This week’s recipes from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen

This week, I share the ins and outs of homemade hot sauce:

“Maybe it’s the sense of danger that reels you in at first. The crazy name, the wild picture slapped on the bottle. Before you know it, you’re on for the ride, and the best ones leave you reduced to a sweaty and speechless mess. When it’s finally over, you can’t help but want more.

“I’m talking about hot sauce, a virtual thrill ride for the taste buds. And for fans, nothing beats the feeling.

Homemade hot sauce is “amazingly simple. A purée of chiles and salt, thinned perhaps with vinegar or water, maybe a secret ingredient or blend of spices thrown in for good measure. Voila.”

No worries! There are plenty of recipes included.

Also this week, S. Irene Virbila talks wine pairing and Vietnamese food with Slanted Door’s Charles Phan:

“Subtle fresh spring rolls, a rollicking green papaya salad, comforting pig’s knuckle soup, fragrant lemon grass pork, ‘shaking’ beef and caramelized shrimp — they’re all delicious but hardly the easiest dishes to pair with wines.

“Unless, of course, you’re at Slanted Door, Charles Phan’s terrific restaurant in San Francisco. Slanted Door has always been different — modern, hip, uncompromising. It was one of the first Asian restaurants to buy the same quality ingredients that Chez Panisse or Zuni Cafe might use. And it was also one of the first, if not the first, to have a serious wine list.”

Included are three recipes, along with wine pairing ideas.

This week’s recipes include:

• Sriracha-style hot sauce
• Caribbean jerk-style hot sauce
• Four-pepper hot sauce
• Grilled pork chops with sweet lemon grass marinade
• Green papaya salad with rau ram, peanuts and crispy shallots
• Caramelized lemon grass shrimp
• Pancakes from Clinton Street Baking Co. in New York

When you try one of this week’s recipes or any L.A. Times recipe, let us know! Upload a photo to the “Our Recipes, Your Kitchen” gallery to share your take on the recipe and tell us about yourself. Your photo will be posted online on our L.A. Times Food page.

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Go behind the scenes at the Test Kitchen

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You can find Noelle Carter on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and Pinterest. Email Noelle at [email protected].