A near perfect Friday night

Don't know about you, but we have a semi precious Friday night ritual that involves a trip to the Lincoln Tandoori on the High St (quite simply the best Indian restaurant in Lincolnshire. We have tried every single other one) a Cobra or two (there is a child present after all!) and it just rounds the week off perfectly. Well, like many other people, we have geographically diverse children who need collecting every other Friday or so, which puts paid to Friday Curry Night (mainly means it becomes Saturday Curry Night and hisself and I just glare at each other as to who has chauffeuring responsibilities!) However, this doesn't fill the aching curry void of a lonely Friday night without my soulmate and I usually wander around the kitchen munching arbitrarily. So what is a girl to do when these nights hove into view. Let me tell you and maybe you, too, won't suffer withdrawal symptoms.

The answer is quite simple, but you need the help of Volcano Chilli and here's the recipe:

1 packet of mini poppadums (must be plain) (I like Waitrose because they're adequately salty)
1 Jar of Volcano Chilli's Hurricane Wilbur Mango Chutney
1 bottle of flint Chablis or mayhap a large bottle of Cobra
1 jar of inferior mango chutney (tonight I was mainly eatingVeeraswamy's Bengal Mango Chutney)
A semi broken heart.

Put large teaspoons of each chutney on a small plate.
Using a separate teaspoon for each chutney smear mini poppadums with alternate chutneys.
Sip or quaff wine/beer with each mini smeared poppadum
Reflect on the quality of the Hurricane Wilbur whose mango is soft and yielding and in small pieces compared to the alt chutney whose mango chunks are hard and large and off putting (and we all know how hard and large can be off putting on a Fricay night)
Be grateful that you have the rest of a jar of Wilbur left for the next time you've been abandoned and life has whupped your wotsit.

Enough pseudo philosophy from me. Get some Wilbur Chutney

Volcano Chilli's very own BBQ Lava Relish

I love chillis. I love them when they're eensy teensy seedlings needing all the love and care I can give them. I love them when they nestle enticingly amongst the foliage in my polytunnel, each little chilli like a firework waiting to explode. I love the baskets of hundreds of thousands of chillis that you find in market stalls in South East Asia when they are piled up like an art exhibit put there purely for the pleasure of being seen. But most of all I love eating them. And this is where Volcano Chilli comes in...... Chris tends to hide his light under a bushel and reviews other people's stuff with unbounding generosity, but in the background he's beavering away creating beautiful sauces and relishes just like this one.

Now, you may accuse me of bias, seeing as he asks me to review stuff, and it would seem ungracious to not be entirely complimentary. However, I'm truer to the cause of good food than that, and I always aim to be objective and honest. I would honestly say that something was wrong or whatever if I needed to. Thankfully it hasn't happened yet, and the BBQ Lava relish is no exception.

I opened this with a view of being strict but fair, but within one nacho dipping I was hooked. The relish is subtly smoky, very tomatoey (made up word) on account of it being made with sundried tomatoes which gives it an intensity of flavour that fresh tomatoes wouldn't, and has a slow heat which doesn't blow your mind or your mouth, but leaves a definitely positive warm glow. I shared it (much to my chagrin) with my friend Bertie from Click Creations no mean chilli eater herself, and what can I say except that this happened within the course of an evening.


We ate it as a dip, but the following morning I spread a nice layer on my bacon sarnie which really perked it up (don't you think a day is too dull without chilli in it?) and a big fat spoonful went into my famous sausage casserole which I am sure is not what it's intended for, but as an all round taste and heat provider, BBQ Lava does the business.

Hawaiian Moloka'i sauce

Today I am reviewing a sauce the likes I have not come across before. Moloka'i Hot Sauce from Arturo's. This is an imported sauce made in Honolulu and is described as a Banana, Coconut and Curry sauce. and as well as banana and coconut, it contains lime juice, cilantro, onion, red pepper all the usual curry spices and surprisingly Peanut butter, which rules out tasting if you have a peanut allergy.

