« « Previous | Review: Peppers Chipotle Smoked Corn Blue Crab Salsa » »
Ami Hot Pepper Sauce
First impression: Just looking at the tall square bottle from Rick’s Test Kitchen, I’m not at all sure what to expect. There are some Composite columns (The Composite order is a combination of the Ionic and Corinthian orders.) supporting what reminds me of a somewhat Hindu architecture. The appearance of the sauce inside the bottle is a lighter shade of brown, very thin and runny.
A thick one Ami Hot Pepper Sauce definitely is not! If you take the bottle and turn it upside down to watch the air bubble travel along the glass, you can make out small little bits of ‘something’ that stick to the glass, that give the sauce a very ‘grainy’ texture. Like I said earlier, it’s a nice tall 8.5 fl. oz. square bottle. According to the scribe on the side of the bottle this sauce has these ‘excellent uses: vegetarian or meat, marinade, baking glaze, dipping, rice, stew, casserole, blend with cheese, sour cream and yogurt, flavor enhancer or just pour it on your food!’
Since I have some left-over chili and a few left over egg roll wrappers, I’m going to make some mini chili-cheese chimichangas, minus the red sauce. We will replace this with Rick’s Test Kitchen – Ami Hot Pepper Sauce! Here we go…
Ingredients: water, brown sugar (sugar, molasses), habanero mash (water, habanero peppers), vinegar, honey, spices, salt.
Appearance/Smell/Taste: Water being the first ingredient kind of tells me why this sauce is sooooo runny. If you can see it on the spoon photo above, you see how it’s very thin, with some grit, and a few seeds for good measure. The overall aroma of this sauce to me smells of brown sugar and cumin.
I’m banking that cumin is in there somewhere in that ‘spices’ designation. At least that is what my olfactory senses are telling me. I think that this sauce would have to be a few extra magnitudes thicker, to work well as a baking glaze, it just seems way too loose to work well for that. But I’m not baking a ham here either, so this sauce might do well as a baking glaze. That is for another time…
Prepared meal: Mini Chili-Cheese Chimichangas
Since I had some leftover wrappers from the write up I just recently finished, I decided to use them up while getting rid of some leftover turkey chili I made yesterday. You can pretty much stick anything in an eggroll wrapper and it will be yummy fried up!
1 cup of your favorite chili
6 oz. shredded extra-sharp cheddar cheese (non-rennet variety)
½ cup cooked rice (I prefer jasmine or basmati)
Combine all ingredients into a large bowl and mix throroughly. Place eggroll wrapper on cutting board, put a small portion on the wrap diagonally. Fold the corners over, then use water on the remaining edges, roll tight. This will help seal the cheese mixture into the shell so most will not ooze out into the fryer. You can also partially freeze the mini chili-cheese chimichangas before you drop them into the hot oil. Just make sure that there aren’t any ice chunks on the wrappers before you fry in the oil. Then deep fry mini chili-cheese chimichangas at 320 degrees for roughly 4 minutes until golden brown.
Complement to meal: Pouring a good portion of Rick’s Test Kitchen Ami Hot Pepper Sauce onto my mini chili-cheese chimichangas, right away most of the sauce runs off onto the plate. It has a nice smell once it hits the hot food. You can smell the brown sugar and ‘cumin’. I’m still not 100% sure what the main spice, besides the brown sugar I’m tasting here. Taking a bite of my chimichanga the first thing that hits my palette is the sweetness of the sauce. There is a good deal of brown sugar in here, it’s very gritty in texture. The next taste is the cumin. I like sweet-hot sauces. But this one is a little too sweet for my liking. The gritty texture is kind of odd and the ‘cumin’ flavor is a little overpowering to me. I would have to say that the heat level seems low. It might be from all that sugar, cutting some heat. I’m not getting any flavors from the honey either. It’s definitely taking a back seat to the brown sugar. Overall this has some potential to be a really good sauce. I understand how it is working in a commercial kitchen and how batches can tend to go slightly awry at times. I’m not sure how long this product has been on the market. I think with a few slight tweaks, this has the potential to be a very different, interesting sort of hot sauce. Give it a try, I did! -Lars-
Initial impression: 6/10
Ingredient quality/content: 5/10
Flavor/textue/smell: 6/10
Heat: 4/10
Overall: 5.25/10
Rick’s Test Kitchen
1415 South 11th Street
Lincoln, NE 68502
www.rickstestkitchen.com
Chilehead Comments: 15 Comments
Posted by: Lars - Categories: Uncategorized
Permalink: Review: Rick’s Test Kitchen – Ami Hot Pepper Sauce
One year ago: Review: Nando's Hot Peri Peri Sauce
Two years ago: Chile Pepper Fiesta
- Related Posts:
- Review: Ami Hot Pepper Sauce
- Review: Nanny’s Jamaican Kitchen Jerk Marinade – Mild
- Please Welcome Steve M
- Review: Not Yo Mama’s Habanero Pepper Marmalade
- Review: Defcon Creator’s Double Super Secret Experiment #X-13 Habanero Horseradish
15 Comments
Lars, would you buy it ?
