Big Papi's En Fuego Hot Sauce
Out of The Connoisseurs I’m most certainly not the biggest baseball fan. That would easily be Connoisseur Jon. I’m not big on extreme or novelty hot sauces either, preferring flavor over blinding yet bland heat. Still I have been on an organic kick and I love the fact that all the ingredients in these sauces are natural, with cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup for example. Now most hot sauces are pretty straight forward, but I think it is admirable when David Ortiz, a baseball player who is no stranger to controversy, can put out a product that has not been chemically enhanced. Then again if my testicles shrink to the size of raisins I’ll know that his chilies were somehow boosted.
Most of the different En Fuego verities are habanero sauces with different peppers added to remix the heat level, so I went straight for the absolute hottest version of his regular habanero based sauce and for a jalapeño variant. These are called the Grand Slam and the Monster Double respectively, I believe the Monster Double was supposed to be the Green Monster Double but they did not secure those rights.
Both sauces are very thick, based on pulped vegetables instead of pepper extract diluted in vinegar. That makes them pretty versatile, although you should take into consideration that they both contain a massive amount of garlic, so treat them like you would sriracha.
The Grand Slam En Fuego hits you with an instant and sharp blast of enduring heat, it tastes of habaneros but also has a very strong black pepper component with a little bit of Tabasco (cayenne) in there as well. It is supposed to have some chipotle but that is not nearly as evident. Normally my ideal use for habanero sauce is to mix it in with some mayonnaise and eat it with fish but this does not taste like your average habanero sauce. Instead I found that it paired a lot better with beef. First I used it to make some slightly too hot fajitas, and realized that this sauce can’t be used too liberally. The next night a few good globs went into a sweet beef chili with lots of fresh vegetables and the match was perfect.
The Monster Double En Fuego toys with the idea of being a salsa verde as it contains cilantro and tomatillo, but there is not enough tomatillo in there to give it the bright tartness that a good salsa verde has. Still if you just want some jalapeño kicked up with habanero and a lot of garlic, this is just about perfect. In particular, I liked it inside a cheesy spinach omelet and the strong garlic taste turned some plain brown rice into a tasty side instantly.
Overall I really like this line of sauces and I’ve been using them a lot. On the other hand not only am I not much of a baseball fan, but bad marketing copy gets on my nerves as well. There is something about the following phrase printed on the bottle that disturbs my digestion: “Not just a hot sauce, it’s a lifestyle sauce. En Fuego goes with everything, from food to drinks to cooking ingredient — It’s away of life.”