Sauce review: Scovilla Excite Mango & Coconut fruit hot sauce.

I am in for a challenge this time, with tasting this sauce, not for the heat but for the taste.
I hate coconut if it is over the top and am not too fond about mango either.
With coconut I do think it is over the top rather fast even if you don’t use too much. Both coconut and the German cuisine can be rather rough or crude maybe, so I am in for something.

I have been a good few times in Germany, and that country is lovely and good fun. Don’t however think you will run over loads of good looking blonds with Lederhosen, you will not.
And if you think it Germany is all about beer, beer bellies and drinking huge Litre glasses of beer? Wrong again.
Germany has got the greatest pilsners in the world, no doubt about that, all super natural and conform their Reinheitsgebot.
Sure they do have beer and wine fests, all for good fun, but you should taste their game meat at the restaurants. . .
Or their salads, their lettuce with a touch of vinegar, onion and and , I need to go to Germany again soon.
Sauce hé, back to sauce. . .

Well, this sauce contains:
Mango, Coconut, Habañero pepper powder, Orange juice, Lemon juice, Passion Fruit juice, Paprika,
Apple vinegar, Coconut essence, Sugar, Starch and Ascorbic acid.
The bottle is a stunning 311ml, normal price 4,99 Euro, so good value for your money.
I especially like the note on the bottom of the label, 100% natural, and: Thanks to Mother Earth

The consistency is great, not too runny, not too thick and it has structure.
Not chunky I mean, it’s got a lovely texture so you feel what you are tasting.
I would say it almost feels like a jelly or jam, in sauce form.
It smells lovely, almost a bit like apricot coconut and well like a fruit bar. Ha I might like this after all.
The taste, hmm.

At start it is a bit syrup like, sweet and sour with sweet being the overtone. Yes it has mango, and it has coconut both not too much, and heat slowly beginning on the middle of the tongue, slowly going down.
At the same time you taste the citrus fruits as an undertone and the apple vinegar does something lovely with the fruit sugars in it. Almost as if you are left with a hot apple syrup taste.
The paprika brings a herb taste in it, together with the habañero peppers. I could swear there is a bit of salt in it to enhance the taste, and there is not.
This is the effect of using great peppers and good paprika, getting a bit of a savoury umami taste.
I like that as a counter to the sweet and sour.
The sauce is not very hot, but has a great bite, 1 out of 5 maybe.

Hihi, I am eating mango and coconut and I love it, this is nuts !
The kids gave it a taste too, and love it, they want to have it on ice-cream.
Now, they are used to a bit of heat, and are giving me the eye that I don’t give them any more.
They simply love it!
1/3rd of the bottle is gone with tasting, and I am 500 words.
So, nice idea from the kids, I am going to use it on ice cream and report about that this week.

O wow, it is on sale I just read at the Scovilla site.
3,99 Euro per bottle, go and get them, maybe take two or try something else too!

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste review unknown Yellow Crazy Hot,

Now my friend Henry and his friend Beppe from Italy send me one load of chillies you would not believe! They selected the ones I needed to taste, although they have a lot more, they wanted me to taste these ones. So I dug in and as it appears, with the first bite I made a mistake.
Now excuse me please, but I did get a little excited unpacking, and got punished. I unpacked one, bright yellow and a little orange, not pointy but irregular in a funny way.

The paper next to it said Cornetto Calabrese, so not knowing it I was taking good care but took a rather large piece from in between the seed lists. I felt like a chilli rookie again, man that pepper had me sing. Good grief it was hot, but tasty never the less, but boy did I sing. So I asked Henry if they always are that hot. Well then I understood I need to learn to speak and write Italian. Who needs Latin?

So, I thought I’d better taste on, I will get it later. The scent of this chilli is great, perfumy chinense, with fruits and sweets. The chinense part that sometimes has an irritating overtone in both smell and taste is not there, it is in balance. So tasting again, but more, much more careful. Tastng and smelling I get a scent and taste from Tea Rose, perfume. In the middle there is no sweets, no paprika but fruits and a bit of metal like bleeding. You get that in times if you eat superhot chillies like these. Rinse with milk and get back at it, smaller bits I take. In the tip of it I find a bit of sweet and tastes like pineapple. A little piece from the middle does give me a bit of a bitter, but not irritating as such, and again the tea rose and the perfumy chinense. At the top however I get apricot and tea rose as well as some paprika taste. This is one weird lovable chilli that is extremely hot, far hotter than a Fatalii.

