A Floral Focus

Hey folks, it’s the week after my birthday so it’s time to cool things down a tad. And, while I’m not expecting this week’s sauce to be mild, exactly, I’m definitely hoping for a focus on flavour. Because this one sounds weird, even to me!

This is “Where The Wild Roses Grow”, from Balefire, and its label looks just like their previous product. Yet the sauce inside glows a peachy shade of orange and really shows off the blend of rose water and red habanero within. A pairing which I’ve never even heard of, outside of my own gulab jamun recipe.

“Wild” is right for this crazy take on a sweet chilli but, as I discovered when I was researching for that recipe, there’s science to support today’s flavour combination. So the question is less about the concept and more about Balefire’s execution.

Can the company pull off this one of a kind creation successfully?

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Indian Fruit & Fire

Sup folks, it’s tuesday again and, I’ve held off on this pair for a little too long already. So, today, we’re going to see a couple more mango sauces, from Alkemio Kitchen and Hop’t:

Two rather unique takes on this fruit and chilli combo from two very experimental companies. One featuring green jalapeños, red scotch bonnets and citrussy hops, while the other’s more focussed on indian spices, including turmeric, cumin and nigella seed.

Neither sounds quite like what I’m used to but that’s part of the fun of running a blog like this. I get to try a tonne of unique flavours and, hopefully, find something which I truly love.

Now let’s see if I’m going to do so today.

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Price’s Pair

Sad new year everyone. I’d say “happy” but it’s not.

Not for me and my blog.

The year that’s just gone has taken away both of my usual new year’s traditions – The night of partying and the green sauce for my first january review. So, while my special jalapeño product is still stuck in the twenty-twenty mail backlog, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to show you something else. A pair of red and yellow items from Prices Spices:

Their Reclus Red chilli jam and their El Salivate Ador sauce. Both of which will hopefully have the great taste to live up to their fake stickers’ claims and kick off this year, if not “right”, at least well.

After all, Prices Spices have managed to wow me many times before, including with their use of pineapple, so I definitely have reason to expect great things from the fruit in today’s sauce.

But it’s actually the jam that I’m really excited for. Because, despite its simple, red and black labelling, its chilli of choice is quite unique.

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Yuzu & Lemon

Happy tuesday, my fellow fiery food fans. Today, we’re taking a second look at the Chilli Brothers.

This time around, however, I’m trying out one of their sauces:

CBYuzu

One that’s wrapped in a sleek, stylish and super shiny, silver label with the same logo and lack of information that we saw on their syrups. One that, once again, only gives us the sauce name, in small, above its ingredients list on the back.

That’s bad branding, pure and simple, but at least we can see the sauce around the label’s edges. At least we can make out its browned-apple colour and texture. Even if we can’t see the yuzu that actually got me interested.

Hopefully that yuzu comes through in its taste but, since I wasn’t so impressed with the company’s last pair, I figured I’d bring in a second sauce this week:

SBLemon

One that, sadly, isn’t the same asian citrus but still makes a wonderful, warming flavour from its whole, organic lemons.

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A Citrus Surprise

It’s another tuesday, everybody, and time for the first of my freebies from Saucey Lady. Four of her standard-sized sauce bottles that I chose but wasn’t charged for, on the grounds that it was christmas.

Thank you, Kaz.

Of the sauces that I chose, only two are new, but you’ll be seeing the lot, anyway, as the other feature in recipes and an upcoming video.

For now, though, I’d like to talk about this one:

StClements

Her St Clements, named in reference to the classic schoolyard rhyme and her inclusion of both oranges and lemons. Fruit that, when combined with the product’s aji limon chillies and yellow bell peppers, give it a warm and vibrant yellow unlike anything else in her range.

Despite having the exact same label as all of her others, this sauce stands out as a real looker. And its UK Chilli Awards sticker bodes well, too.

But can it live up to those impressive first impressions? Well why don’t we find out?

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The Death Star

Hey there everybody, it’s thursday again and time for me to review another freebie from Heat Hot Sauce. A sauce shop situated outside of the UK – Hence it not fitting into my usual tuesday feature – but one with far better international shipping than some and a wide selection of interesting sauces at reasonable prices.

