Tag: Habanero

Cottage Delight Very Hot Cajun Sauce

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This is the second sauce I’ve tried from the Hot & Spicy Assortment of Cottage Delight sauces and chutneys I was sent recently.  See my review of the Cottage Delight Mexican Hot & Sweet Jalapeño Sauce from the same pack.

Cottage Delight Very Hot Cajun Sauce is a bright orange colour with flecks of red, a really attractive and natural looking sauce which has come from blending up the Habanero and Scotch Bonnet peppers.

On tasting, the sauce has a rich, citrusy chilli pepper taste with a high vinegar kick.  The Habanero pepper really stands out here, and is matched perfectly with the fruity Scotch Bonnet pepper.  The Cajun flavour comes from a slight hint of mustard, coupled with the fruity and zingy pepper taste – delicious!

I much prefer the runnier, vinegar based consistency of the Cajun sauce to the jammy Mexican Hot, I find that a sauce of this consistency is much more versatile and easier to eat in larger amounts.

Cottage Delight Very Hot Cajun Sauce is a really tasty sauce and I would recommend this as a store-cupboard staple since it’s a sauce that has a pure Habanero and Scotch Bonnet flavour, but with a good amount of depth thanks to the Cajun finish.

Rating: 3/5

 

Cottage Delight Mexican Hot & Sweet Jalapeño Sauce

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I was sent a Hot & Spicy Assortment of Cottage Delight sauces and chutneys, each coming in their own 40ml glass jar – a great gift for anyone who likes their condiments and hot sauces.

First up is the Cottage Delight Mexican Hot & Sweet Jalapeño Sauce which is an almost translucent, lime colour sauce with flecks of green jalapeño throughout the sauce.

On tasting, the sauce has a fresh, fruity jalapeno flavour with slight bitterness from the chilli pepper.  A delightful sweet and sour flavour, and a small amount of heat that leaves a warming heat in the mouth.    This is a very sweet sauce (as the name suggests), however the acidic kick prevents it from being sickly.

Cottage Delight Mexican Hot & Sweet Jalapeño Sauce is a nice tasting sauce, but I’m not so keen on the jammy, sticky consistency.

2/5

Smack My Ass & Call Me Sally

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Comedy-named novelty sauces – love them or hate them?  Personally I love them (‘Professor Payne Indeass Sphincter Shrinker’ is one of my favorites), but I’ll rarely buy them since I can’t help but think that a sauce should be sold on its description and ingredients alone, but perhaps I’m just being a bit stuffy?  They are just a load of fun afterall.

So, Smack My Ass & Call Me Sally is a comedy-named Habanero hot sauce which comes from Florida, US.  As you can see, some poor lad has had his bare bottom smacked hard, and crying.  Fine.  What I haven’t figured out is whether he is crying due to a sore derrière or whether he has had the displeasure to try this sauce.

This comedy sauce doesn’t offer much other than the humorous packaging; what we have here is a bland, artificial, watery hot sauce which just burns your tongue and doesn’t offer much else.  Not much aroma to mention, and the colour of the sauce is quite pale and almost anaemic.   The ingredients list (image below) promises so much, but it feels like those ingredients have had the soul slapped out of them, and if I was going to call this sauce something, it certainly wouldn’t be Sally.

Rating: 1/5

Mrs Renfro’s Habanero Salsa

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I’m not a salsa guy, mainly since I try not to buy crisps for consumption at home, but when I do actually get the chance to eat salsa, then forget the opening of this sentence.  I was bought this salsa as a present from a local Whole Foods store, and I’m delighted I got to try it.

Mrs Renfro’s Habanero Salsa is clearly quite an artisan product; the packaging is classy, ingredients natural, and comes with a nice back-story.  It feels homemade, far away from glass jars that Doritos have been pushing on us for years.

