Posted August 24, 2007 by Lars in Reviews

Review: Rick’s Test Kitchen – Ami Hot Pepper Sauce

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)

Â½ 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