So again I have a chat with Henry from Italy, asking what it is. In the end I show him the picture and the label that I thought belonged together. “Ah” Henry says “that is a Bhut Jolokia Yellow, and the best he has selected over more than 10 years”. Every time he only takes seeds from the plant he likes best, and sure did one great job. This my good readers is one chilli to respect, not feared, but used in little bits if you don’t want to be scorched. But this is a chilli that makes me think of a great Chili con Carne, that is subtle on the herbs. Good grief Beppe, I am so digging in the next one tomorrow. Thank you ever soo much, this is a superhot chilli I love !!

Yours sincerely,

Bart J Meijer

Taste report for Rocoto de Seda

It's Rocoto season!

After waiting for more than two full months my Rocoto de Seda finally turned to beautiful jellow.
Today I harvested the first one and couldn't wait tasting it.

The inside contains three "chambers" with large black seeds (black seeds are typical pubescens).

Carefully i put a piece in my mouth. HMMMM! Nice sweet like raisins, no not those sticky black things from the red box but raisins that are not ruined by sulfuring them.
(who invented the sulfuring? why ruin the lovely tast raisins have?)
I even tasted some banana.
After a few seconds the heat kicks in, aw! to much for me!
With the juices the heat spreads quick over my, lips, mouth, throat and stomach, everywhere.







Inspired by the raisin like taste I took what was over from the fruit, cut some raisins, added a little water and sugar and as finish some lemon juice.
Cooked it slowly for a few minutes. The rocoto and raisins did match indeed..its a sort of hot baklava...maybe try hot apple pie next time












Bart, thank you for letting me write on your blog!
Aldo

Sometimes tasting is hard

Dear readers,

Sometimes tasting is hard, and having my head bent over an other chilli a full evening, laptop next to it with not a word typed. I felt rotten all night. Really, I didn't get any taste, I could not compose it to a story.
So I started to get stressed, did want to have a story out tonight, and it was just not going to happen with this chilli. So I tasted an other, and no, not a drop off inspiration. Then you start to doubt, is it the wrong time, am I having a cold? Is this a boring chilli, is it me?

When I took a break, I thought about next weeks Monday growing article I wrote yesterday. Before I can publish it, I need to take pictures. So for that article I read in for about 3 hours, composed an article in 2 hours, read it through and made corrections for about half an hour. Then I sorted what pictures I needed to make, and wrote that down or made notes rather. That is the time some articles take, and I still have to make the pictures.

Its not only that, but also the tasting, it takes time.
Maybe an apology is in order, for it might be that I make tasting sound so easy at times, or composing a dish. Sometimes it is, but most of the times it is not at all that easy. I know that some sauce makers take over a year to compose a sauce they are really happy with, tasting and re tasting. Adapting it a bit, tasting again. And they don''t give up but make a brilliant sauce at the end. One recipe I had took me a year to make it perfect. 3 years later I made it different, with a totally different approach but the same ingredients, and only then it was superb, and finished. You should have seen the faces here! "What have you done with the original recipe???" And all off them loved it.

So sometimes making a story, tasting some things is ever so easy, and sometimes the taste needs to ripen and the story shelved, just waiting for an other day.

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste review Monkey Face chilli

The Monkey face chilli was a medium hot chilli everybody talked about last years, so it was a need to have chilli for me. It was a bit of a slow starter, but that might have been me. I was sort off sold, when I heard it would be a great base chilli for sauces, so well a had to have. Now the plant has a lovely form, grows a bit like a tree. I like that, but I am not in this for looks, I want taste.
It is supposed to have sort of a Monkey Face in it, and I did see a few good photographs, but I didn't really get a good one. So not really a monkey face. Still the somewhat odd form and looks make it to be a great looking odd chilli. Sure I do like a good looking chilli, but I love to have a good taste as well. Now I heard that it was a good one to over-winterer as well, now that were all the pro's known to me.

So I had it grow for a year and last month I had one to taste. It taste is a bit complex, and I had to taste a few before I got it. The heat is direct, no surprises no build, no. You know what you are eating the first bite, so that is good to work with.
Basically it has sweet, a touch of bitter some herbs, fruit, and a wood like tone. Some say it would taste like mango, but then I would rather say a touch of pineapple as it has that wood tone as well. In my terms I would say, it has the sweets of a yellow bell pepper, the pleasant light bitter a red bell pepper has, and some herb with a wood like tone. Herbs between Coriander seeds or Turmeric. It is odd, this is a complex chilli with both fruits and herbs, lovely indeed. Now at the time I don't really know what to combine it with, so I left them to dry.

