Let’s have a niche thread, not so much for food, but what we choose to pour, shake, squirt, squeeze or spoon over the dish when it hots the table.
I’m especially interested in regional specialities and weird stuff that actually works really well.
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Randomly, I’ll say Old Bay on french fries. Good stuff.
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I’ll kick off with what I had this evening - a sweet mustard ketchup that was sent in error as part of a grocery order, when I actually just ordered mustard. It paired very nicely with cheese and mushroom pastries.
I’ll also add:
- Henderson’s Relish, a cult Yorkshire product which can be seen as Worcester Sauce for vegetarian/vegans, as it doesn’t contain anchovies.
- Halen Hon black garlic ketchup.
- Isle of Wight balsamic vinegar infused with smoked tomatoes.
- Brown Sauce, the British enigma. Basically it’s a tomato-based ketchup where the main flavourings are tamarind and dates.
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It’s a local cliche but I’m super-fond of Aardvark hot sauce. Thicker and less vinegar-y than Tabasco (which I also like, to be fair). Spicy but not so much that you can’t feel your own tongue afterwards. 
My favorite dressing is just plain old taragon vinaigrette from my tattered old NYT cookbook.
Lately I’ve been thinking about homemade cran-applesauce, or apple chutney. But haven’t found time to make either one. [grumble] But they’re both great sides with breakfast.
Also, those neon-pink/magenta pickled onion slivers that a lot of local places serve with tacos (and platos) and salads. Can’t get enough of 'em. MR_Potroast doesn’t like them so much so I usually get all I want if we’re eating dinner out.)
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“Old Bay” always sounds to me like an aftershave. I’ve never tried it, but I have seen it in a local shop, so I may have to give it a go.
This also applies to chicken salt, which is an Australian invention.
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Once I realized how easy these are to make, I always have a jar of them in my fridge.
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See also pickled radish slices. They go well with a lot of things.
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I’ve been making avocado crema lately. It’s really nice on grilled steak with tortillas and beans, or on a salad.
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Whenever we make pickled daikon/carrot like you get on banh mi, there’s always a bunch of it left over after we’ve had the couple of sandwiches we set out to make, so we wind up putting it on lots of other things, like bean and rice bowls or noodle soups. A pop of acid/salt/a little spice dresses up a lot of things.
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My current go-to for sauces is something I modified from a Korean fried chicken recipe. It’s a blend of gochujang and ketchup (weighted in either direction, depending on how spicy you want the final product to be), honey, brown sugar, soy sauce, minced garlic and sesame oil. I glaze chicken wings with it as much as anything, but it’s great on chips/fries or anything else, really.
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wyswysia slides a jar of Marmite into the thread to see if Squid notices…
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Marmite’s okay in small doses but Branston Pickle is better.
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I put knock-off Sriracha and dry ranch powder onto my popcorn. Once I discovered that combo, I haven’t eaten it any other way.
I prefer whole grain mustard, but no one else in the house agrees with me, so we have multiple bottles of mustard. I can’t eat Coleman’s mustard without getting sharp shooting pains under my skull. So weird.
I need to make more chutneys and then actually use them. 
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Horseradish is popular in these parts, and a town about 20 minutes north of here claims to be the horseradish capital of the world. They have a horseradish festival every year. I like a nice creamy horseradish with venison and roast beef, and I find it is especially good on corned beef.
I don’t use much if it is just plain horseradish, and I don’t like wasabi (everyone tells me that it is just horseradish paste here in the States) anywhere near my sushi. Both can get pretty overpowering, and I usually want to taste my sushi. When it came to my grandma’s venison, however, liberal amounts of whatever horseradish you could get your hands on was a must. Grandma was a terrible cook.
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I grew up in Wisconsin, so I have to drop in a mention of ranch. Pretty sure that’s in the state constitution.
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It’s simple, but we like a bit of BBQ sauce mixed with mayo to put in our breaded chicken wraps.
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We just got back from San Juan a few weeks ago and just about every restaurant has a bottle of salsa rosada on the table, AKA “half mayo, half ketchup.” Some places dress it up with some lime juice or fresh garlic but it’s pretty much just mayochup.
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We like mixing sour cream and salsa to dip our empanadas, taquitos, and the like in. I think my wife imported that one from Texas, though.
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I have some at least a few people will say, “yeah, that’s weird”.
I really don’t like salad dressings?
So, when I changed my diet, and started eating more salads, but didn’t want to eat them dry, I started using my roasted garlic pesto. It’s really good on baby spinach.
Most people like maple syrup on their pancakes, even sweet potato pancakes. A few years ago, I had some rum caramel sauce left over from some fried bread puddin’ so decided to try that on some pancakes… I’ve done it ever since.
What else…
Sweet Chili Sauce on Shrimp. I prefer it to other shrimp/seafood sauces…
I’m sure I’ll think of more?
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I just learned what chutney was a week ago, lol. (From someone on the forum).
#1. Sour cream 
On Mexican dishes, potatoes, chili (as well as mixed in with lemony deserts).
I used to go mad for BBQ sauce, though I don’t use it as much as I used to - I seem to go for the ketchup/mayo mixture for my veggie burgers these days. I had to give up steaks and other red meats so that lessened its usage, but will still brush BBQ on a chicken breast when I cook those (or if I eat a veggie burger raw, no bun, pretend it’s steak-like, with spuds and salad…
Oh, that reminds me, a drizzle of Thousand Island on the salad, always Thousand Island, nothing else will do, been that way since I was a wee lad.
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