The smell is a little like a khorma sauce with a hint of lime coming out over the coconut and even though it has Habanero chillies in it, it is described on the bottle as a mild sauce.

A descent spoonful and the yummy sweet coconut banana flavour with a citrus aftertaste is bursting over the tastebuds. The heat is mild but definately heat, leaving the tongue with a warm tingle and a nice fruity aftertaste.

Great for seafood and white meats such as chicken as well as mixing with vegetables, this would be an unusual but welcome addition to the summer store cupboard and I will definately be using it for light tasty summer meals.

Naga Napalm Onion Relish

Now people could be forgiven for thinking that I am giving a lot of time to reviewing stuff from the Cambridge Chilli Farm, but when you receive a product that is extra good you have to run with it. That is so very true of the CCF's Naga Napalm Onion Relish.

Reading the ingredients, Red onion, Brown sugar, Red wine vinegar, naga Morich chillies. That is all that is in it, but that is by no means the whole story. Tim Murphy has managed to produce what could possibly be the nices hottest onion relish on the market, putting three naga pods in each jar. The smell on opening the jar is sweet and roasted onion smelling, and the relish is very thick and no surface juices, showing that all the moisture was cooked into the onion leaving bags of flavour.

I grabbed a fork and put a generous dollop in my mouth. Sweet caramel onion followed by OMG real heat. This is not a relish for the pussy wimps out there and certainly now that ten minutes has passed, I can still feel the buzz of the chilli on my lips and tongue.

Don't get me wrong, this is not in the heat league as the really hot sauces, but I cannot think of a relish that packs this much punch as well as flavour.

8 out of 10 for heat and 10 out of 10 for taste.

Cambridge Chilli Farm Ghost Pepper "10" Sauce

Cambridge Chilli Farm are fairly new in hot sauce terms, only starting up in 2008. Tim Murphy the one man band behind the company has an ethos of all natural, and the sauce I am reviewing today "10" certainly lives up to that claim.

The name comes from the fact that there are 10 Bhut Jalokia pods in each jar, and that immediately gets me worried. Turning the bottle over and reading the ingredients list eases my worries, as I read Roasted Tomato, Roasted Garlic, Roasted red pepper, Brown Sugar, Molasses, Lime juice, Cider vinegar, black pepper, Rosemary, and salt to accompany the Bhut pods.

The sauce is thick and a lovely browny red colour and smells of predominantly roasted fruit with a lime undertone and of course, the distinctive aroma of the Ghost Pepper.

I figure that to get the full effect of this sauce I am going to have to do a Darth Naga, and take a full spoon of the sauce to test. Here goes....

Sweet and rich with bags of fruit but surprisingly not that hot at first. I held the sauce in my mouth for a full 30 seconds before swallowing and the heat was very bearable...OK now we are a minute into the test and the heat is building to a nice level. I obviously have a good burn on the tongue and the roof of the mouth and the lips, but the level of heat is not making me reach for the Cravendale. 3 minutes and the heat is subsiding a little with a nice garlicky bhut jalokia aftertaste. I just ate a little cream cheese and the burn on the roof of the mouth reignited which is most odd.

Fully 5 minutes now and no sweating and hiccuping that would have been a given if this had been an extract sauce. In fact the only effect to give away the fact that I have eaten a teaspoon of Bhut sauce has been a bit of a runny nose.

In conclusion, this is a great flavoured all natural sauce which is a superb heat level for those fairly new to Chilli Sauce wanting to step it up to the next level, and for the dedicated chilliheads, it wuld make a great table sauce.

Whatever category you fall into, at £4.50 for a sauce of this quality you can't go wrong.

Come on down and try out the "10" Ghost Pepper sauce for yourself and whilst here you could taste the other great products from the Cambridge Chilli Farm

Buffalo Wings - the Sauce!

