Mayanik Chile Habanero Naranja Salsa
(Orange Habanero Pepper Hot Sauce)
First Impressions:
Triaminic, the Medicine of Motherhood, has finally crafted a fiery cough syrup for children! Oh, wait, this is Mayanik, my bad, okay”¦ The label was very straightforward, classy. Bilingual. Hecho en Mexico. Initially I was pretty intrigued by an orange habanero sauce. Then, a quick glance at the ingredients revealed we were talking about a color of pepper and not the name of a particular citrus fruit. Oh, would that there were only a hyphen or a slash! My speedy glance was also due to the markedly few ingredients that go into this guy:
Ingredients: orange habaneros, water, vinegar, spices, salt, garlic, xanthan gum, and sodium benzoate as a preservative.
p.s. I have since learned that “anaranjado” is the color orange, and “naranja” is the fruit, so now I’m confused.
Appearance:
The sauce itself is very viscous, watery, you might say. It is not the color orange, but rather a dark yellowish-green color, with little green flecks interspersed throughout. They make a point on the bottle that no artificial colors are used. Plus, having once grown habaneros that were supposed to turn from green to orange and never did, I decided to allow that the same phenomena had at least partially overtaken this crop.
Smell:
Upon opening the bottle and snouting it, I was overtaken by a very pungent vinegar aroma. Integrated into the vinegar was a distinct habanero smell; the best way I can think to describe it is raw or unprocessed, which I suppose isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Mayanik smelled of nothing else.
Taste:
The taste is pretty simple. One is first struck by the strong acidity of the vinegar, which quickly serves to magnify the earthy flavor and heat of the habs. The heat is intense but weird, in that it lingers at the sides of your mouth and has a pronounced sourness to it. Between the first taste of vinegar and the sour heat that followed, I feel like this sauce could have benefited from a lot more flavor, some kind of gimmick to tie it all together. Garlic is mentioned in the ingredients, but absent from the palate. The sauce is a little too eager to burn, and in this quest, it fails to inspire taste buds along the way. Mayanik also needs some sweetness, sugar or molasses or something.
Heat:
To fully describe the heat, let me explain what I did with the sauce after tasting it straight. Knowing the sourness of vinegar contrasts the sweetness of some fish species quite well, I decided to apply Mayanik to a tuna-macaroni salad. Or perhaps it was because macaroni, a few cans of tuna, and mayonnaise were the only available foodstuffs in my apartment”¦you be the judge. I ended up vastly underestimating the heat potential of the sauce, and dumped about a third of the bottle on the salad. After a few bites, I knew I had made a mistake, but there was no turning back. Like I said, it was a strange heat that I can’t say I am entirely accustomed to, and with this volume of sauce, it caught me off guard. At first, I found that my throat and chest were burning a lot more than my mouth, but the mouth soon followed suit, and after half a plate of tuna salad I was a heavy-panting, tearing mess. In a frantic search for something to put out the fire, I found some parmesan cheese to shake on top, which helped a little bit. Lacking milk, I downed a few cups of orange juice (hey, oranges after all!), which did nothing, so I just had to ride it out. This was about an hour ago, and my chest is still burning, but I am otherwise fine, thanks for asking.
Overall:
You know, not a big fan of the sauce, but loved the experience. Mayanik seems a little too raw and unfinished. And I will readily admit that a more moderate amount of Mayanik would surely spice up a drab tuna-macaroni salad to agreeable levels. The sauce is not without its strengths. The heat is definitely there. And I know I’ve beaten the vinegar element here like I would a dead horse, but to put a positive spin on it, this acidic blend may work well as part of a larger marinade or cooking sauce recipe. Likewise, I think this would go well as a spicy alternative to vinegar in a classic Italian hoagie, mixing well with sweet meats and olive oil as a spicy relish of sorts.
Distributed by:
Mayan Foods, Inc.
3401 South Plaza Drive
Santa Ana, CA, USA 92704
www.mayanik.com