Good eats in the D. household

So I was getting ready to eat my mom's pho today (which I might add, although was prepared half-assed, still tasted pretty delicious) and guess what I discovered: we ran out of Sriracha. I searched everywhere in my mom's house: her two fridges, her seemingly never ending overstocked pantry (scattered throughoutthe house, which is a mess!), and the dining tables. In the last 20 years of my life (for as long as I can remember), we have never run out of Sriracha before. In fact, I don't think a single American-Vietnamese household ever runs out of Sriracha. Even Hak's house (my crib actually), which is a Cambodian household, has 2-3 bottles of Sriracha in the pantry.

For those unfamiliar with Sriracha, it's an Asian brand of hot sauce with a consistency similar to that of ketchup. It's predominantly used as a condiment along with hoison sauce for pho, the Vietnamese equivalent of chicken noodle soup (aka all time favorite). Go to the link for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sriracha. I, however, prefer not to use the sauces in my noodle soup but rather use them as dipping sauces for my meats. Most people do both, but I think putting the sauces in your bowl underscores how complex and delicious the pho broth is alone. I used to put Sriracha and hoison sauce into my broth. It made the broth so intensely flavored (but not in a good way) that I could seldom ate the broth when all the "solids" were gone. Whenever that happened, my mother would ask me why I didn't "finish eating the broth." I never really understood why she asked this question until I started separating the sauces from the broth. Now, by using the sauces as dips for my meats, I get a burst of spicy and sweet from the sauces, but then I "water" it down with the warm broth with its hints of star anise and (maybe) cinnamon (which you can't really taste if you mix your broth with the sauces). Actually, I learned to do this from a Japanese-born friend whom I invited over my mother's house for dinner. She took one sip of the pho broth and claimed that it was so delicious she didn't want to put anything else in it to ruin the flavors. Now, I sip every bit of the pho broth. I showed Hak, my little sister, and my friends this way of eating too and we've all become pho-addicts since we converted.

Wow, talk about going off on a tangent. This is why I never really did well in English. Anyway, going back to the Sriracha. What can I say? I just love that sauce. It tastes great on stirfry. Combined with mayonnaise, it makes an awesome dip for shrimp cocktail or steamed vegetables. They use this combination on sushi too (spicy tuna maki anyone). Oh yes, and unlike Hoison sauce, you MUST absolutely refrigerate Sriracha. You want to eat a bright red Sriracha, not a dark pungent smelling and degraded-spicy Sriracha that has been left out on the dining table too long.

Going back to my predicament, I tried to use Sambal Oelek (another type/brand of hot sauce) for my pho, but it wasn't the same. I love Sambal and all, but it's not as spicy and dynamic as Sriracha to contrast the flavors of the Hoison sauce. It kind of just blends in with the Hoison sauce. I'm not used to that I guess. I'm a stickler with my food. Must tell the mum to buy more Sriracha for her pantry to avoid another meltdown.