Buffalo Sauce

Method

1. temper3 min
   small pan, lowest heat, cold cubed butter
   butter melted slowly until it is liquid but still cloudy, and pulled off before it foams or separates. Melting butter gently keeps its own emulsion of fat, water and milk solids intact — once it splits and the solids sink, there is far less holding the finished sauce together
2. whisk3 min
   off the heat, sauce added in three parts
   + hot sauce + garlic powder (+ vinegar, + Worcestershire, + cayenne, + honey), whisking each addition until the sauce turns opaque orange and slightly thickened. It is emulsifying — the milk proteins and phospholipids in the butter coat droplets of the watery sauce and hold them dispersed. Add it all at once and there is not enough shear to break the water into droplets, so it stays two layers
3. season2 min
   warm, tasted on a spoon
   to taste. If it is too sharp add butter rather than sugar, since the fat is what blunts capsaicin — capsaicin is fat-soluble and not water-soluble, which is also why the sauce mellows on a wing and never in a glass of water
4. rest2 min
   off the heat, whisked once more before use
   briefly. If it separates, whisk hard off the heat with a teaspoon of cold water — the water gives the emulsion something to re-form around, and cold slows the fat down enough to catch. If it separated because it boiled, it will not come back