Spicefreak

Yo, what’s up people? It’s that time again and, this week, it’s another weird one. One of Saucey Lady’s specialist fruit blends:

And sure, it may call itself her “Moonlight Serenade” but there’s nothing as basic as the sweet seranade chilli in this sauce. Just take a look at that ingredients list:

pears, peppers, aji lemon, aji fantasy, habanero, lemon, white wine vinegar, sugar

Three different hot peppers, with a focus on citrussy and fruity baccatums to complement its use of pear for the first ingredient.

It’s not as wild as what we saw last week, of course, but I’ve tried the 📽️white ají fantasy📽️ before and it had a real pear sour candy vibe. So I have high hopes for how the yellow version is going to go with the real fruit.

Label-wise, this one is what it is. Pretty minimal and nothing different to the rest of the Saucey Lady range, aside from its UK Chilli Awards sticker. And even that isn’t exactly unique to this bottle.

So, if you want to hear my thoughts on her artwork, you can find them in this earlier post but, otherwise, I’m just going to get on into it.

Today’s product is thick and pulpy. Comprised of smooth yet granular pear flesh, just as I’d expect from that list, but strewn with enough shreds of bell pepper to turn its colour a light and orangey shade of red.

Seeds join those shreds, beneath its surface, and provide it with a bit of texture, but its the viscosity that’s really visible on my spoon. Enough for it to hold its shape and clearly show you where I poured from, yet still little enough that it flows from the bottle without struggle.

And, as it pours, I get its gentle scent wafting up to me. Smooth, soft, pale fruit with heavy, red pepper overtones which most certainly match its flavour, in my mouth. But there’s a little more to it than just what I get on the nose.

It’s subtle, at first. A smooth, fruity flavour to match its texture and aroma. Not quite pear, per se, but definitely pear-derived, with slight pepper undertones.

Yet that pepper isn’t red, it’s yellow. The citrussy baccatum-types, working their way up through that fruit with the lemon. Soon giving the sauce some real tang.

And, as that citrus chilli taste fades away into the red peppers, it leaves some of that tang behind to accentuate the sharp, habanero and lemondrop that catches, on the roof of my mouth and in the back of my throat, with a low

Heat. Which isn’t crazy, by any means, but definitely qualifies as “hot”.

This is not what I was expecting from an ají fantasy sauce in the slightest and, if I’m completely honest, I think I would have preferred either the white version or the ají bodysnatcher that was bred from it, in order to better highlight the gentle pear with its own, candy-like flavour.

The habanero in this one just seems to be there for the burn and the baccatum chillies bring an enjoyable citrus but don’t really work with the fruit that’s already in the sauce.

I like this one and I’ll definitely enjoy pairing it with non-cheddar cheeses – Either a cream kind, to smother over bagels and baked potatoes, or the four that top pizza, where the fruit will complement any lighter varieties and the strong red pepper will balance out the funky blue. But, even so, it’s not as revolutionary as I had hoped, from such an unusual pear and pepper blend.

So, check out my pages for its ají limo, ají fantasy and yellow habanero chillies, if you’re interested and, by all means, give this sauce a go, if the flavours that I’ve described sound appealing. But don’t think that it’s a must buy, like her Birds and Bonnets or Midnight Mischief. Because it isn’t.