Dried they are a different ballpark, whole new story indeed. If you have them sundried or very slow natural ripened, they are out of this world !
They will get the sweet taste of sundried tomatoes, the sweet will also start to top over to the liquorice taste that you get in slow natural ripened chillies. The taste will stay complex and lovely and make you wonder what it is you are tasting. Really stunning, like this they can stand on their own making a great powder of flakes, or add them to your table salt grinder. The pleasant taste will linger on for at least 10 minutes, just lovely.

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

The next Korean heirloom chilli, Soobi Cho

This is the second chili I got from the Yeongyang County (Yeongyang-gun); an inland county in the north-eastern area of North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea.

Again I got very short and fast info:
The soobicho pepper is cultivated since the 1960s, with a hot and sweet taste. These chillies are susceptible to pests, so must be grown with great care. They have a low yield, and are now only grown in low numbers and small areas.

Ok, now that is a load of info isn’t it? I got a bit scared from the bit “susceptible for pests” so I put 4 plants totally isolated in the front yard, and 1 together with other not too special chillies in a different corner also away from my main crop.
So I waited and waited for pests to arrive, but none did. Now as I grow all my chillies in pots, with a mixture of 90% potting soil and 10% worm compost they hardly ever get pests. But this was funny, in the frontyard I even got aphids in tulips and onion sorts, but none whatsoever in the Soobi Cho. So no pests to be seen.

What also stunned me, these chillies, both the Soobi Cho and the Chilsoung Cho would have a low yield, and they do not. The plants bring loads of fruits, and some even tilt under the weight.

It takes a good while for them to ripen, but so do all the other varieties I have this year, so I would say they are normal. The first ones I tasted were odd, really a strange taste. They are sweet and fairly hot, about the heat of a cayenne or slightly more. The darn thing is from the first moment they remind me of tomato. Earlier in the year they really had a tomato taste, and later in the season they lose this more and more, but still keep reminding me of tomato. Now I work with a couple of great taste testers that have tested this one too, and they say the same.
Debating it again with them, we come to the conclusion that the chilli has this as it has some sour along with the sweets. Mainly it has the taste of sweet bell pepper with strong hints to tomato, is fairly hot. The flesh is slightly thicker than a Cayenne and the skin is somewhat tough. The acidity is faint but noticeable to all tasters. I think this is a stunning chilli to combine with the Chilsoung Cho for Kimchi pepper flakes making them a good step hotter. I think I will put them in my regular use flakes as well for their sweet and sour.. Fresh you can cook with them just fine, losing the acidity in seconds however. In a salad these are great used fresh !

Again proud of having a Korean Heirloom,

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Flying Goose Sriracha Chilli Sauce Extra hot

From a guy at the camping we are staying at I got this Flying Goose Sriracha Chilli Sauce Extra hot, as I told him I review, make and love hot sauces. He was a bit scared trying to taste it, as he thought it might be a bit too much for him. Mind, this guy was coming from Surinam, so he should be used to some hot food. So at a BBQ we had with a few neighbours at the camping I opened his bottle and took a teaspoon to try it. This stuff is hot, really hot, but had a good taste and a good after taste. Having a nice sharp direct burn, this sauce really lets you know directly what you eat heatwise, not building and not in the throat that much. The taste is superb and vibrant, having chilli taste and nothing but chilli, or ingredients that complement the chillies used. I tried it on bbq-ed sausage and bacon, and that dampens the heat a lot, also when used to make Satay Sauce it loses a good bit of heat. That said it is a brilliant sauce, which can be used on practically anything. In combination with sweet soy sauce, it however is something I don’t like with this particular sauce.

My bottle is 450 Ml for a price of around 3.5 Euro, not shabby!

