It isn’t often I pay attention to Hot Sauce in a Supermarket, but; on a trip to my local Tesco I happened across one in the “American” section, a bottle caught my eye. Fischer & Wieser, Roasted Raspberry & Chipotle Sauce. Raspberry’s? Roasted? Chipotle? I’m in…
It didn’t take me long once I’d got it home to pop the cap off.
Honestly? A sniff test had me excited. Definite Raspberry smell to this baby, there is no denying that, pure and simple.
The very first thing you notice about this “sauce” is that it’s thick. Very thick. To be honest, I didn’t think it was very far off an actual jam rather than a sauce when I first tried to pour it. I’ll applaud a sauce for being thick all day long, but this bordered on the ridiculous.
Never the less, I got some on the tip of my finger, all scientific like.
Just, well. Yeah – GORGEOUS – The first thing you get is the hit of Raspberry, no denying it. But then the “roasted” part kicks in, it’s nice, but… Then you swallow and the Chipotle part kicks in, pretty soon you’re into “Oh my God” territory.
As for the heat, well – Next to none, it’s got a subtle kick to it, but it’s never going to cause anyone any problems.
I just knew I had to introduce this to food at some point…
The Pizza Test:
A creature of well established habit, I ordered a “Mexican” pizza from my favourite takeaway.
Also, as a true creature of habit it didn’t take me long to cover a slice in sauce.
Well, actually, that’s a bit of a lie, as is that picture. The first time I tried to “pour” the sauce it wasn’t that forthcoming, this sauce is very. very thick. I may have mentioned that already. I literally had to treat it as jam at first and get a knife to the bottle to spread it on.
The result was nothing but delightful though. I was a little worried that the Raspberry wasn’t a strong enough taste to beat the flavours on the Pizza already but I needn’t have worried, it carried through well, if not a little more subtle.
The nice warming after taste of the Chipotle was there though, the sweetness of the sauce against the savoury of the Pizza, honestly – Can’t complain.
As I used the sauce more I was able to give it a heartier, more meaningful shake and it seemed to loosen a little, eventually it poured like you’d expect, slowly, but surely.
The Breakfast Test:
A Full English Breakfast is a meal I hold in high regard, it’s not something I take lightly. My own take on this meal is a legend in my own mind, but; I quite often let someone else do the hard work, and the washing up it inevitably comes with. It does take a lot for me to trust someone with this meal though.
Luckily a local farm shop, Butchers Block at the Farm, does an excellent breakfast with their own produce.
Yes, it tastes as good as it looks. And probably far better than you imagine.
Can you guess what happens when you cover it in the Raspberry and Chipotle sauce as I did?
Yes, it manages to improve it.
Honestly, if you’d told me a couple of years ago that I’d be quite happily throwing fruit based hot sauce on a Full English Breakfast I’d be raising an eyebrow quicker than a quick thing in a slow place. But, it works.
Again, the sweetness of the Raspberry, the smokey tang of the Chipotle and the savoury flavours on the plate already combine to make a match made in heaven – I was, for some reason, worried about how it’d go with the beans. I needn’t have. Same for the egg, it just all works together which I credit the roasty chipotle flavouring with.
The Work Lunch Test:
Of course, adding delight to Pizza and Breakfast isn’t hard, both are great meals to start with there are may sauces that can pull this trick off. No, we need to look at something else and as always I’m using a “work lunch” to form a true test.
A guilty pleasure of mine is a Southern Fried Chicken barmcake from the ASDA close to where I work. They aren’t particularly inspiring on their own, but they can be tasty and they’re pretty cheap. Ideal for a work lunch then.
Time to introduce it to some Raspberry and Chipotle.
I’m sure it won’t come as any great surprise at this point that it worked. And it worked well. The sweet and savoury thing is definitely a factor with this sauce. I’ll be doing this again for sure.
I’ve long since got over the idea of putting fruit based hot sauces on things as a problem. It’s not, and it makes everything better. That said, I wouldn’t put straight raspberries onto a Chicken Sandwich…
In short, I’m very impressed with this sauce – It didn’t take me long to get through the first bottle at all and as with most sauces I find, I took the bottle to work to let my colleagues have a go. None where disappointed and I was eventually tasked with getting bottles for them the next time I went to Tesco.
Something else that impressed me about this sauce was not only do they have suggestions about how to use the sauce, they have a whole recipe on there as well.
Their website (https://www.jelly.com (!)) has a fair few selection of other recipes as well which I thought was just great. (Also a load more sauces I wouldn’t mind getting hold of.)
Having lived with the sauce for a few weeks and putting it on all kinds of things, I’ve only one problem with it; I mentioned this at the beginning, but to repeat, there is little to no heat.
At first, this didn’t bother me and I just enjoyed the taste of the sauce. As time went on though I begin to pine for a proper kick of heat. I started adding in some chilli flakes on top of the sauce, it definitely helped and didn’t take a great deal of effort.
So, would I buy this sauce again? Yes. Yes I would. And have. Fearing that it wouldn’t last long on the shelves of Tesco I bought “spares” on top of the bottles I got for the people at work. You know, just in case.
If you can get your hands on this sauce I highly recommend giving it a go, you just might have to give it your own kick after a while.