يأخذ يلتفت خفيفة باتّجاه آخر من يستعرض الحارّة مرق صانعات من العالم, نحن باعتزاز يحضر إلى أنت ال [فولكس] دقيقة في تكساس توابل مختارة. يمطر من [سنت] [ف], يضع تكساس, وليام باول وأسرته يتلقّى يكون معا بعض عجيبة تابل توليفات ل تقريبا اثنان عقود. يتضمّن منتوجاتهم بعض حارّة تابل توليفات حقّا ل نا [شلهدس], غير أنّ [ا نومبر وف] جيّدة تابل أمزجة حقّا ل أنّ الذي يختار أن يتحاشى الحرارة [إين ففوور وف] أخرى نكهات. فضلا عن إنتقاءهم من توابل, تابل توليفات, و [بّق] عمليّة حكّ, يتلقّى هم أيضا بعض حارّة مرق و [سلسا] جديرة من بعض إنتباه. يقلي رمي في بعض مادّة خام مثل أمزجة لسمكة, سجق مزيج, وفلفل جلاتين, بعد ذلك أنت تتلقّى إنتقاء متنوّعة منتوجات ل تقريبا كلّ شخص أن يحاول واستمتعت. يسحبه بعيدا من ه مدفع هاون & مدقة في مطبخه, حصل نحن [أهولد] ال [مر.]. باول بنفسي أن يسأله [ا فو] أسئلة مناسبة حول بنفسي, عمله, والأهمية الأسرة في ماذا هو يتمّ…

أنت تذكر يتلقّى يتمّ ك تابل توليفات على الجزء جيّدة من المتأخّرة 2 عقود, يقولنا بعض حول كيف ماذا أنّ عملية قد كان مثل ل أنت. حصص النجاحات? إخفاقات? كيف أنت تتمّ هو?

زوّد ينمو فوق [برت] عسكريّة ويتلقّى قريبات أنّ عاش خارجا في البلد بالتّأكيد بيئة أن يعلم من كلا جوانب من أسرتي. نحن اصطدنا, يصطاد, يرتدى محلّية & حيوانات وحشيّة, يجعل سجق, يستطاع خضر, يزرع [فيلد كروب], يحصد, [إتك.]. كثيرا أن يعلم إن أنت فقط تستمع إلى شيخاتك. The reward was eating those freshly prepared meals based on family recipes and creative ideas for change from the next generation.

With any business there will be always be failures and unexpected bumps in the road so to speak. The difference is do we learn from those mistakes and grow our business or dwell on past issues and lose focus on the vision? Personally I look ahead and focus on what’s important to our grass roots company and that is taking care of the customers that believe in our products and continue to support us. Our customers have shipped products to relatives and friends literally all over the world and that is a major part of the continued growth. TSS products are based on family influence over the years and my passion for cooking.

What’s been more satisfying for you…cooking up great BBQ on the grill or making a good batch of your products?

Both are satisfying to me. Watching a batch of spice spin in the paddle blender or looking at an 80 galloon batch of salsa cook reminds me a part of my family history is in those bottles to share with the world. My wife will tell ya I cannot cook for a small group! Sharing food with family, friends and customers is truly the greatest gift of all. On my birthday every year I host a throwdown and cook slow smoked BBQ, fried chicken wings and all the trimmings for anyone that stops by. In the evening we have live music from my good friend Skip “the blues man” Devlin.

You’ve mentioned the word ‘family’ quite often on your site. How important have they been to you in what you do, and what sorts of feedback have you gotten from your customers along those same lines?

When we launched TSS it was dedicated to the three most influential people in my life. There are countless others that gave me inspiration not only for cooking but instilled values that helped shape my life. Starting life’s journey at 17 can be a real challenge. Strong family values and determination is what helped me keep my faith and direction in life. Customers email and call every week to leave awesome comments about how they enjoyed reading about my family on our web site or sharing a story about how their family gathering was so special because of our products or just to tell us they believe in us and we have a customer for life. It doesn’t get any better!

You offer a diverse list of products. Which of those is your favorite and which would you suggest as a good intro for someone who’s never tried any of your stuff before?

Our #1 selling gourmet seasoning is Herbal Red or Jalapeno Dusted (without whole herbs) and #1 selling pork rib rub is the Juicy Pig. My passion as a grower of exotic chili peppers is searching for unique flavors and some real heat!! We used to harvest the wild chili pequin & tepins to grind fresh or dry on my Grandparents ranch in South Texas where I spent many summers. Personally I am not a big fan of black pepper and prefer red peppers like the pequin, african bird, cayenne and thai varieties mixed with sea salt, herbs, garlic, etc. I also like to use dehydrated zest from oranges, lemons and limes in some of our blends. Our product line is extremely diverse and will continue to grow in 07.

Do you like the really hot spice mixes & salsas or are the milder ones more your speed?