Hi, I'm Chilli Gal, a huge big fan of Chris and Rosie's enterprise, and a potential chilli foster parent for this year's crop of the freah stuff. As a gardener and a foodie chillis and tomatoes (with the odd aubergine) are about the only things I like growing and eating. It's been fab to hook up with such aficionados and in Lincoln, too!

Anyhoo - today's review is of Buffalo Wing sauce (Original)- purchased from Volcano Chilli last week.

So, if you don't want to plough through my effusive review - JUST BUY IT. If you do, and you want some cook's tips, read on.

The jar reckons about 3/4 cup (I reckon about 75ml) of sauce to 12-15 wings. Well, that's generous. However, I have found that chicken wings in the UK are bought 'whole' - i.e. wing tips attached to middle bits attached to end bits. These are fine, but if you are at all adept with a cleaver or sharp knife DO separate them into top bit middle bit and bin the wing tip. It just makes eating/sharing easier.

You basically cook the wings - I have a natural antipathy towards frying things that can be oven baked, but I have to admit that I think deep frying them would actually add to the texture experience. However, you cook off your wings, you whack them in a big bowl and you pour the lovely buffalo wing sauce over them, then stir them up to coat them.

And fab. The sauce is sharp, hot, thin enough to run into all the little crevices on the chicken skin, thick enough to be able to be dipped into by the celery sticks that you'll love to eat with them. Blue cheese dressing/dip is always a cooling fave in the big chains in the UK (can't speak for the US - will have to go back and try :-) In desperation, I used a couple of tablespoons of Brianna's Blue Cheese salad dressing, and crumbled some St Agur creamy blue cheese into it for the lumpy effect! Worked a treat.

The interesting thing is that the wings, plus the celery plus the blue cheese dippy thing kept son and husband and me happy and we didn't need anything else to eat that night. Try and use decent chicken (pllllleeeeeeeassssssse!) and do't stress if you can't be bothered/aren't able to butcher the wings to small bits - they still tasted superb, as the evil border terriers will testify, who jumped on the table whilst we were out of the room and finished off the leftover wings.....oops.

Get yourself down to Volcano Chilli, get a jar of Buffalo Wings sauce and some wings. Miles cheaper the TGIs or the like and whole load more tasty I reckon. Enjoy

Next time - Buffalo Wings HOT sauce. And some photos, hopefully.

Heat up Chilli Fans! See you in Lincoln Market!

Chilli Gal.

Hot-Headz Garlic and Smoked Chilli hot sauce

Stuart from Hot-Headz calls this a hot sauce, which is a bit of a confusion as it is most definitely not a sauce but is in fact a relish.

Although this is not a new product, it is a rebranded one and comes to you in the stylish new black labeled jar with the new Hot-Headz logo in silver.

The ingredients are tomato paste, Chipotle, guajillo and habanero chillies, smoked garlic, seseme seeds, vinegar, sugar and onion. All things guaranteed to make a delicious and moreish sauce.

The first smell you get is tomato, closely followed by a rich scent of the smoked chipotle and garlic and as you leave your nose there for a little while the scent of the habs and guajillo peep through.

The taste test is carried out on a dry cracker so as not to alter any of the flavours so a descent spoonful and away we go. The sweet tomato paste mixed with smokey richness gives way to a descent level of heat for a product of this type. The heat is constant and medium and after just a couple of minutes it is down to a warm buzz around the mouth, but no discomfort on the back of the throat.

I am wanting to eat more, but the sample jar I got from Mandy at Hot-Headz has to last for my customers to taste so I need to show constraint and put the lid back on. I am now five minutes on and still keep getting a great chipotle and tomato aftertaste.

This is going to be a firm favourite at summer barbeques and will be delicious on burgers and sausages. I can see it being a good alternative to the Fear Nothing Piri Piri sauce for those who like it a little less hot.

Post Script

A surprise visit from my good pal Caroline from On The Rebound gave me the chance to get a second opinion on the sauce and she agreed with me on all points and she thinks it is not a sauce either. She did like the smokey sweetness and the aftertaste and agrees it will be a good summer seller.