There are products that I run across that make me ask “How the heck did I not know about this sooner?” This is one of those. We remember tasting stuff from Sparky & Spike’s last year at the 2007 Jungle Jim’s Weekend of Fire event, but were so overwhelmed with other stuff that we never got back to getting any of it for ourselves. Well, we rectified that oversight by picking up this jar of Hot and Spicy Tangy Pepper Relish by Sparky & Spike’s at this past Cinco D’Ohio Festival here in Columbus.

Ingredients: water, prepared mustard (distilled vinegar, water, mustard seed, salt, turmeric, paprika, spice, natural flavor, garlic powder), distilled vinegar, sugar, brown sugar, red and green bell peppers, red and green jalapeno peppers

For those of you who expect your relish to have pickles in it…well, this one is blissfully free of that. In fact, a little vinegar is the only real comparison you can make to those pickled cucumbers, as this is a true pepper relish. Not only that, but it is completely all-natural and allergen-free. A great addition to your pantry regardless of your food preferences if for that reason alone.

Our relish is all-natural, fat-free, looks great, and is very versatile in the kitchen or on the grill…and oh yeah, it tastes fantastic too! Our relish comes in two flavors, Spicy-with a decent amount of kick, and Hot and Spicy-Which promises to bite you but not leave any marks. Our customers describe the experience as “addictive!”, “It’s delicious on almost anything” and “This stuff should be outlawed, cause I can’t stop eating it!”

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You can guarantee that whenever olives come into this house they are all mine. Joe has never liked olives, but I love them. I’ve had them in things, on things and by themselves. Each way they are fantastic. But, some are better than others.

Many, many years ago I discovered the way olives are made better. Olives gain a lot of character when they are stuffed with peppers. I originally tried olives with jalepenos, which used to be highly popular…until people decided to start filling them with peppers that pack a punch. Then came the habaneros. Mmmmm…habaneros. That’s where this product comes into play. » Continue Reading

With the spread of what I call Naga Mania comes more and more interesting, super heated product. From Jolokia Peanut Butter, to sauces and powders, this trend is really sweeping the industry and Brian Marx from Heather’s Heat and Flavor is surely taking advantage of it!

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Let’s keep the CaJohn theme moving happily along with this new product from the “10″ product line called Mustard 10. In my never-ending quest to find mustard made hot enough for my heat tolerance, what better way to challenge the threshold of culinary sanity than to try this Jolokia and habanero mustard from the mad geniuses at CaJohns Fiery Foods.

This is actually the third mustard I’ve reviewed from CaJohn, coming on the heels of the Dog-on Good Mustard and the CaJohns Hungarian Mustard. One thing has become blissfully obvious after trying all these mustards…CaJohn makes a pretty mean mustard.

Ingredients: premium prepared mustard (vinegar, #1 grade mustard seed, salt, turmeric, paprika, spices), red habaneros, Bih Jolokia

For simplicity, it’s hard to go wrong with what’s in this mustard. Take some yellow mustard, make it cry with some extremely hot chile peppers, mix well, and serve. Here’s the description from the website:

Mustard 10
All the fabulous flavor of Premium Yellow Mustard with the glorious fire of the Naga Jolokia! Just coat a pork shoulder with this and cover with Rub 10, slow cook until done, and everyone will swear you’re from the Low-Country! Kicks up that ham & cheese sandwich just fine too, and on Brats, Oh! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

First Impression: Ever since the release of the original “10″ sauce (which we got a sample to try early on), we’ve liked the evolution of the label design. That said, John has indicated that they may be revamping the label and its graphics a little to be more indicative of what’s inside the bottle. As for what’s inside, the picture gives you the visual that this is a brown mustard…and I thought it resembled any of the other commercially-available brown mustards save for one major thing….
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Even though I was jazzed about trying the Swamp Scum Hot Sauce by Mossy Bayou Foods, I have to admit a guilty thought about it.

I was really wanting to review this product perhaps a little bit more. The fact is, that I really enjoy stuff like relishes, chutneys, and the like. So, when I saw the description of the Cajun Chow-Chow by Mossy Bayou Foods, I put this on the short list of stuff I wanted to try ASAP. So, what is this stuff called Chow-Chow? It’s a new product that is a pepper relish that is described liked this:

Ingredients: green cayenne peppers, vinegar, onions, garlic, salt & spices

This exciting Chow-Chow has been created from an original Cajun recipe which includes green Cayenne peppers, onions, garlic, salt, and special blend of spices. It’s a spicy relish which contains no ‘filler’ items, such as cabbage or corn. Use Cajun Chow-Chow with all foods to spice up the flavor in the same way you would use a pepper hot sauce. However, you’ll find the Chow-Chow gives a more complete pepper flavor.