Heat, heat, heat for me. I make a signature pork rub called “Wild Bill’s Blazin’” that has 17 ingredients including exotic chilies, citrus, dehydrated brown sugar, etc. I mesquite grill pork ribs with this blend and slice fresh apricot habaneros to eat with them. Make some dirty rice and pop a cold Lone Star beer and it don’t get much better! As far as a beef steak, beef roast or smothered venison? I use our Chili Pequin Garlic Sea Salt bar none. For the ultimate xhot all purpose dry spice we offer that would be Rattlesnake Dust, the dry seasoning with a bite! Several customers and I take this product or my Cajun Pequin in town to a place that makes philly cheese steak sandwiches. I also like both of those blends for smoked chicken, broiled chinese cut ribs & chicken wings or blended with melted butter on broiled fish.

Any plans to expand your business or anything else on the drawing board in terms of new products?

Yes we plan to expand the business infrastructure, look for national sales representatives and always innovate new & unique product offerings. R&D products include a citrus pepper (sea salt and salt free), a family chili powder blend to compliment our Southwestern Sizzler and Tex-Mex blends, a spicy chicken breading, seasoned rice flour breading, a marinade called Spicy Soy-Aki, more pepper marmalades & jams, a new BBQ baste and a few more tricks up my sleeve TBA.

Our Reviews and an Ingredients List

Rattlesnake Dust

Ingredients: Garlic, fine sea salt, cayenne, paprika, jalape?o powder, African bird pepper powder, habanera powder, oregano, natural lemon juice, white pepper and other select spices.

Our combined take: Reviewing a spice blend requires a bit more work than does hot sauce or salsa because you generally don’t just pour these on food an eat them like sauce. That said, these were a joy with which to use. Rather than just say how these smelled or tasted right out of the jar, we’re better off telling you how they performed in cooking. Our first test for the Rattlesnake Dust was to make a roast. For this, we opted for a sirloin tip roast. It wasn’t the best cut of meat we could have chosen, but this is how it looked like after it was carved after cooking.

We tenderized the meat in a little grapefruit juice (for the acidity) overnight, and then coated the roast in the spice before cooking. We may have cooked the meat a little too long (we’re newbies at making roasts in our oven), but the taste was outstanding. Peppery and a little bit spicy, this was a nice addition to the roast. The gravy that absorbed the spice was even better, and could have been a meal by itself.

Next up on the menu was some fish. We chose some thin tilapia filets with which to coat, and then blackened them in a skillet. You can see the filets above before we cooked ‘em up. A light coating was all that was really needed.

After cooking, this was the best thing we did to help bring out the flavor of the spices. The combo of peppers with the garlic made the fish tasty and delicious, and moderately spicy to us. No other flavor additions (like tartar sauce or any other topping) were required or desired, as this was the perfect compliment for this fish.

The cooking process, for both recipes we did, really changed the flavor profile for the better. We tried the Dust straight out of the jar as an addition to chicken salad, and while spicy…didn’t have the same richness in heat & flavor that came out during cooking. This spice mix is labeled as an “X Hot All Purpose Seasoning,” and that’s a darn good description. Above-average in heat, it has a great overall flavor, complete with peppers and other spices, which would make a great addition to a wide variety of dishes. An excellent blend, by our estimation. Thumbs up!

Wild Bill’s Blazin’ BBQ

Ingredients: Dehydrated brown sugar, white sugar, garlic, Zimbabwe bird pepper powder, fine sea salt, cayenne powder, habanero powder, jalape?o powder, paprika, black pepper, comino, orange zest, cinnamon, lemon juice powder, lime juice powder and other select spices.

Our combined take: Seeing the words “brown sugar” at the beginning of the ingredients list made us immediately think this mix wasn’t going to be all that hot & spicy. Wow, were we wrong about that! We wanted to do something a little different with this spice mix compared to the other, so we wanted to see how it would spice up some oven-baked potatoes. To do this, we first cut up some potatoes into some bite-sized pieces and then coated them with some juice to just barely dampen the taters up a little bit. We then poured in a few heaping tablespoons of the Blazin’ BBQ mix into the bowl, shook it to coat the potatoes, and then let them sit overnight. Here’s how they looked before cooking:

We cooked these up at the same time as our roast (see above), allowing them to bake in the oven for a couple of hours while wrapped in foil. The habanero powder in this sure ramped up the heat level a notch compared to the Rattlesnake Dust, but with perfect results. The potatoes were hot & spicy, although we couldn’t tell how much of the taste was due to the cayenne, jalapeno, or habanero in the mix. Whatever it was, the taste rocked. Next up…fish!

We saved some of the tilapia filets from our other fish dinner, and coated them up with the Blazin’ BBQ. Just like the other, a light coating was all that was needed before heading into the skillet for blackening.

The picture doesn’t show it as well as we would like, but these came out pretty well also. Very pepper-y and tasty, this spice mix made these blackened fish quite spicy but with no sacrifice to the taste at all.

