Sunday, May 18, 2008

i heart sauce cartel

sauce cartel is a fantastic local purveyor of hot sauce. i've gushed about them in the past and here's a review of two of their best sauces:

green wave
this is a great sauce. it is so enjoyable i’d suggest that sauce cartel start selling it in at least 10 oz jars. the peppery notes are the first thing you’ll notice upon smelling green wave, they hit the pepper just right in this sauce with both jalapeno and black pepper prominently featured. the second thing that I noticed about green wave was the slightly sweet taste of pineapple. the lighter citrus flavors of pineapple are the perfect foil to the darker, more complex pepper of the jalapeno. for those who don’t want to hurt themselves when eating hot sauce, this is great. you get a nice middle-of-the-tongue heat that just builds slightly the more you eat. as tempting as it is to eat directly from the bottle, i really wanted to use it in a way that highlighted the excellent flavors. using the green wave, i came up with this recipe for fresh pineapple salsa:

pineapple jalapeno salsa

2 cups diced fresh pineapple

1/3 cup diced red onion

¼ cup diced jalapeno

¼ cup chopped cilantro

juice of 1 lime

2 tbs green wave sauce

locura mayan
locura mayan really highlights sauce cartel’s flair for flavor. these guys aren’t afraid to make a really mild sauce, the complex flavors stand on their own, with no need to hide behind a million scoville units. this sauce has a savory, smoky aroma, but that’s just where locura mayan begins. the balance between the smoky and sweet is what really stands out about this sauce. in the background there’s the magical complexity of sun dried tomato and the slight bite of vinegar. my husband commented he’d love to pour it on a chipotle burrito. hey sauce cartel – want to wholesale to chipotle?

7 comments:

Kate said...

you're back! i have never tried anything from sauce cartel, but this salsa sounds wonderful.

Anonymous said...

Hey thanks for the GREAT reviews. We are trying to do things a little different, as you mentioned. We do appreciate it! I tried your Salsa recipe, can we use it in or "cook book" we apre putting together? We would give you all the credit!

Thanks Again
Sauce Cartel

heather said...

gary,
i'd be so flattered, of course you can include the salsa recipe in your cookbook. keep up the great work!

Bear said...

Also a fan. Their Big Kahuna sauce is really, really excellent.

John Sowell said...

It looks like Sauce Cartel is out of business. I placed an order online from Oregon in early October. Two weeks later, I had not heard anything back and I wrote to Gary Gust. He claimed the order had been lost in a spam filter but promised to send it out promptly. I never received it and now their website has been taken down and their phone disconnected.

heather said...

i am really sorry to hear this! these guys were great, i hope they start a new venture.
i also hope you didn't lose any $ in this failed transaction.

John Sowell said...

I didn't lose a lot, $38, but I'd rather have the sauces than the money. PayPal was able to get $4 back for me.