Seems like the reviews are getting better……great job Lars…I agree with FKS on the latter
Lars I wish I could whip up meals like you. Everything you cook seemd to look and sound delicious. The review was done with a lot of tact and credibility, and unlike some of my counterparts pointed out, I don’t think you need to give the sauce a thumbs up or thumbs down when you so eloquaintly(sp?) stated the product could be better with some adjustments. Classy way of stating your case without hammering someone.
In my opinion, to only list ‘spices’ as an ingredient is dangerous to people with food allergies. Not knowing what the spices are may also prompt people with food allergies not to purchase the product because of the potential of harming themselves. There are also certain spices that people do not like which could also prompt them to pass on a product.
Sam on 8/24/2007 at 6:44 pm said:
Lars, would you buy it ?
Thanks for the compliments guys. I’m really enjoying doing these reviews thus far!
Now, would i buy this sauce?!? Yes and no. In it’s present state, i’d say no, but if it were kinda thicker, I could see this being real yummy with a few Naans and some Chicken Biryani! One of my favorite Indian dishes. Right along side Chicken Vindaloo. Which is chicken in hot sauce over rice! YUMMY! -Lars-
Lars on 8/25/2007 at 5:32 pm said:
Thanks for the compliments guys. I’m really enjoying doing these reviews thus far!
Now, would i buy this sauce?!? Yes and no. In it’s present state, i’d say no, but if it were kinda thicker, I could see this being real yummy with a few Naans and some Chicken Biryani! One of my favorite Indian dishes. Right along side Chicken Vindaloo. Which is chicken in hot sauce over rice! YUMMY! -Lars-
Cool, are you gonna be at ZestFest?
Gildo on 8/25/2007 at 5:02 pm said:
In my opinion, to only list ‘spices’ as an ingredient is dangerous to people with food allergies. Not knowing what the spices are may also prompt people with food allergies not to purchase the product because of the potential of harming themselves. There are also certain spices that people do not like which could also prompt them to pass on a product.
There are several less than nefarious reasons why “spices” is used as a catch all. In no particular order:
R & D in the food business means “rob & duplicate”. Not listing *every* single detail of a product at least means someone will have to do a little work before knocking off your product.
Label space. Lists can actually start to crowd the label a bit, and with the font size mandated by code, simply shrinking it down might not be an option.
Under the heading of ‘you can’t please everybody’- food allergies are not a concern to me as a hot sauce maker. I’m catering to the 99.98% of the four billion people without them. Not that I’m unsympathetic it’s just that the odds someone on this planet is likely to be alergic to *something* is a given. I’ve a relative who is allergic to her own hair. Just as it’s my responsibility to insure what I try to salvage out of the firehouse ‘fridge after a week is safe, so it is their responsibility. I will be the first to encourage them not to buy it if they have doubts. If their diet is that restrictive, they’re not likely to be buying stuff where most commercial sauces are sold anyway.
Gildo on 8/25/2007 at 5:02 pm said:
In my opinion, to only list ‘spices’ as an ingredient is dangerous to people with food allergies. Not knowing what the spices are may also prompt people with food allergies not to purchase the product because of the potential of harming themselves. There are also certain spices that people do not like which could also prompt them to pass on a product.
We list a single ingredient as spices in our sauces. It was our label manufacturers suggestion. They have been in the biz for alot longer than we have and have seen people ripped off many times.
These egg roll things you are making can they be baked or shallow fried ?
volrathy on 8/27/2007 at 1:14 am said:
These egg roll things you are making can they be baked or shallow fried ?
Perhaps, but nothing beats a deep fryer when you are making food of this type. Plus, using a deep fryer, things tend to be much less greasy than when pan fried! At least that is what i have observed from using this deep fryer for a little bit now. -Lars-
Then aqgain Lars…it depends what type of oil you are using in a deep fryer…and how old it is….what’s the flash point…temp of fryer..etc…
try a wok
Sam on 8/25/2007 at 5:45 pm said:
Cool, are you gonna be at ZestFest?
Sorry man, can’t make Zest Fest. I’ll be in Bowers, PA at the Chili Pepper Festival there. It’s a great time. If anyone is in the northeast and wants to find aa great ‘hidden gem’ of a fiery food outlet, the Bowers Chili Pepper Festival is the one. Here is the website in case anyone is interested in some info on the event…
wesley h zebzda on 8/27/2007 at 10:03 am said:
Then aqgain Lars…it depends what type of oil you are using in a deep fryer…and how old it is….what’s the flash point…temp of fryer..etc…
try a wok
This is true. Wok’s are always excellent to use.
Lars on 9/3/2007 at 1:18 am said:
Sorry man, can’t make Zest Fest. I’ll be in Bowers, PA at the Chili Pepper Festival there. It’s a great time. If anyone is in the northeast and wants to find aa great ‘hidden gem’ of a fiery food outlet, the Bowers Chili Pepper Festival is the one. Here is the website in case anyone is interested in some info on the event…
I would’ve loved to go to that, but I will be in Minnesota for the opening weekend of Football. Maybe next year.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Nice review Lars. I wish I would have stopped by for dinner when I was over by you in June – lol.
Only comment I would give is that i’m not sure if I would have recommended that people try it though. Seems like you didnt care for it much.