The sugar does temper the heat a little if you don’t use this mix in cooking but rather as a spice right out of the jar, but it’s still spicy nonetheless. This mix is just begging to be used on meat…any meat. If it does even half as well on chicken and steak as it did with the fish we used, it would be worth getting at double the price. An excellent yang to the yin of the Rattlesnake Dust, this mix offers a little more heat and a bit of a different flavor profile as well. Different is good, though, and you’ll want to have a jar of this around to cook with often. Another winner.

Southwest Habanero Salsa

Ingredients: Roma tomato, onion, poblano pepper, red habanero, lime juice, water, garlic, fine sea salt, cilantro, granulated garlic, comino, spices.

Our combined take: No pictures of this one, but if you’ve ever eaten salsa…you know what that looks like! It’s somewhat thin, very much like a traditional Mexican salsa. Initially, it’s pretty heavy on the taste of tomato and habanero. Yes, you can actually taste the habanero…and it’s wonderful. However, there’s a tremendously insidious heat to this salsa. Joe sat down with a small bowl of this salsa to do some tasting/snacking with it for this review. Despite its “Extra-hot” designation, he started scooping it up with reckless abandon on his tortilla chips (Joe can be a bit dense at times, but we digress). After about a half-dozen or so scoopfuls, he was sucking some serious wind and sweating quite a bit, but that paled in comparison to what happened when he stopped eating. Then the habanero heat kicked in full-force and he was forced to go for the milk…and that seldom happens to him. Hot stuff every bit worthy of being called Extra-Hot, and definitely 10/10 for heat. No extracts needed to make this one hot, it’s plenty good all on its own! This salsa is definitely one for those people who crave the heat, but also love flavor as well.

This salsa was also a great ranchero sauce for Tex-Mex or traditional Mexican food. We used it over enchiladas with great results.

Recipes

Coming up with new recipes for these spices is so much of the fun with cooking with them, but here is a recipe for fish courtesy of the folks at TSS:

Grilled Catfish ala Mexicana

This entree will take about 2.5 hours from prep to plate but is worth every ounce of effort. The heat level can range from mild to fiery hot depending on how many fresh chilies and variety used.

Ingredients:

12-fresh roma tomatoes-2 lbs. (blanched, peeled and course chopped)
2-large white onions (chopped)
3-large jalape?o (seeded and chopped)
12-fresh pequin chilies (crushed and chopped)
4 oz-soft melt white cheese (optional)
5 oz-tomato sauce (bottled crushed roma tomato all-natural from Italy if available)
14 oz all natural free range chicken broth
2-limes (juice and pulp)
12-fresh garlic cloves (peeled, some crush and some chopped)
1-large bell pepper (seeded and chopped)
TSS Southwestern Sizzler (4-5 tsp)
Sea Salt (1 tsp)
7-stuffed queen olives (sliced for garnish)
1-jumbo avocado (sliced for garnish)
? bunch chopped cilantro

TSS Seasoning for catfish fillets

Start by crushing the pequins, three garlic cloves and some lime juice in a molcajete or food processor. Add 2-3 tbsp of olive oil to a hot cast iron pot and saut? the crushed mixture, onion, chilies, garlic and bell pepper. Add juice and pulp of one lime once the vegetables start to soften up. After the vegetables soften, add the chicken stock, chopped tomatoes, juice/pulp from the second lime and cilantro. Allow this mixture to cook at least 15-20 minutes on high while rendering down. Stir often with a wooden spoon to avoid sticking. Once the sauce begins to render, reduce heat to medium and add the tomato sauce, 4-5 tsp. of TSS Southwestern Sizzler and 1 tsp of sea salt. Cook additional 15-20 minutes and reduce heat to lowest setting stirring occasionally. Optional: Add the grated cheese right before serving allowing it to melt and gently blend it in.

While the sauce is on cruise control, season the catfish fillets with a mild TSS all purpose blend such as “Jalape?o Dusted?, Texas Season All, Herbal Red”? or a hot and spicy fillet with any of our Chili Pequin blends or Rattlesnake Dust. I used Herbal Red”? as a base with its fine herb blend and Rattlesnake Dust together for this recipe.

Bring an electric skillet up to 300-325 degrees and add some olive oil and a small pat of real butter. I like the flavor butter adds to olive oil. Do not use too much butter because it will get dark.

Cook the fillets (depending on thickness) 3-4 minutes on each side. Season the backside after the first turn. Cook until meat starts to separate. Use two spatulas to keep from breaking the fillets. If you have several fish fillets to cook, keep the cooked pieces on a hot plate in the oven uncovered on 200 degrees.

Garnish the final entree with sliced queen olives and serve with sliced avocado seasoned with TSS Rattlesnake Dust. Serve with Southwestern Sizzler spanish rice and beans ala charra.

Don?t just take our word for it! Here are some online reviews of these products:

Review from FishHoo!

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