I like spice.  I enjoy the play of the flavors in a well-spiced meal. 

I also enjoy the endorphin rush of a spicy-hot dish (spicy doesn’t always mean hot… but I’m happy when it does).  Heck, I’m on the “Hall of Flame” at least twice at My Thai restaurant in Fremont, a place so well known for their heat that Mythbusters did an episode there.  I like it to the point of masochism, I suppose, although my favorite is when the heat stops just shy of destroying my tastebuds.  Unfortunately, there aren’t many restaurants that can toe that line without crossing over, and once the tastebuds are gone, it’s a waste of calories and money. 

I couldn’t begin to name all of the various hot sauces I’ve tried over the years.  At one of my favorite restaurants (sadly gone now) in Boca Raton, FL, there was a wall of hot sauces from all over the world with an emphasis on the Caribbean.  There’s no better proving ground for hot sauce than a nice bowl of conch chowder and a side of fritters, and I spent many a post-dive afternoon there, sipping beer and trying different sauces.  Down in Gilroy, CA, there’s a tourist shop that specializes in garlic (another favorite spice).  But they also have a pretty wide selection of hot sauce, and I’ve sampled liberally from their offerings as well. 

Many of my friends know of my predilection for heat, and I’ve been the recipient over the years of many different bottles of hot sauce.  Sometimes it’s like a test or a joke, to see if I can stand it, and other times it’s a sincere gift of a flavorful-yet-spicy condiment that they know I’ll enjoy.  A bottle of Mad Dog 357 sauce I received a year or so ago falls into that former category, and is the catalyst for this post.  Just because I know it’s too hot to eat, doesn’t mean I’m not gonna try to find a way to eat it.

I had a couple of skinless duck breasts in the freezer from my one trip to the marsh this year, so I pulled out a couple of packages.  One contained two spoonies, and the other held the breasts of a brace of gadwalls.  Spoonies can sometimes be a little stronger than the “quality” ducks, and while I’ve never found them inedible (as some people claim), I usually stack the deck by using them in dishes that allow other flavors to “improve” their toothsomeness.  As far as the gadwall, well, in my dining experience they’re just ducks with no particularly outstanding qualities. 

At any rate, I’d been thinking about Thai food, and one of my favorites is red curry with duck.  What I usually find at restaurants is that they’ll use a roast duck, skin and all for this dish.  Since my breasts were skinless, I knew I’d be working at a disadvantage.  That fat really adds a lot of flavor.  But I could live with that.

For a base, I picked up a packet of “Taste of Thai” red curry paste.  I suppose I could make my own, but these packets really simplify things.  I make no claims to culinary greatness.  Besides, this brand of curry paste is pretty danged good.  Other canned ingredients were coconut milk, bamboo shoots, and baby corn.  The rest of the ingredients would be fresh, and included:

  • Half a large, sweet onion (chopped)
  • About half a pineapple (cubed)
  • Oyster mushrooms (probably about four to six ounces)
  • Basil (The store was out of fresh basil, so I had to use dried.  Fresh is MUCH better!)
  • 357 Magnum Sauce (A drop about the size of a pencil eraser.  More on this in a bit.)

Ingredients I wish I’d included are:

  • Red bell pepper (diced)
  • Whole tomato (diced)
  • A couple of serrano peppers (finely chopped)

With the duck breasts, I simply dusted them with salt, pepper, and onion powder, and then browned them in bacon grease.  I didn’t want them cooked through, since duck is usually best just shy of medium rare (I prefer it more rare… but some don’t).  They’d also cook some more in the final stage of preparation.

Once the breasts were done, I set them aside.  In the same pan, I tossed in the onion, cooked it until it was starting to get clear, and then threw in the oyster mushrooms.  If I’d included bell pepper, I’d have stirred it in with the onion.  I stirred this around for a bit, and then poured in the coconut milk, followed immediately by the curry paste which I mixed in until I had a nice, even, red tint.  On top of this I dropped the hot sauce, and stirred that in as well.

When the sauce began to simmer, I put in the corn, pineapple, bamboo shoots, and basil.  This is where the tomato and serrano pepper should have come in as well.  I stirred this up and let it all simmer for a little while.

At this point I got my first indication that there might be a problem.  I could literally smell the heat coming off of the mixture from the hot sauce.  I knew it would blend and dilute a little as it simmered, but it was pretty strong.  A quick taste confirmed my fear…  this stuff was gonna be HOT!  That’s not a problem if I’m cooking for myself, but Kat doesn’t care so much for the eye-watering heat that I enjoy. 

Once I got the curry going, I put on a pot of jasmine rice.  This takes about 20 minutes to cook, so I set the timer for 20 minutes and left the rice and curry to their business while I had a glass of scotch.  In the last five minutes or so, I dropped the duck breasts into the curry sauce and put the lid back on. 

When the timer went off, I tasted the results.  Tasty, but still very, very hot.  I served it up, and after a sample, Kat immediately heaped another handful of fresh pineapple on hers.  The sugar from the pineapple helps to cut the heat, but I could tell as she ate that it didn’t cut it enough.  For my own part, the heat was near the edge of comfortable. 

To go with the spicy curry, I opened up a bottle of Kirigin Cellars (Gilroy, CA) Malvasia Bianca.  I’d intended to pair this with a rosé, but someone apparently drank it while I was travelling recently.   At any rate, the soft white wine eased the fire, and actually worked pretty well with the flavors.

All in all, it came out pretty good… even without the additional ingredients.  Start to finish, the whole thing took less than an hour to make, which is a plus at the end of a long workday. 

If you wanted to try this yourself, I’d suggest taking great care with the hot sauce or eliminating it altogether.  The 357 Magnum is made from concentrates of a couple of really, really high-heat peppers.  As I saw, a tiny bit goes a really long way.  For the average palate, the addition of the chopped serrano peppers would probably be plenty anyway, and will likely taste better than the bottled sauce as well. 

For now, the 357 Magnum sauce goes on a fairly special mental list with the red warning flag beside it.  But if hot stuff makes you happy, it’s worth checking out!

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