One dimension worth considering is shelf life - for many condiments, the store bought version lasts a lot longer. For things you use infrequently, that can make a difference. I love making my own vinaigrettes and ranch, but I’m also always going to have a bottle or two of dressing on hand to add to a Tuesday night salad. Not true for super acidic or salty stuff, though - mustard, teriyaki, etc.
For my job, I had to stay in what was basically a dorm room for 5 days out of the week with nothing but a hot plate, mini fridge, and limited storage space. After a few years of this, I had learned that if you keep basic ingredients, you don't need a lot of condiments taking up space. I did keep katsup and hot sauce, but just made everything else when needed. Olive oil, vinegar, spices, mustard powder (Colmans), eggs, and with fresh stuff from the store, I had everything I needed. My coworkers complained about spending half their pay on takeout and restaurants and I remember thinking to myself, I'm eating like a king. Added bonus is no preservative chemicals in your food. Great video!
You should make the trip to Middleton, Wisconsin (suburb of Madison) some time and check out the Mustard Museum. So many kinds of mustard, lots of samples, knowledgeable folks, it's a great road trip.
As a millennial, the best way to "re create" the taste of the sweeter condiments from our childhood is to buy the "organic" types of sauces from the store that are made with cane sugar. Corn syrup is in everything now, but it wasn't in the 80s. We were a heinz house and I about hit nirvana when they finally (again) came out with a ketchup that was made with real sugar, even though its like $2 more, it's worth it.
I'm a huge fan of hot sauce. I've probably tried close to 500 different varieties, and I gotta say Cholula is the best breakfast sauce that you can find almost everywhere.
But yet many condiments have too much sugar and use inflammatory oils. So Diabetics and those with arthritis or heart disease need to watch out for problem ingredients. Same goes for allergies. Organic is the safer bet but even then many use the problem oils. Stay away from MSG too many are allergic in fact many hospitals ban it.
Adam this might be your most professional video. Thoroughly enjoyed this one. Super informative and no silly voices (after watching you for years I can no longer use garlic without hearing Gawlic in my head”
I haven’t bought store bought salsa in FOREVER! Not only can you choose your ingredients (organic, corn, black beans… my fave combo) but you add the amount of seasonings you want and I can literally make 10 jars for the price of 1 store bought one, doing it at home and it takes minutes. I won’t ever go back to store bought
Tabasco is great for corn on the cob. Couple streaks of butter, salt/black pepper, some dashes of tabasco, wrap in foil, and throw on the grill. Simple and great.
@@littlepotato2741 Fun fact, in the UK Tabasco carries the Royal Warrant as it's been used in the royal household since Edward the VII and the queen mother used it. During the war, the household bought it all. Like... _all_
As someone with 10 hens and too many eggs to know what to do with, mayo made from eggs still warm from the chicken is way different than something on the store shelf for who knows how long. And for hot sauces... I grow everything I need for my hot sauces other than mango. Lacto-ferment that thing for a month on top of your microwave. Fridge it for a year atleast. You'll be looking forward to the next growing season. I even made a very mild green hot sauce for my niece, she named it "giraffe sauce," She draws a giraffe on each bottle, she gets upset if she sees you use it without asking,
I make a few condiments at home from scratch mostly because I like cooking as a hobby. Mostly I make hot sauce, mustard, Mayo, salsa, jams and jellies. I also make salad dressings usually in the form of a vinaigrette or a Caesar. I eat so few salads that my store bought dressings expire before I get through the bottle so it’s just Less wasteful to make a small portion.
In Germany they have Curry Gewuerzketchup by Hela. It's awesome for making the iconic Currywurst. Yum. You should look into it. I agree with you 100% on everything you said. I love making BBQ sauce. Many store-bought ones are so sweet. Salad dressings take minutes to whip up, plus you control the salt level, and no weird ingredients or low quality oils. Marie Sharp's is the best hot sauce ever. Pesto is so easy. And you can freeze it. I am an avid home cook, but this is really good info for someone less experienced. Thank you for posting this.
For mustard, theres also the recipe for doing it the chinese takeout way. Its extremely easy and quick, but also very diff flavor ud get from most popular types found.
I know it's not a sauce, but my favorite condiment for my breakfast burrito is giardinera. Add some of that in witht he eggs and bacon before wrapping it up and it adds a flavor and texture I can't get with a hot sauce.
Other sauces in the A1 category are Heinz 57, HP sauce, and Daddy’s Brown Sauce. The last two are British imports. The really are best on things like pot roast or a meat pie, especially those that are lightly seasoned in the British style. Not my fovrite condiments, but they are nice for a change, Try some Heinz 57 on that cruddy little sirloin that comes with eggs at your local diner. That’s what it’s made for.