Having just created a really nifty hot sauce with green chile peppers (see our Epidemic Proportions sauce), we can tell you that unripened peppers add a neat element of flavor compared to their ripened brethren.
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Back in Egypt during the time of the pharaohs or during the Roman empire, evidence shows that they used mustards with their foods. However, mustard really didn’t start its road to prominence until the English (with their horseradish mustard) and the French (with their Dijon mustard) started toying with its formula hundreds of years later. However, I don’t think ANY of them had this sort of spicy mustard in mind when they tasted their own mustard concoctions. Leave it to a little hot & spicy ingenuity, but what they didn’t know is totally our gain.

Then again, doubtful that they had access to habanero and jalapeno peppers either.

That brings us to this mustard, Lee’s Sweet and Insane Mustard, which we picked up a few months ago and finally found a reason to crack it open and give it a taste. We’re never at a loss for finding good spicy mustard, probably because most of the commercially-made mustards that are dubbed as “spicy” are woefully bland and not so spicy. This one was definitely not going to fall into that category, judging by the ingredients:

Ingredients: mustard (water, mustard seed, vinegar, salt, white wine, citric acid, tartaric acid, spices), sugar, vinegar, habanero peppers, jalapeno peppers, wheat flour, cayenne

The aroma certainly doesn’t give away any sense of potency. In fact, it smells a little bit sweet…mostly vinegar and a little bit sugar. It’s not a bright yellow mustard by any stretch…in fact, it’s a little more like a brown mustard in appearance. Here’s a peek:

Taste: Initially, this does taste a little sweet. Like for about a second or two. Any sense of sugary sweetness melts away in favor of the habanero heat that follows. In fact, this is seriously one of the spicier mustards we have tried. Not sure if we could distinguish any contributions of the jalapeno pepper to the flavor, but it sure has some wonderful habanero flavor and heat which comes through first and foremost. Also, the very distinct mustard flavor is not so overwhelming with this either, making it a good choice for those that aren’t into that mustard taste as much (that means you, Passow!).

This mustard was great in nearly everything it was tried upon…from a sausage accompaniment to sandwich condiment to a mix-in for scrambled eggs. The flavor and heat just adds so much to every dish that you can scarcely go wrong with it on just about anything. Can’t wait to try this in something like chicken or egg salad to see how spicy that can be as well!

Overall recommendation: Room on your refrigerator shelf should be made for this spicy mustard from Lee’s Hot Mustard. A little sweet but a lot spicy, this is a condiment that a chilehead can really take pride in using. The only thing you won’t like is that you may use it up too quickly. Good habanero mustards are hard to come by, so take a chance and give this one a try at your house. Enjoy!

Spicy mustard is like sex. You’d be hard-pressed to have too much of it. We can say this because if you looked in our fridge at any given time, more space is taken up by mustard than you might imagine. Fortunately, our rate of consumption of this wonderful condiment is rapid enough to keep it from from overwhelming the cache of hot sauces and salsas…but not by much.

Just the chance to use this mustard at home was great, but I took it with me to work for at least 2 weeks. The description on the bottle goes like this:

A great spicy mix of Jalapeno Peppers, Chipotle Peppers, and Fresh Squeezed Lime. A must for all the “Mustardholics” in the world. You will never view mustard the same.

Great on sausage, toasted sandwiches, and your favorite greasy burger. Awesome for kicking up potato salad and deviled eggs. Use as a marinade or slather sauce for grilling. Napkin Required!

Ingredients: mustard (distilled vinegar, water, no. 1 grade mustard seed, salt, turmeric, paprika, spice, natural flavor, garlic powder), jalapeno peppers, fresh squeezed lime, natural smoke flavor, chipotle pepper flakes, apple cider vinegar, garlic powder, sea salt, onion powder, brown sugar, and other spices

The ingredients were an all-natural bunch to be sure, so I wasted no time in getting this bottle open and getting the mustard to do my bidding….

First impression: For one thing, you get this in a big ol’ bottle. That’s right, it’s a full twelve ounces of spicy mustard goodness. The bottle itself also offers something different also. It has that wax seal that you often see in certain collectibles. So, you get to feel like you’re breaking into a collectible every time you open a bottle. As for the aroma…well, it smells like mustard. Yup, pretty much like just about any other yellow mustard you might pick up off the shelf. It pours fairly thick, with obvious chunks of what must be pieces of jalapeno jutting out of the yellow mass of mustard sauce.

