STRAWBERRY-CILANTRO SRIRACHA MARGARITA
Source: Recipe from Housemadesriracha.com
Ingredients:
2 strawberries
1 stalk cilantro
½ oz simple syrup
½ oz lime juice
⅛ tsp. HouseMade Sriracha
2 oz reposado tequila
Dash of Fernet-Branca
Directions:
Muddle cilantro and one strawberry.
Add the rest of the ingredients over ice into shaker.
Shake vigorously. Serve over ice with strawberry garnish.
The sriracha at the market just wasn’t spicy enough for Lee Anne House.
So the Kettering resident did what any industrious chef would do: she got her hands on some Thai chilies and made her own.
What is now HouseMade sriracha was born in 2012 after some very spicy trial and error.
“We had some batches that were insanely hot and we could barely eat them,” said House, who was raised in Oakwood.
HouseMade’s sriracha is believed to be the Dayton area’s first.
“It starts sweet and finishes hot,” House said of the product she began bottling for mass sell in May.
House and her boyfriend Jason Kramer began selling the sriracha (pronounced “sir-rotch-ah”) to family members and friends as gifts over Christmas.
“We realized we could make it into a business,” said House, a 2006 graduate of Sullivan University’s culinary school.
House comes from a restaurant family. Her mother and stepfather, Kim and Terry Adkins, are co-owners of Oregon Express Bar and Restaurant.
House cut her teeth working at restaurants that previously were owned by her family.
She became a busser at Lincoln Park Grille in Kettering over spring break at age 12 and later waited tables at Thirsty Dog Grille & Brewery.
House has worked as a chef at Olive, an Urban Dive in Dayton and as a sous chef at Fresco with Chef Jenn DiSanto.
Sriracha is a condiment made of chili peppers, garlic, vinegar, sugar and salt, and gets its name from Sri Racha, Thailand. The coastal town is located southeast of Bangkok, the country’s capital.
HouseMade is bottled in Wellston, Ohio, by the Keim family at Garden Harvest and is prepared in Dayton.
About 330 pounds of Thai chilies were recently de-stemmed by local chef Anthony Head and culinary students at the Miami Valley Career Technology Center for the company’s second batch.
HouseMade sriracha has only been on the market since May, but has already made waves.
It won first place at the 2014 Cajun Hot Sauce Festival of Louisiana and is already being used or sold by more than 20 business in the Dayton area and elsewhere in Ohio.
It will be featured on a chicken pizza at the Oregon Express and a burrito at Big Mamma’s Burritos in Athens. House said Lily’s Bistro and Dublin Pub, both in Dayton’s Oregon District, also use or plan to use the hot sauce.
Miami Valley Spice Traders will use HouseMade in a sriracha salt and Toxic Brewing Company is planning to use it in a sriracha-spiced pepper porter called “Porn or Pawn.”
Retailing for about $10 a bottle, the sriracha can be purchased on the HouseMade website and businesses including Dot's Market (Dayton), Clash Consignment, Arrow Wine and Spirits (Oakwood), Dorothy Lane Market (Oakwood and Springboro) and Ghostlight Coffee.
House sees a smoking future in the hot sauce industry.
In 2012, IBIS World, a marketing research company, ranked it the eighth fastest growing industry in the nation.
“People like spicy food,” House said.
Contact this blogger at arobinson@DaytonDailyNews.com or Twitter.com/DDNSmartMouth
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