There are also all kinds of pestos out there that don't include Basil. The word pesto literally comes from the word pestle. Pesto is defined by the process of crushing ingredients in a mortar with the pestle, not the ingredients themselves. Pesto Genovese is what we always think of. But there are so many others, like Trapanese from Sicily. Very different.
This is going to sound weird but the only thing I do with A1 is I'll take it and add some to leftover long grain wild rice or rice pilaf and microwave it and mix it up. It's absolutely amazing and a one of a kind flavor. Also, I hate storebought Ranch, but I LOVE homemade Ranch, not even the same thing honestly.
It's funny that he mentioned both Best Foods and Hellman's mayonnaise as being different brands. They aren't. They are in fact the same product, just with a different name depending on which side of the Rocky Mountains you live. Other products out there also are known for doing this as well, such as Edie's Ice Cream, which West of the Rockies is called Dreyer's. Two names...same product.
My own concoction table spoon of sweet baby ray bbq sauce and table spoon of good Dijon mustard,I prefer Australian Aldi Dijon mustard delicious goes well on anything
Well, my own not so humble and completely biased opinion (given that as a Chef I have the knowledge and tools to make this stuff): - Ketchup: Store, but I will pick one from an organic food brand over Heinz to keep the amount of added extra sugar to a bare minimum. Tbh, it's not an item that in my fridge all the time . At work due to the quantities and what people "expect" in terms of taste, you're better of buying a big bucket of Heinz anyway. - mustard, my hometown is the de facto mustard capital of Germany, so I have no issue getting all kind of style from a store. Hence there is no reason for me to make it from scratch - BBQ sauce: Not in my fridge (my apartment/balcony is too small for setting up a BBQ grill and I pick bulgogi style beef strips or Indian style chicken over meat with BBQ sauce any day of the week) and at work it often makes more sense to use store bough stuff due to +shelf live - Mayo: Also not something I have in my fridge all the time, but again it's easier for me to stock a small organic bottle/tube than go out and buy fresh eggs for the occasional mayo craving - hot sauce: Again, convenience is king + single person household. At work: Not a staple of my cuisine, so it's easier to simply stock a big bottle of Tabasco than make it from scratch - Sour cream: Afaik what you use/call sour cream in the US isn't the same as what we have here in Germany. We have something called Sauerrahm or Schmand and it's more similar to what people from Eastern Europe use (Smetana), so it has pretty high fat content of ~24% fat and it's accessible everywhere in different package sizes. - Salsa: Not too much into salsa & tacos + beer as food while watching sport games at the TV, so I prefer not to buy them at all. At work again, we use it so sparingly that for convenience it's easier to simply buy some and serve it if we need it for catering. For regular menu stuff I prefer simply not to put it on the menu, but I also don't work at a bar or in a hotel (so my customer don't expect those items on the card anyway) - Chili oil: I don't mind making them for curiosity sake, but I mainly agree with you that store bought stuff is more convenient and less of a hazard, unless you either run a authentic asian restaurant or do fine dining, where you want to have ultimate control over your ingredients. At home I would argue that for non-professionals store bought is the better option, unless your a real enthusiast and know what you're doing - Salad Dressing: I never stock store dressing. whisking up a dressing is no rocket science and I grew up in a household where we never bough store stuff. Also in this case I would argue that the result is way better, due to the fact that you can pick good oils and vinegars and not the crappy stuff (+ too much sugar) that goes into store bought dressing. I don't know, I need less time to whisk up some vinegar, lemon juice, oil, mustard and spices with a hand blender than I need to clean the salad I pour it onto, so why buy it? - Pesto: I agree fresh is best, but tbh I do have some organic pesto rosso in the fridge for those days where I can't be bothered yet one to cook something real fast (like gnocchi+pesto) - Teriyaki: Selfmade at home (control over the sugar amount), good store brand for the odd occasions that I need it at work. Sounds odd, but the stuff that I can buy here in Germany (my hometown has the highest number of Japanese companies+people in all Germany and afaik third highest in Europe) is pretty good and I can spend my time on other items where doing it yourself has a bigger impact. As you said, in the end it's a reduction of soy sauce with a ton of sugar. - Steak Sauce: I prefer pepper+salt on my steak, maybe some butter or a french pepper sauce. So I don't stock it and for the rare occasion where I need it at my parents place, it's more convenient to buy a handful of different sauces from a store and let the people pick which ones they want to use. For burgers there a ton of other options I would pick over steak sauce, same goes for the few months/events a year where I sell burger at work. And yes, people who put 3$ steak sauce on a 60-100$/kilo cut of beef will go straight to hell imho in their after live anyway.