The first thing that hit me when I tried the sauce was how fresh and zingy it tasted, considering the jar must have been at least a few months old and shipped from the US I thought that was quite impressive.  A strong tomato base is complimented by fruity high note which is continued with a hit of sweet and sharp vinegar.  The heat from the Habanero kicks in and stays with you…for quite a while!  Mrs Renfro’s Habanero Salsa has a long lingering heat which works really well since it can only be stifled by eating more crisps – quite clever really.

Really worth getting some and sharing with others, tastes amazing and the heat is fierce but pleasing thanks to the fresh chilli peppers.

Rating: 4.5/5

Sainsbury’s Hot Pepper Sauce

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I like to keep an eye on what supermarkets are doing with their own brand sauces, and it’s great when you come across an attempt that is actually quite good.  Well Sainsbury’s, this one is a blinder.

Sainsbury’s Hot Pepper Sauce is very much in the style of a Caribbean Scotch Bonnet sauce such as Windward West Indian sauce, or the Encona Hot Pepper sauce.  The sauce has a great colour and large visible pieces of Habanero within it, and has a loose and chunky consistency.

The flavour is fresh and fruity (what you’d expect from a Habanero sauce), and has short punchy heat followed by a longer burn which is actually quite devastating if you have a lot of it, we’re talking tears over a tablespoon.

A really good own-brand sauce.  Although it’s a great sauce for the price (£1.25), I personally wouldn’t buy it again since there are better examples of this style of sauce out there, however it’s worth a punt if your Sainsbury’s stocks it.

Rating: 3.5/5

UPDATE:

After a few more tastes and chats with friends, I think I would perhaps buy this again over brands like Encona or Windward (which share shelf space) .  This sauce by Sainsbury’s has an very special individuality; for an own-brand sauce I can do nothing but tip one’s cap.

Crazy Bastard Sauce – Tomatillo & Habanero

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I was lucky enough to be sent this sauce by Jonathan O Reilly who lives in Berlin, Germany.

Crazy Bastard Sauce is a small-batch (15 litre) chilli sauce produced in a professional kitchen in Germany, and the website indicates that each batch may vary slightly in terms of colour and heat.  The recipe for Crazy Bastard Sauce has taken three years to perfect, and I can really see why.

On first taste the sauce is naturally sweet, with a rush of heat that catches your tongue after a few seconds.  Then, a strong hit of garlic follows, mellowed by a sweet tomato, and then complimented with fruity, citrusy Haberano flavours.  The sauce lets off a series of bass notes with the tomato and garlic, and the Haberano and vinegar sprinkle the tongue with high notes. Although this sauce has a simple ingredient list, it’s perhaps has the most deep and refined flavour profile I’ve ever had from a sauce using these ingredients.  Simple, but memorable.     Classy, not in-your-face.

The heat is fairly immediate, punchy, but not raw.  It’s a pleasurable heat which compliments the flavours of the sauce perfectly.  However, it you have the sauce in large amounts then it really does show it’s strength, this really is quite a hot and powerful sauce and I prefer it smaller amounts.

So far I’ve tried Crazy Bastard Sauce in a sausage sandwich, on cold roast beef, and alongside some pork chops – all fantastic.  I’ve also found myself putting blobs of the sauce on my finger while working at my desk, it’s really quite addictive, and I think the delicious flavour and balanced heat is the cause of that.

Crazy Bastard Sauce is clearly of handcrafted, artisan values, beginning at the packaging and following all the way through to the final taste.  The sauce comes in 100ml glass bottle with a nice sliver cap, kinda like an old medicine bottle.  The labels are brightly illustrated with iconic and fun graphics, and the typeface used is lovely.  The sauce has clearly been well thought out from top-to-bottom, and I’d say the hard work has been worth it since we have a standout sauce here.

Currently my favourite sauce of 2014 so far.

Rating: 5/5

Windward West Indian Hot Pepper Sauce

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Windward’s Indian Hot Pepper Sauce is a blinder!  The sauce has a traditional Caribbean pepper sauce flavour that you may have tried before with sauces such as Baron and Encona, very fruity, quite sharp, but with an undercurrent of mellow thyme.