favorite dressings and sauces

this last year, i've stopped eating fast food and i've replaced it with eating sandwiches etc. at home. i don't like to cook though so i have the good folks at my local whole foods market grill my meat for me before i bring it home. that way if i microwave it it still tastes really good.

anyway, i was looking to get some suggestions from more advanced culinary people of dressings and sauces for me to put on my food, whether it be a chicken breast or burger patty or a steak or whatever. as of now i go for spicy mustard or blue cheese dressing. i just tried a chipotle ranch and thats ok too.

any other suggestions?

 

Agree on all counts. As for horseradish sauce, this stuff is the bomb:


I put it on fries, sandwiches, basically anything that will sit still. Try all kinds of different bbq sauces. Sweet Baby Ray's is an awesome down the middle thick sauce, but there are a lot of vinegar and mustard based bbq sauces that have all kinds of interesting applications. Stubb's is a great sauce from an awesome restaurant in Austin. You can find it all over.
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oh, and here's a dirt simple recipe that you can do even if you hate to cook. All you need is a crock pot or a dutch oven type pot.

Buy any kind of roast you see at the market that you like the looks of. I use a chuck roast most of the time, but if you like something leaner go for it. Stop by the gravy mix asile and pick up an italian beef packet. Then the soup asile and buy a box of beef broth. Then the pickle asile and buy a jar of sliced pepporcini peppers. Or you can get the whole ones if you like.

Dump everything in the crock pot, stir it around and cook on low overnight (about 8 hours). Or in the oven at 250 for 6 to 8 hours. The roast will shred up with a couple of forks. I like to make sandwiches on crusty hoagie rolls with provolone, fresh pepporcinis and the aforementioned horseradish sauce.

They are delicious and your house will smell like a Chicago food truck for a couple days.

 

Tobago Keys' Peruvian Sauce... the stuff is the bomb. Blows every sandwich out of the water. The local spectacular sub shop uses it on a number of their subs.
And Sierra Nevada mustards. Yumm-o.

 

thanks so much, you guys delivered exactly what i was looking for. i'll get back with feedback when i try some which will be soon.

 

sriracha is my ketchup... now THAT is the bomb...

take a zip lock bag... add a couple of boneless/skinless chicken tits... liberally sprinkle McCormicks lemon pepper seasoning and add Ken's zesty itilaian dressing... seal and squeeze it all around to coat... in the fridge for a few hours... pam a casserole dish and bake till done... let it sit while you slice a torpedo roll lengthwise... horsey sauce, romaine lettuce, tomatoes, sriracha and chicken slices... MANJA!!!

 

I'm a big fan of Beaver Brand Honey Mustard, though I'm not real sure about its availability nationally.

Best sandwich I make is a hamburger with swiss cheese, bacon, a fried egg, and a metric ton of this stuff lathered on...

 

yea, i do the beaver spicy mustard with horseradish or wasabi or whatever in it... it REALLY clears my sinuses.

 

Beaver spicy mustard is the bomb diggety! I didn't think it was available retail. It's always in a squeezy bottle.

 

Well, sounds like I need to find some of this spicy beaver.

 

It's got sass.

 

To the OP: You must try Sriracha.
It is a true delight.
Look for a plastic bottle of red sauce with a big strutting cock on the front.
(I don't know what happens if you mix it with the beaver sauce mentioned above)

 

Oh, man, Sriracha is totally awesome.

My mom recently sent me a couple bottles of Montgomery Inn barbecue sauce, and I've been wanting to put it on EVERYTHING... it's a sweet BBQ sauce with a tiny hint of spice. It's made in Cincinnati, which may be part of the reason I like it so much-- normally I go for thicker sauces.

Oh, and something Lordeden turned me on to: mixing curry powder in with regular ketchup. Gives it a nice little kick.

 

I hate to say it, but I actually make a lot of my own sauces. I make a nice bechamel-based cheese sauce that is awesome on eggs, kind of like eggs benedict, only with a way creamier sauce, and I usually serve the eggs over medium or soft-scrambled on toasted brioche slices, and sometimes a little vegetarian Canadian bacon underneath (I use the stuff made by Yves). I do a cheeseless bechamel flavored with thyme and cracked pepper that I drizzle on a croque-monsieur made with vegetarian bacon, Port Salut, and Taleggio.

One handy ingredient, though, is a sweet, thick Indonesian soy sauce called Kecap Manis (pronounced ketchup manniss, apparently), which I ran into on Aruba. It has a really amazing flavor, and I use it to make a kind of brown creole sauce, along with onion, pepper, a little anchovy, some tomato paste, a smidgen of garlic, and assorted herbs and spices. I put this sauce on a lot of different things, but I love to grill up a nice filet of ono or mahi-mahi, sauce it with this Aruban-style creole sauce, and serve it on a toasted. Kecap Manis is also great as the base for an Indonesian-style teriyaki glaze, or as a flavoring for Asian salad dressings.

Also my constant kitchen friend is Worcestershire sauce. I use it to flavor a lot of sauces and dressings. One of my favorites for use in meaty sandwiches (I personally like a good pickled tongue sandwich) is to start with a good, sweet honey mustard, add in some roasted and caramelized garlic, plenty of cracked black pepper, a little paprika, a pinch of dried orange zest, a little splash of reduced balsamic (balsamic vinegar that's been reduced to syrup consistency), and a good shake of Worcestershire sauce. This is incredible in deli sandwiches, and on sausages of every kind (boerwoers is my favorite!), and does well with roast beef, lamb chops, and chicken.

 

Yeah, I suppose technically what I make is a Mornay, although I add dry mustard and onion, which is a variation I learned for bechamels, not for mornays, and I usually use half Gruyere and half aged white cheddar, rather than the classic Gruyere/parmesan mix for Mornay. But, still, you're quite correct in that the addition of any cheese should really make it a mornay.

And it's definitely not like Hollandaise, which is the point. I cordially dislike Hollandaise, Bearnaise, and all such sauces. I will eat them if they are put in front of me, but never choose them. I find them displeasing in texture, and Hollandaise itself to be unimpressive in flavor. I much prefer Bechamel and its daughter sauces, followed in succession by Veloute and its daughter sauces, Espagnole and its daughter sauces, and even sauce tomates.

 

Not from a personal cooking perspective. You just have to get the process down and have a good thermometer.

From a professional perspective hollandaise is a giant pain in the ass. A couple years of making this on the fly multiple times every day due to its refusal to hold over time has put a hamper on my relationship with hollandaise.

It is a damn good sauce, though, and goes well with many things.

 

In these parts we call your fancy béchamel sawmill gravy and we put it on biscuits (or toast). Always amused me that they were pretty much the same thing.

It's like a violin turning into a fiddle in certain parts of the country.