Damn I'm a bit hurt you said storebought chili oil is the move. I'm thoroughly disappointed in store bought chili oils. Even the hardcore Chinese ones with no English on the labels. When I first had some family chili oil from my Sichuanese friend's mom I was easily a convert. Homemade chili oil has so much more aromatic qualities and tends to be spicier which I love. Other than the slight worry of Botulism and the dummy hot oil I think it's pretty easy to source ingredients (if you have a good Chinese mart nearby at least but hey! the internet!) and to make multiple liters. Dawgg I have multiple liters of different chili oils I've made in my pantry. It's wild af. I'm a big advocate of homemade chili if you love it. Same goes with Kimchi. Shits a bitch to make. Kimchi sucks to make honestly buuuuuut so so so good when you make it yourself especially because you can have fresh kimchi the day you make it and then fermented kimchi months later! Everything else in the vid I agree with though! :)
This is why these conversations are awesome. I don't have a Sichuanese friend with a mom who likes to cook. In my experience, good 'ol Laoganma tickles my biscuits.
one positive thing i will say about steak sauce is, a splash or two works well in beef based soups. try it in your ramen even. a bottle'll last your entire college career.
Two different types of basic mayonnaise exist and if you mix them together you can emulate miracle whip mayonnaise. It tastes exactly the same actually. My buddy worked at a restaurant that made every condiment fresh and it would fool everyone who tried it.
The family tree of tomatoes is vast. Even if we are just keeping with Tomato ketchup the varieties of different tomatoes you could possibly use and possibly the various ripened stages would give you a serious amount of types. Then you got the adjustments of the other ingredients you clearly have taken ketchup too lightly. The slight adjustments between sweet and tangy compliments different types of foods. Myself I like a more vinegar forward ketchup on my ice-cream the sweetness of ice-cream just pairs well with a vinegar forward tomato ketchup.
I disagree with the mayo. As you said with A1, it depends on the application. Actually, I’d say this goes for all of them (except maybe ketchup, which for most purposes store-bought works best.. and maybe the chilli oil, since more store-bought ones don’t contain the aromatics that should go into it. It’s basically a different product.)
The one sauce I need to perfect and make at home is hibachi style ginger sauce. I've seen variations on it, but for me, screw the "Yum Yum" sauce, my local hibachi place gives me the jug of the ginger sauce knowing I just love that flavoring on top of fried rice and proteins alike. If I could figure it out at home, I'd be making my own fried rice every night and know I have my sauce to accompany it. And you would not like me with steak... No A1... Sadly as a child I was raised with ketchup and steak. BUT... BUT... I would never desecrate a wagyu or prime grade, professionally made steak with ketchup. But if I buy one from the store and eat it in my house, I do use ketchup, and it is from an experience where I choked on a piece of steak, and ketchup was what helped it not catch my throat from then on. I'm not a sacrilege in that regard. It's simply a small flavor component that helps me (in my mind) from an early age not choke again. And by early age I'm talking like 4 or 5. It's a cuddle blankey! Don't judge...
Buying chili oil never be an option for me. It's not exist here, but I can get all ingredient easily from nearby 7-11. Only choice left is making it myself. Hot sauce is really worth making. For me, store brought that isn't extraction base aren't spicy enough while the extraction base is spicy but taste shitty.
One night I wanted to make a sandwich. I baked my bread, chopped my ingredients, melted my cheese and realized.... I don't have mayo! 😭 but then I remembered I'm a professional chef and I have eggs and oil at home. That saved my entire night and I made the best mayo I've ever had lol
From a person from Texas I don't appreciate that we just got associated with a-1 Asking for that in anyone's home would be considered an insult to the house And a sever one at that
My 3 fave hot sauces are tabassco, cholula original and franks red hot. They each have a use. Chicken is where i use franks, cholula is for spicing up to give a mexican flavour and tabassco is for chips.
I want to clarify a few things, some of which I found odd. Sometimes I love your videos and sometimes I don't but irnoically your ketchup recipe is the best recipe I ever tried for "that kind" of ketchup. However, you didn't quite cover the important point. Your recipe isn't based on glucose whereas store bought (Heinz) is mostly glucose. Thickening a sauce (which isn't even the right term because it's more like congealing it) Xanthan gum isn't at all the same as the consistency you get from glucose. This is especially important for sauce finishing. My best teacher was a Michelin Star Chef who was the head saucier for many people you know including Gordon Ramsay. He once told me that a secret to bringing many of the top sauces together to have the consistency and hold it together is a small amount of Ketchup near the end (after it's reduced). That means actual Heniz because you need the glucose.
Aye mayo and barbecue sauce goes insanely good together and i aint even holding u mix a little with mayo and put it on the top bun of a chicken samich ul be thinkin me ita barbecue honey mustard u cant go wrong trust
0:27 as a mayo HATER, I strongly disagree. Mayo is by far the most loved condiment at this current time. Find me a burger video on RU-vid that doesn’t have mayo on it??? Good luck.
Heinz is perfect. Everyone can stop trying. Ketchup will never be better than Heinz. When I go to a restaurant and they make their own kethcup I just leave because I know they have 0 sense of taste. Heinz clears you restaurants.