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.

Eaton's Jamaican Jerk Sauce Review

As a big fan of Jerk Chicken, I naturally stock a couple of different options in the shop. One is the Chillipepperpete Jerk seasoning, and the other is the Eaton's Jamaican Jerk Sauce. I will be reviewing the seasoning soon, but for now let us concentrate on the Eaton's.

Opening the bottle you find a strong scent of spices which I think is predominantly ginger and cinnamon and if I am to be truly honest, it does remind me of HP brown sauce.

Tasting the sauce, also has a bit of the flavour of HP, but with the fresh sweetness of the brown sugar and the spices. It is not a hot sauce and the chilli is a very subtle heat which makes this sauce ideal for family use. As a guide, this is a sauce I would gladly feed to my 90 yr old mum.

My wife and I tried this sauce on pork chops. We firstly marinated the chops in a generous coating of the sauce and then followed on an hour later by baking them in the oven. I did slightly overcook them, making the sauce a bit dry, but adding extra sauce after cooking took care of that. The flavour of the sauce after cooking was a little hotter than before, but I think that if I was going to use this to make a jerk chicken I would possibly add a little extra heat to it in the form of a little sprinkle of Habanero powder just to warm it.

£3.25 a bottle and probably enough to coat 4 chickens prior to roasting makes this pretty good value for money and still some left over as a table sauce.