Huy Fong’s sriracha sauce, also referred to as sriracha, rooster sauce or cock sauce for the rooster on its label, is a brand of sriracha, a chili sauce that originated in Thailand. The sauce is produced by Huy Fong Foods, a California manufacturer, and was created in 1980 by David Tran, a Chinese immigrant from Vietnam. Some cookbooks include recipes using it as their main condiment.
It can be recognized by its bright red color and its packaging: a clear plastic bottle with a green cap, text in Vietnamese, English, Chinese, and Spanish, and the rooster logo. The logo refers to the Year of the Rooster in the Chinese zodiac, as David Tran was born in 1945. The green cap and rooster logo are trademarked, but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office considers “sriracha” a generic term.
David Tran began making chili sauces in 1975 in his native Vietnam, where his brother grew chili peppers on a farm north of Saigon. In 1978, the new Communist Vietnamese government began to crack down on ethnic Chinese in south Vietnam. Tran and three thousand other refugees crowded onto the Taiwanese freighter Huey Fong, heading for Hong Kong. The sauce was initially supplied to Asian restaurants near his base in Chinatown, Los Angeles, but sales grew steadily by word of mouth.
The production of sriracha sauce begins with growing the chilis. David Tran, owner of Huy Fong Foods, contracted about 690 hectares of farmland that spreads from Ventura County to Kern County in California. In order to make sriracha, the chili peppers are planted in March.
Because Tran does not add food coloring to the sauce, each bottle varies in color. At the beginning of the harvest season, the chilis are greener and therefore, the sauce yields a more muted-red color. Later in the season, the sauce produced is bright red. After the chilis are harvested, they are washed, crushed, and mixed with sugar, salt, garlic, distilled vinegar, potassium sorbate, sodium bisulfite as preservatives, and Xanthan gum. The sauce is loaded into drums and then distributed into bottles. All drums and bottles are manufactured on-site, to reduce waste and emissions.
In December 2009, Bon Appétit magazine named the sauce Ingredient of the Year for 2010. In 2012, over 20 million bottles were sold. Sriracha sauce has grown from a cult taste to one of the food industry’s most popular condiments. It infuses burgers, sushi, snacks, candy, beverages, and even health products.
According to en.wikipedia.org; eatthis.com. Source of photos: internet
