We're not talking about real rules like "No double dipping." No, I'm talking about everything else, like what dipping sauces go with what kinds of finger foods, if it's okay to "embellish" a dipping sauce with salt, pepper, or Tabasco, or whether you can dip in one sauce and re-dip in another to make a "combo" dip. Obviously, if you're eating your own plate of chicken fingers, you can do whatever the hell you want. If you're sharing an appetizer platter, what do you do?
I do everything. First of all, when the restaurant offers honey mustard with the chicken tenders because that's normal and accepted, I still like to ask for Ranch dressing and BBQ sauce. If I recall from my old Chicken Nuggets days, breaded, deep-fried chicken goes with: BBQ sauce, Sweet & Sour, and Honey Mustard. So the Ranch dressing is a little off.
As far as what goes with what, I would say tartar sauce for fish sticks, marinara sauce for mozzarella cheese sticks, and Ranch dressing for deep-fried zucchini. French fries, however, are the universal dipper. They can be dipped in ANYTHING. Sometimes I use sriracha sauce.
Embellishing just comes instinctively to me. I just automatically add Tabasco sauce to my Ranch dressing or BBQ sauce(always to ketchup, though I don't like ketchup that much to begin with). Salt and pepper, though? Not so much, if the dipping sauce are made correctly. Those dipping sauces should be fairly salty.
With chicken fingers, I always ask for multiple sauces because I like to dip in one, then re-dip in another. Bright yellow Honey Mustard sauce turns a creamy pale golden after a Ranch-soaked chicken finger makes a couple of passes through it. Ranch dressing becomes spotted with deep dark reddish brown of BBQ sauce. In the end, all of the sauce are varying shades of...beige.
What about French fries? I actually don't drip French fries in anything at all unless it's a bit of Ranch dressing, and that's a very special occasion. Some people dip their fries in mayonnaise, which I just can't bring myself to do, but dousing them with malt vinegar is pretty tasty.
Does anyone else have weird dipping rules, habits, or even choices in sauces?
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