So after using it a week, it reminds me a lot of my own basic Sambal Oelek( Ulek in Indonesian ) be it that this stuff is a bit more salty. Compared to my own Sambal, this sauce is about 4 times as hot, with the heat not overruling the taste, perfect balance I’d say! So I decided to give the distributor Heuschen & Schrouff Oriental Foods Trading BV a call, to see what information they had about it. I got a certain Mr Luyten at the phone from sales, and he was kind enough to provide me with some information and some addresses from places where I could buy this. I also took a look at the name Sriracha or in Thai called sot Siracha and its history. Now the first thing I notice is that it also is called Nam Prik Siracha, and that is????? Well, Nam Prik is the name used in Thailand for pepper pastes or sauces that closely resemble the Indonesian Sambal Ulek ( Oelek in Dutch ) so there you go, that is why I thought it tasted like my own basic Sambal! I love this stuff to death, wouldn’t mind eating a whole bottle at all. That said, this is not a shabby little bottle you would empty in a week, my bottle is 450 Ml for a price of around 3.5 euro! Now that really is stunning value for your money, and your regular hothead would not finish this bottle in a week or even 2. Then again, you really can put this stuff on anything, even my cheese sandwich goes down way better with this sauce.

Looking in the history of the name, Sriracha comes from the town named Si Racha in the Chonburi Province in central where it was possibly first produced for dishes served at local seafood restaurants. It is a chilli paste with distilled vinegar, garlic, salt and sugar. According to Wikipedia ( do not believe all that is written there ) the sauce is called sot Siracha in Thai and only sometimes nam phrik Siracha. Traditional Thai Sriracha sauce tends to be tangier, sweeter, and runnier in texture than non-Thai versions. Non-Thai sauces are different in flavour, colour, and texture from Thai versions as they are often adapted and changed for the local cuisine. In Vietnam it is more often used as a condiment for fried noodles or as a topping on springrolls.

Now this one, has got no garlic and I am glad about that as garlic often ruins the taste. It is not a sweet and sour sauce, it is salty if anything. Great compliment to chillies I'd say! Heat I would say at least and 8, compared to my Sambal being a 5. It is a bit salty but if you use just a bit less salt in your food, it is downright perfect to put on anything. Boring cheese comes alive, any sausage or springroll will see this as a compliment, and it is the perfect spice up for a stir fry. Price is stunning, good value for money and as close as you can get to my own sambal, having nothing too much to overrule the taste of the chillies. It is not too runny, and the bottle is perfect for pouring and dosing it on food or snacks, it has no seeds and is lovely smooth.

One negative note, it has got additives that are rather normal like citric acid and such, but it also contains E621 (sodium glutamate or ve-tsin ) Although being used for ages in the Chinese and Indonesian kitchen, it might not be for all people and there have been negative reports about it. I never use it myself in the kitchen but I know a lot of people do, even the restaurants in the Netherlands use it a lot. Last year I noticed some restaurants starting to advertise they don’t use ve-tsin so maybe this factory will stop using it in some time. The ingredients are: Chilli, Sugar, Water, Garlic, Flavour Enhancer (E621), Acidity Regulators (E260 and E330), Stabiliser (E415), Preservative (E202)

Even though it has Xanthan gum in it and sodium glutamate, and I normally do worry about that, I can’t stop eating the Flying Goose Sriracha Chilli Sauce Extra hot, hmm that is principles out the door when tasting something great??

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Chocolate, me and chilli - Grimreapers Chilli Chocolate !

I am not really one for candy or sweets, in the sense like eating a bag in a day or a chocolate bar in a day. Sure I do eat a candy once in a blue moon, or a piece of chocolate if my wife puts in on the table. But really, I seldom see myself raiding the fridge for something sweet. One exception is drop; that is what is Dutch for Salty Liquorice (in North America called black Licorice), a candy made with salmiak and Liquorice root. Dear readers, you can say anything about that stuff, but it is wonderful. It has a nice balance between sweet and salt, and got an odd rich taste. I can eat a box a day easy, but I try not to. While writing this I just could not help myself, or did help myself with a good handful. Really if I would be send off to Alcatraz, I would take Sambal, a pen and some paper and a box full of Liquorice with me! Ok, where was I, sorry for rambling. . .

So, I am not one for candy, chocolate and so on. What made it worse I think is having kids. At times I get a so-called lovely sweet from the kids when they are sharing. Some of it is so sour it feels like my teeth are eaten, awful. And the stuff with chocolate, boy, everything seems to have chocolate in it. Crispy whatever chocolate things for breakfast, cookies with chocolate, even cruesli bars with chocolate.

Believe me, after weeks not being able to eat a cookie without chocolate, or breakfast without chocolate you get sick off the stuff . . . 

