It’s been awhile since Passow did his mega-review on the products from California Habanero Blends, but we’re happy to see them in the news again. Check out this article from the ChicoER.com about Tim Sharkey and his fine products from California Habanero Blends:
Hot sauce creator fed up with “blah”
By LAURA URSENY - Business Editor
Article Launched: 05/11/2008 12:36:56 AM PDTTim Sharkey grew up in Vallejo in a family that loved to cook. His grandmother was a miracle maker with Spanish dishes, and he developed an appreciation for food with pluck.
But as the recipient of too many bottles of gifted hot sauce that were “just bad,” Sharkey took to the kitchen to concoct a respectable sauce.
He spent weeks stirring, adding, testing, coming up with a line of sauces for use in cooking, grilling and shaking on.
Sharkey has coaxed the best — not the bad kind of bite — from habanero chilies and other ingredients with his line of sauces, sold under the name California Habanero Blends.
“They’re really not too spicy. Just right.”
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Oh, the pleasure of being a science geek! If anyone is interested in the chemistry of capsaicin, then you’ll love this article from a recent online article in the Science Daily:
Chemists Measure Chilli Sauce Hotness With Nanotubes
ScienceDaily (May 8, 2008) — If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen and into the lab – chemists can now use carbon nanotubes to judge the heat of chilli sauces. The technology might soon be available commercially as a cheap, disposable sensor for use in the food industry.
Richard Compton and his team at Oxford University, UK, have developed a sensitive technique to measure the levels of capsaicinoids, the substances that make chillies hot, in samples of chilli sauce. They report their findings in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal The Analyst.
The current industry procedure is to use a panel of taste-testers, and is highly subjective. Compton’s new method unambiguously determines the precise amount of capsaicinoids, and is not only quicker and cheaper than taste-testers but more reliable for purposes of food standards; tests could be rapidly carried out on the production line.
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A few weeks ago, we had written about an article which talked about Jake Melnick’s Corner Tap in Chicago and their dedication to spicy fare. Well, the debate rages on…this time about the merits of spicy chicken wings. Check out this cool article from HALife.com which revisits Jake Melnick’s as well as other topics:
A hot debate takes wing
By Peter Rowe
Copley News ServiceThere are two sides to the Buffalo chicken wings debate.
“There’s nothing better,” said author and restaurateur Kevin Roberts about enjoying a big plate of Buffalo wings. “But it’s all about the flavor. You don’t want it so hot that you can’t taste the food.”
In the heated argument over hot sauces, Roberts represents one side. Don’t call his side unmanly, though - at least not in Roberts’ hearing. His new hangout, East Village Tavern & Bowl in San Diego, is a testosterone-enriched haven for sports fans.
Besides, Roberts has a point. Thermonuclear sauces incinerate everything in their path, including the food’s flavors. That’s no fun.
Or is it?
On the other side of the hot sauce issue is Robin Rosenberg, chef de cuisine at Jake Melnick’s Corner Tap in Chicago. Before ripping into Rosenberg’s wings, diners must sign a waiver: “These wings are gonna be really H-O-T, and I hereby declare that the terms of this waiver and release have been completely read, and I totally get and voluntarily accept that I have no right to whine about anything that happens to my mouth after I accept the challenge.
“I am psyched. I am proud. I am ready.
“So bring ‘em on!”
Time to pick a side.
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Just in time for Cinco de Mayo comes this article from the Lake Oswego Review which re-hashes the subject of chile pepper hotness. A review for most chileheads, but informational nonetheless:
How hot is that red-hot chile pepper anyway?
By Barb Randall
Ole! Cinco de Mayo fiestas will be happening this week, with prodigue el banquete (lavish banquets) filled with zippy salsas, rich moles and the vibrant flavors common to Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisines. We can credit at least some of the cuisines flavors to chiles.
Most of us have a tale or two about unexpected encounters with chiles. Stories about dishes so hot they caused tears to roll down cheeks, smoke to billow out of ears and flames to erupt from mouths. The images are comical, but frankly, except by tasting, how can you tell how hot a chili might be?
Pharmacologist Wilber Scoville was intrigued by that very question and in 1912, he set out to determine the different heat levels of a wide variety of chiles. His experimentation led to the invention of the Scoville Organoleptic Test, the first systematic laboratory approach for measuring a chile’s pungency or heat.
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We’ve seen this story in a couple of other media outlets, but this article on the Fast Food Maven blog sums it up better than any of the other sources. We here at the Hot Zone Online sorta doubt this new hot sauce would hurt a single molecule on the taste buds of most chileheads, but it’s great to think that Del Taco has finally seen the light about making some better hot sauce for their tacos. Read:
Del Taco debuts blazing hot Del Inferno
April 28th, 2008Today, Southern California’s iconic taco chain, Del Taco, debuts its first new hot sauce in 15 years.
The blazing hot item is dubbed Del Inferno and is three times hotter than any hot sauces served at rival chains, Del Taco said. (Del Taco’s two other offerings are mild sauce and Del Scorcho.)
So, how does Del Taco know Inferno sizzles past its rivals?
The Mexican fast-food chain had Del Inferno tested against its competitors by Certified Laboratories. The New York-based food analysis company tested the competing sauces using the infamous Scoville scale, which measures the hotness or piquancy of a chili pepper.
Del Taco didn’t give the results, or list the names of the rival hot sauces that Del Inferno beat. But rest assured, Del Inferno is one hot mama, according to the chain’s marketing reps.
“There’s no doubt about it, Del Inferno will set your scalp ablaze,” said Mimi Somerman, chief marketing officer at Del Taco.
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Friend of the Hot Zone Online, W.O. Hesperus, showed off its hot sauce-making muscle recently with great results. Check out this article from NECN.com:
Maine hot sauce maker takes top prize
(Marnie MacLean, NECN: Maine) - A hot sauce maker from Maine went home with the top prize at a Louisiana festival. NECN’s Marnie MacLean has the story.
