This is yet another “exotic” offering from the folks at Peppermaster. It’s hard to know what’s more impressive…the sauce recipes they come up with or how good they get them to taste. With this sauce’s name, I didn’t know where to begin with using it. The contents of the jar included:

Ingredients: apple cider, peppers, ginger, plums, orange, garlic, tamari, rice vinegar, sherry, cornstarch, sesame oil, spices, black beans, herbs, sea salt, guar

Tasting a little on my finger, I was again stunned at the uniqueness of the taste. Like my review of the BBQ Thai Satay, I needed a little direction on what I might try this sauce upon. What I could tell for sure from my little taste was that the heat was definitely ratcheted up a notch for this sauce compared to the last. The view from the top looked like this:

Yes, those are seeds that you see floating in the pepper mélange, which confirms the notion that this sauce should be hotter than average. Tina of Peppermaster suggests using it with “soup, noodles, rice, chicken, pork, shrimp, beef, sushi, anything with potatoes, it’s a stunningly good dip for fries or fixin’s for mash potatoes.” So, I assembled a couple of different foods to take this sauce for a gastronomic test drive.

I took the last suggestion first, and picked up a small container of fries at lunch today. Some of my colleagues peered at me suspiciously as I produced this small bottle of goodness at lunch today, and poured out a dollop of sauce for dipping. French fries went in boring, and indeed came out amazing. Given the choice, I may never use ketchup again with my fries. What a rockin’ good peppery taste this gave! The heat is definitely worthy of 8/10 of their heat scale, and I can see how this would build even a little more if used with the right sort of food.

Other uses I tried was as an accompaniment sauce for eggrolls and as an addition to a pair of soups, one being gumbo and the other a veggie soup. The underlying taste of this sauce is so complex with its dominant hints of plum, orange, and peppers that it really does accentuate each food type a little differently, as I noticed different tastes with each dish. As a dip for my eggroll, it give a spicy schwerve that I gobbled down voraciously. The garlic and tamari in this sauce is a great addition when used with Chinese food, or likely with other foods from the Orient. Even in soups as different from each other as gumbo is from vegetable beef, this sauce provided a nice touch to both. The hint of orange & plum was strangely good in the veggie soup, and even better with the gumbo. Proving its ability as a bit of a chameleon sauce, it obviously blends well with a variety of tastes.

Recommendation: To me, the genius of this sauce is its ability to maintain such a wonderful taste profile with its relatively high heat level. If I had a little more sauce to try with some other kinds of foods, I could attest to its utility…but for now all I can say is that “your mileage may vary” with this sauce. There’s a lot of foods you can use this with and it will make them all taste pretty darn good and above-average in heat…but don’t forget to save some for your french fries.

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