Today’s item was apparently made with them in mind but its actual producer is a company called “Spicy Ninja Sauce”, based in Hawai’i.

So, given their island home and the fertility of volcanic soil, it’s only natural that it contains tropical fruit. Yet we’re not looking at anything as ordinary as mango, papaya, pineapple, coconut or even lilikoi – A local breed of yellow passion-fruit used in some of their sauces.

No, their weapon of choice, for this one, is something that I’ve only ever seen once before, on import from germany. It’s the legendary star fruit, or carambola, which almost everyone has heard of but few have ever tasted. A fruit that apparently blends hints of grape, citrus, pear and cantaloupe melon.

My history with the carambola has it pegged a little differently, though – As a blend of pineapple, unripe lemon and cucumber that was absolutely disgusting when skewered and chocolate-coated. Yet I’m pretty sure that I didn’t have it at its best.

After all, my fruit was green and Spicy Ninja’s sauce is anything but:

DeathStar

It’s a bright orange blend of carrots, star fruit and ghost pepper, themed after the Death Star. And, while it’s purely coincidence that this product caught my attention right now, I definitely appreciate Heat Hot Sauce getting it to me in time for The Rise of Skywalker.

I could not have asked for a better time to show off the D_ _ th S_ r O.G. “Weaponized Star Fruit” sauce than alongside the release of Star Wars episode nine!

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Pale Ale Piccalilli

Happy tuesday again, everybody, and welcome back to another Gingerbeard review.

This time, we’re taking a look at their Ale and Chilli Piccalilli – A product type that I’ve never featured before and one that they make in collaboration with Electric Bear Brewing Co.

Aleilli

Both company logos adorn the label of this jar, along with a bunch of chillies dancing to the boom box from Electric Bear’s Werrrd ale, but that’s about all the visual indication we get of what goes into it.

Unlike on their bloody mary salsa, Gingerbeard do a pretty poor job of conveying what today’s product is, without words, despite the busier design. I’m not too impressed with its outside but let’s see what their picalilli is like within, shall we?

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Spanish Superfruit

What’s up fiery food fans? My name’s Coran Sloss and, if this sounds like the start of a Youtube video, I’m very sorry but there is a good reason for it.

You see, today’s product is one that’s going to hold a special place in my heart, whether I wind up liking it or not, so I really aught to give you a bit of backstory to explain why.

As you’re hopefully all aware, this is a UK-centric recipe and review site, for the simple reason that I’m from the UK. More specifically, though, I’m british. British through and through.

I was born in scotland, I grew up in england, my humour is both pun-based and cynical and I speak only one language fluently. Yet my name is anything but typical of the country or countries that I call home.

My given name, Coran, comes from my mother’s irish heritage and, while similarly celtic, my surname is from my dad’s side, by way of america.

Both of my parents were well travelled and, between the two of them, they spoke more or less every major language in europe. And a few beyond.

It is from them that I have picked up my rudimentary german, french, italian and spanish – Enough to read an ingredients list, even if I can’t manage much more – and my interest in other cultures is likely their influence as well. My interest in weird fruit, though? That comes from slightly further afield.

In recent times, it has been spurred on by anime, my love of fruity hot sauce and a friend that I made on youtube but, even back in high school, I was buying dragonfruit, horned melons and yellow tomatoes to see what they were like.

And, before that, I had a grandma with a house in spain. One with a garden that grew something that you’ve probably never heard of. Nesparos – The key ingredient in today’s sauce and a fruit that I’ve not had since childhood.

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A Salty Showdown

Happy tuesday again, folks. Today, it’s time for some seasoning.

Chilli salts, instead of sauces, this week and both from companies that we know well.

salts

The Mini Jar Company on the left, makers of salsa, chutney and a great, fiery peanut butter, making their return with an aji lemon (or lemondrop) sea salt.

And, on the right, Wiltshire Chilli Farm, sporting the same brown action lines that we saw on their Dark Habanero sauce for a chipotle salt. A product that promises to be a massive step down in heat from both that and 🔥 the last two items that I had from them 🔥.

Two rather different product flavours – One bright and citrusy and the other rich and smoky – but a single product type all the same.

Let’s see what I make of them.

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