Taste: Few mustards are good enough to eat straight out of the jar/bottle, but you could certainly make a case for this one. While the taste of the mustard itself is pretty pronounced, there is a strong flavor of the jalapeno and chipotle that complements it. What I didn’t expect was how much the lime adds to the flavor. It’s almost an aftertaste, but adds a nice finish in flavor. More flavorful than hot, this mustard goes about 4.5/10 on my heat scale.

Hot dogs and hamburgers seems to be a no-brainer use for this, so I wanted so what else I could do with it. For me, it was a great addition to creamy salads, and I tried it in a bunch of them…potato salad, cole slaw, tuna salad, egg salad. Not only do you get that great mustard-y taste, but you can get that precious heat in your food as well. I did try it a slather sauce on the grill, making some grilled sausage absolutely terrific. Imagine a use for mustard, and this sauce will do it with flavor-filled style.

Oh yeah…it goes great on hamburgers and hot dogs. Did you think it wouldn’t? Tsk, tsk.

Overall recommendation: Mustard lovers rejoice…and go get some of this sauce! Great jalapeno flavor, good consistency, plus enough heat to at least get your attention make this quite a palatable choice for the chilehead who wants that spicy mustard to hoard for use on everything imaginable. You’ll adore it on your hamburger, but saving it just for that will make you miss out on more possibilities. Have some soft pretzels laying around? You’ll have trouble keeping this mustard away from those. Eat hearty…with this spicy mustard. Enjoy!

Live from Jungle Jims…

I’ve been walking around the show trying old and new products and I came across one company I haven’t tried before…Lee’s Hot Mustard. While I liked all of Lee’s products, one stood out for me. It’s called Lee’s Key Lime.

Ingredients: Granulated sugar, lime juice powder, jalapeño peppers & salt.

I tried this product as a dip. Here is the recipe on the container: Cream 8oz. cream cheese with half of the contents of package. Blend well. Spoon into serving crock or bowl. Serve with crackers.

I tried this with these wonderful graham crackers and it was like having a slice of key lime pie. The difference was the nice little tingle after. While this is not hot, hot…it does have a nice little kick to it. Honestly, when it first hit my palette, I had no idea this was a spicy product. You know, if you’ve been to these shows just about everything is marketed including sweet things with absolutely no heat. When I walked away and felt the tinge of jalapeños, I was very, very pleased. The booth was pretty crowded at that time so I waited and went back later. It was not hard to compliment this product, especially because I love just about anything with key lime.

Apparently, Lee has been in the business for a few years. I haven’t seen him at any shows I’ve attended so he was very new to me. He’s just about the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet and like so many others in the business does this as a second job. Lee is actually a middle school principal. Funny, but I don’t remember my principals being that nice. Anyway, you really have to try his other products. The mustards are pretty amazing. I really like the sweet one as that’s what I like on egg rolls. It gets tiring mixing things from asian restaurants to satisfy my taste. It’s so much nicer just to pull something from the shelves and be done with it.

In closing I’ll give you one little tidbit of information you might not have known. Today, Saturday, August 4 is National Mustard Day. Check out how our friends, the other Levenson’s, are celebrating at their Mount Horeb Mustard Museum. (Hi guys…wish we could be in two places at once) Oh, and you can purchase Lee’s stuff there in addition to his site.

With spicy mustard, you can never be quite sure what you’re going to get. Will it be a little spicy or a lot spicy? Yellow or brown? Watery or not watery? Chunky or smooth? Ok, well maybe the last one is more descriptive for peanut butter, but you get the idea. There’s a fair amount of spicy mustards on the market, but there’s no archetype by which the others are made.

Well, if there was a standard by which spicy mustards were made, it would be a safe bet that Danny Cash would stomp all over it with some steel-toed boots. This mustard has some true appeal to it. Unlike some spicy or chilehead-themed mustards, this one comes in the traditional yellow plastic squeeze-able container. No fiddling with plastic nipples or shaking the glass bottle to get a glob of condiment out. Entirely user-friendly, you can squeeze out as much (or as little) of this mustard as you desire, not to mention anywhere you want it. A nice feature for a condiment, to be sure. Also, it has the same great label that I mentioned in my review for the Ragin Red hot sauce. No matter how you slice it, motorcycles with flaming wheels are just cool. Even Hollywood thinks so. It makes us think a little bit about the Nicholas Cage movie “Ghost Rider“, which was neither a great adaption from the comic book nor a great movie. However, check this out:
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Jackson’s Signature Series Awesome Habanero Beef Jerky: Ingredients: Meat, Spices.

The guys over at Super Spicy sent me a little care package with their famous Jackson’s Signature Series Awesome Habanero Beef Jerky. Aptly named, this stuff is pretty awesome. It has all the things I like about jerky, thick, tough, chewy, spicy, and hot!

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