Worst of it all, it is a cheap excuse for a chocolate containing very little chocolate if at all. So I get this big box in from Grimreaper food UK, Russell Williams and guess what is in it? Chocolate. . . .

 But as this is work related, I will have to eat the stuff, thanks Russel.

I tasted the bar of Hellraiser, the milk chocolate version. But first, this is not simply chocolate in wrapper; no this is really nicely looking packet with a ribbon in it. A ribbon that my daughter fancies rightaway, and I do have to admit, this looks stunning! The kids wanted to dig in, and told them not to. They were a bit surprised and started protesting; “You don’t even like chocolate !!!” So I took a little myself to see if it wasn’t too hot first, and was stunned with the taste. This is one chocolate with a capital C! The taste is superb and extremely well balanced, I can even taste the liquorice tones that you have in the dried Naga Jolokia chilli which is used to spike this chocolate. I hoped that I did not spoil the surprise that it was one good chocolate, with the kids looking at me to try and see if I liked it. So I offered them a piece and told them to take care not to take a big bite at once. They both took a good bite, and even my wife wanted some. We all agreed it is superb, and the kids wanted more. . .

We compared it with another very good chocolate, and that really surprised us all, the Grimreaper chocolate is by far better in its chocolate contend and taste!

This chocolate has the classic combination of cinnamon and orange, with a twist of garlic that is hardly noticeable but complementary and the full taste of Naga chillies. Surprisingly you can taste the herbs and fruit tones that you can find in the real Naga Jolokia, unbelievable! I don’t think it is too hot really, no, it is well spiked with the full array of tastes the Naga has without going over the top.

Now my daughter wanted to make a video review for Grimreaper foods, and that was not done in one take. So after about 10 tries thus eating 10 pieces, it was on video. Half an hour later or less I got the buzz of eating Naga chillies, almost a high I would say, that I also got from eating a wild chilli from the Galapagos Islands. The video was received with great comments, and the chocolate was received by us with great joy!

This chocolate I think is one to recommend, not only for hotheads for sure. No, this is one I can recommend for anyone that wants to try something different, something new and great !

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Lidl alert, and good sauces !!! Dilita Peri-Peri Hot sauce !

I must admit I am a Lidl fan, silence, don’t rat me out, but I am.

Sometimes these chaps have great stuff for ridiculous prices, sometimes it is cr##.

Don’t try the Grillmeister stuff, my opinion that is, because this really is not even worth tasting.

This time however, they have lovely hot sauce made by Dilita in Birmingham, for only 1,25 Euro a bottle, and in the UK for only 99 pence.
Normally it is 3 to 3,5 Euro mind!
 

I got it 2 days ago, and today was BBQ day!

I couldn’t wait and tried a teaspoon full.

Not the best of ideas, I was burning up instantly, still tasting good flavour though.

The main flavour was lemon, and a lot of it, just about not overruling the rest of tastes of herbs and onion.

So after the heat was gone a bit, I tried it with some meat, some bread and some Peanutsauce (satay sauce)

The main taste is chilli and lemon, not hiding the onion and a touch of garlic.

If I compare it to regular Tabasco, I think I like this one better.

Compared to other sauces, I prefer this as due to using lemon, not a lot of vinegar is used making it somewhat smoother. Less harsh if you eat it like this.

I think it might be superb for chicken, maybe even better for marinating fish in it.

Not too long as the lemon and vinegar will “cook” your fish a bit.

As it is called Peri-Peri sauce, I would have expected the taste of fresh Peri-Peri or Piri Piri which I grow myself.

Now that is what I am missing out off.

It has a slight bitter, but that is rather logical after reading the ingredients on the label, it says that is has green pepper paste.

Now being unripe, the green chilli is much more bitter then the red or ripe one.
A ripe chilli most of the times has no bitter in it at all, anyways. . .

I doubt there would be more Peri-Peri in it then 1% an to me that is a bit of a bummer.

Then again, who would recognize that, as not a lot of people grow Peri-Peri.

Still, saying this, I love it.

All in all it has a nice bite to it, good amount of heat, and is not too much vinegar based.

I’d say, rush to the Lidl and see if they have got any left!

I am going again to see if they have the Dilita Peri-Peri with wild herbs !!

Yours truly,

Bart J. Meijer

P.S. sorry for the scruffy layout, but it is after all a Lidl Alert !!