Spicefreak

Happy tuesday, again, everyone! This week, I’m feeling a tiny bit thai, so I’m bringing you another sriracha. Courtesy of Foraged Fire.

A fairly typical, one-hundred mil bottle, wrapped in their familiar, simple yet sleek, label design. With just one stand out feature.

While the company haven’t given us any art to go on, they have coloured in much of the text and they’ve done so in a lovely warm shade of yellow. Because this is far from your standard sriracha.

This is a yellow chilli sauce and, while I’ve tried two different 📽️ yellow srirachas 📽️ already, there’s more, still, to today’s than just its colour.

As those coloured words will tell you, Foraged Fire haven’t just used any old yellow chillies for their sauce. They’ve specifically chosen two of the most citrussy – The fatalii and the ají limon.

So I’m eager to crack into this one. Well and truly excited to see just how well such a lemon-forward sriracha sauce works.

Let’s do it, shall we?

On my spoon, its colour is a brownish, orange-ish, yellow – As warm as that of the label’s text – but its texture is far more typical of the sriracha style. Thick and largely made from fine grains of chilli, blended and sieved smooth enough to flow, without too much added liquid.

Its taste is deep, rich and earthy, upfront, from all of the garlic. Yet there’s a sweetness, from its panela, as well. The unrefined, dehydrated sugar cane juice which, alongside the cane vinegar, rounds out that earthiness with its golden, almost caramel or molasses-like undertones.

And that, alone, would make a top tier sriracha but it’s only the beginning of what I’m experiencing. There are far more flavours yet to behold and the first of them is lime leaf.

Or rather, it’s kaffir lime leaf – Technically a different plant from our common, persian limes. And it’s paired with ginger, in order to provide a smooth transition from the golden, earthy garlic into the citruses that follow. Because no, it’s not just citrus-like chillies in this sauce. It’s also the juice and peel of both lemons and limes.

Juice which highlights the now rapidly growing, aged yellow pepper taste of the fatalii and its deep, pickled lemon undertones. Whereas the peel adds a light bitterness, to offset the sweet, and amps up the fragrant quality of the leaves and spices.

And, while that’s all going on and the acidity’s starting to make itself known, the punch of the peppers is also ramping up and up. A sharp, deep heat, from the fatalii, quickly makes its way to a low

in my throat and around the sides of my mouth. While the equally spiky, baccatum burn of the ají limo stings the tip of my tongue and ensures that almost no part of my mouth can remain calm.

This sauce is powerful, both heat-wise and flavour-wise, but it’s more than that. It’s also an experience. A bold array of different heats flavours which all mesh together seamlessly and stay with me, long after I’ve swallowed my spoonful.

Here’s the full list of everything that goes into it:

Yellow Chilli Mash (33%) (Fatalii Peppers, Aji Limon Peppers, Sea Salt), Yellow Sweet Peppers, Garlic, Raw Cane Vinegar, Panela (7%), Salt, Ginger, Spices, Fresh, Lemon Juice, Fresh Lemon Peel, Fresh Lime Juice, Fresh Lime Peel, Kaffir Lime Leaf.

And no, I can’t pick out every single last one. But I can tell how the vast majority are affecting the overall blend and the results are astounding!

I am seriously impressed by this sriracha and really looking forward to throwing it over stir-frys, chucking it into thai curries or using it to dip gyoza. And, while I think that its flavour might overpower most white fish on its own, it’ll definitely work its way into a marinade for them or pair with chicken or tuna.

Plus, those are just the first few uses that come to mind. I’m sure that there are plenty more ways to get a whole load of enjoyment from Foraged Fire’s sauce.

It is, after all, one of the best uses of the yellow fatalii that I’ve ever seen.