At W.O. Hespers in Portland, Maine, Dan Stevens is the chief cook and bottle washer…literally. Dan started making hot sauces in his kitchen ten years ago…and now, his original recipe has won top honors at the Cajun Hot Sauce Festival in Louisiana.
Stevens: “That award went to Tabasco last year..and their factory is in the neighborhood. It’s nice to beat the big boys now and then.”
And beat them in their own backyard. Dan started making the sauces as an activity to do with his three kids. The hobby turned into a business and now, he has twenty sauces….but it’s the first one he ever made…called Canceaux sauce that got folks in Louisiana talking.
The sauce is named for a British ship that burned Portland back in 1775. Dan tells you, it starts sweet…then you taste the garlic.
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Could this BBQ be the next good spicy BBQ sauce to make a big splash in the market? A Carolina hit that’s having a bit of success, check out this article from the Rocky Mountain Telegram:
Sauce comes out on top
By Staff Reports
Rocky Mount TelegramMonday, April 21, 2008
George’s Original BBQ Sauce came out on top in the May 2008 issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine, a popular cooking and lifestyle magazine by syndicated TV host Rachael Ray.
Chosen “Best in the Carolinas”, the magazine stated that “This Eastern North Carolina sauce packs a vinegary punch at first, but George’s Original eases the kick with apples and sugar for ‘a perfect balance of sweet, sour and spicy.’”
Beth Chappell, owner of George’s Barbeque Sauces, said she received a request from the magazine for samples of George’s Sauces in the fall of 2007. In November they found out that their Original sauce was in the final stages of a tasting competition. And surely enough, in late March, they found out the results. “Our sauce came out on top! And needless to say we are thrilled that Rachael Ray’s magazine found our sauce to be what all of our customers already knew … … ..that George’s is the best!”
George’s Barbeque Sauces, known for its three zesty and tangy barbeque sauces that suit every taste, has been producing the perfect accompaniment for all meats, seafood and poultry, under the ownership of Beth Chappell. George’s Original Sauce that has a spicy vinegar base, the Hot Sauce that is also vinegar based but with a hot pepper kick, and their Special Sauce, a zingy tomato based sauce, make up the three barbecue sauces so popular with cooks and grill masters in the southeast.
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Cool article from a recent latimes.com edition featuring Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo. Rancho Gordo is out of Napa, California and sells a variety of legumes and chile peppers that they grow there, plus a number of delectable-looking sauces, chile powders, and other stuff as well. Steve sounds like a guy we would enjoy hanging out with, so check this out:
latimes.com Daily Dish blog
My Rancho Gordo care package
Some weeks ago, during the course of writing a cooking story on beans and greens, I had the happy privilege of a few telephone conversations with Rancho Gordo founder Steve Sando. Rancho Gordo is the Napa company that markets a terrific assortment of dried heirloom beans, which Sando sources himself during treks through the Americas. (The humble bean has gone chic: Rancho Gordo was #2 in this year’s Saveur Magazine 100; the company’s biggest customer is the California headquarters of Google.) Sando — empassioned, funny, articulate — told me about his clay pot experiments; his firm belief that really good beans don’t need anything more than water and mirepoix to bring out their true flavors (i.e. no ham hocks, no stock); and that he’s been busy translating his hills of beans into a book, due out in September.
Sando was also the inspiration for the Christmas lima bean taco recipe that I’ve been making obsessively since. Finally, I got online and ordered packages of Good Mother Stallard, Goat’s Eye and Black Calypso beans; a bottle of pure Mexican vanilla extract; and Rancho Gordo’s Gay Caballero very hot sauce.
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While we’re not big fans of sushi, we are always big fans of spicy. There’s apparently a restaurant in Charleston, SC which offers just the kind of mix we would like. Check out this excerpt from an article from the Charleston City Paper:
At Bushido, the chefs have rolled up 10 levels of fire. They arrive swaddled in black nori with guts of burning habañero, spiked with julienned cucumber and a touch of tuna — South of the Border-style sushi as only Bushido and its Latino chefs know how to produce. Inside, the fire rages, the sweat beads propagate, and the masses descend for the Spicy Tuna Roll Challenge. Owner Gabriel Balagtas says more than 150 people have eagerly embraced the challenge.
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As we prepare to report on the fantabulous trip that we had to Las Vegas, enjoy this article from Desicritics.org about one woman’s search to find food that’s spicy enough for her:
The Spice of Life
April 14, 2008
Amodini SharmaAs I travel to India nowadays, I find that I get “softer” with each visit. Food gets to me sooner. I love roadside food, the pani-puri, the chola-bhatura, the aloo-tikki frying tantalizingly in all that glorious oil. It’s hard though to enjoy all that without falling sick at least once – especially with water-based products like pani-puri. Which is quite a bummer because it can be said that I aspire to eat spicy foods. What is food without the spice? What is food which doesn’t fuel the fire in your mouth?
Here in the US, finding spicy food outside the house is a difficult task. You think Thai is spicy, I go Thai. And then when the waitress asks me what spice “number” I want, I go for the max – 5. She halts writing, peers at me, and mouths ungrammatical English, “Are you sure ? 5 very spicy”. Number 5 is not exactly tepid, but it’s not going to blow my socks off either. Still, it’s not a pretty sight; I’m not very girlie in these things. My eyes and my nose water; a tissue remains close at hand. As I spoon the food into my mouth I hardly ever break for water; it dilutes the zest. Needless to say, spicy food is always ingested only in the company of close friends and family; the others somehow don’t seem to appreciate a dripping female in the vicinity.
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Popularity: 8% [?]
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