Ingredients: Orange Habaneros, Serranos, Green Pepper, Onion, Garlic, White Vinegar, Lime Juice, Maple Syrup, El Tesoro Platinum Tequila, Basil, Sage, Kosher Salt.
Joe and Linda’s Yom Kippur Repentance Hot Sauce came in the mail the other day, which gave me ample time to give it the full work out of tests before my weekend review. What a work out it received! I was so excited that I was one of the people to receive a sample, that I rushed out to BJ’s Brewery to show it off. Many samples of food did it go on and the over all reaction was good. Matt, the bartender, was ecstatic over the slightly sweet taste.
For not having done a sauce in a few years, this one came out pretty good. The small mason jar that it came in gives it that “old fashioned homemade” feel and the slogan, “So hot and tasty it will make you want to repent something” is great. The color, however, is not as pretty as some of the other sauces that have blown my way. The “baby-barf green” (as it has been described) would have been easily eliminated if the green bell peppers were substituted with red bell peppers, which also would help add an extra kick of sweet.
Upon the first taste, you get a little bit of sweet before the heat kicks in. This sauce definitely has a kick and I can see why Joe and Linda were trying to lower the heat a bit. When copious amounts are used, it definitely leaves you hurting. My only real problem with this sauce is the maple syrup. It creates an odd texture on the tongue, leaves a little aftertaste, and interacts poorly with the lime juice.
That being said, this sauce goes great on burritos! Just smear a little, or in my case a lot, of the sauce on your burrito and add tomato paste, cheese, meat and you’ll be in flavor heaven. It also goes decent on burgers. Overall an enjoyable sauce and I hope to see a Joe and Linda’s Happy Hanukkah Hot Sauce sometime in the near future…hint hint Joe and Linda.
Taste: 8, Heat: 8.5
Popularity: 16% [?]
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My new goal for the day is to use the words “baby-barf green” at least 3 times today. Quite honestly, I agree with you on the color. We tried to address that with a little turmeric, but the green was pretty set by then. We wanted the taste of the green pepper, but not the color. Also, the consistency was a little off by our standards. A little too thick, we should have added a smidge more vinegar to make it a little more liquid-y.
We didn’t detect the consistency issue with the maple syrup, but that could be addressed better with another kind of sweetener. Something natural like agave nectar, perhaps?
Next year, we’ll plan ahead a little more. The Hanukkah sauce may have to be from store-bought peppers…LOL!
- Joe
Comment fired by Joe & Linda — October 16, 2006- 7:48 am
Agave nectar may have a lot of potential as a sweetener…we love it in margaritas…but it’s a little expensive where we buy it…about 4 bucks for 12 oz. I use honey in my sauces.
As for your sauce, I think it had potential. What I would have done is leave out the bell pepper and use some sort of “base”. I usually use carrots because I’m fond of Caribbean-style sauces like Marie Sharp’s. A sauce like yours I would consider tomatillos as they pair very well with serranos. I also would not put sage or basil in my sauces…but hey…if people don’t experiment we never find new tastes.
I say keep at it. You have to start somewhere. I remember the fist time I tried to make salsa. I put cilantro in it..stems and all. It tasted like grass!
Comment fired by chuk hell — October 16, 2006- 1:08 pm
Chuk,
Tomatillos are a great idea! We didn’t think of that because we don’t often see them in the food markets in which we shop. Carrots were something we wanted to avoid if only because so many people use them, and we wanted to be a little different.
The spices we used were purely by accident…just whatever we had handy. If we had planned ahead a little better, we might have had more interesting choices. Aside from the salt, nothing is a given in hot sauce. We want to use a spice that’s in the background but doesn’t change the overall flavor of the sauce. Hard to do, it seems. The sage didn’t seem to noticeable to us, btw.
Comment fired by Joe & Linda — October 18, 2006- 7:55 am
Ya, I couldn’t really taste the sage either, but I did taste a little bit of the basil.
Comment fired by Jonathan Passow — October 18, 2006- 12:37 pm