email me off list. :D

T
 
Salt and garlic will retard yeast growth. That would be the problem. It might be possible to overcome it by adding extra yeast and maybe a little sugar....sugar is food for yeast.

It might require a few test batches...even then I'm not sure it would work. Unless you used a special salsa with very little salt and garlic...hell, I bet it would work...and be yummy.
 
chuk hell said:
Salt and garlic will retard yeast growth. That would be the problem. It might be possible to overcome it by adding extra yeast and maybe a little sugar....sugar is food for yeast.

It might require a few test batches...even then I'm not sure it would work. Unless you used a special salsa with very little salt and garlic...hell, I bet it would work...and be yummy.

To my knowledge, there aren't a lot of salsas out there without salt or garlic, but you could always simply use the fresh peppers... same effect.
 
DEFCON Creator said:
Why not just dry the peppers out, and powderize them and just mix them into the flour? This would solve your salt problem.

"Dried Peppers"??? :shock:

NEVER!

Who you think you talking to??? We only use FRESH peppers here. Dried peppers would ruin our reputation. lol

Seriously though, I've seen recipes that call for pepper flakes, much like Kato's private stock, and I think THAT would work exceptionally well. Of course, I would think that since chuk is a baker, he'd need the stuff in commercial quantities and fresh peppers are a lot easier to get.

T.
 
You're killin' me. We use dried peppers for the most part, as we are normally looking to get the nice little capsaicinoids out of the little buggers to use elsewhere. Strange, I have found that dried ones are easier to get around here. If you are interested in commercial quantities, check these guys out, www.intlfoodsource.com, we met them at the Javitz Fancy Food show a couple months ago.
 
DEFCON Creator]You said:
, we met them at the Javitz Fancy Food show a couple months ago.

Just because we're juicy pepper snobs doesn't mean everyone is. lol

Seriously, though, I will check out the source.

Javitz Fancy Food? When and where?
 
We met them at the Fancy Food show in NYC at the Javitz Center a couple of months ago. Very good prices, especially if you're looking for weird/exotic herbs and spices.
 
DEFCON Creator said:
We met them at the Fancy Food show in NYC at the Javitz Center a couple of months ago. Very good prices, especially if you're looking for weird/exotic herbs and spices.

Oh that Fancy Foods... One of these days you'll see us there, but for right now, you've got a better chance of seeing us at Sweat N Spice's New York HQ.

T
 
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