Product Reviews

The Chilli Garden - Jalapeno & Mint

The Chilli Garden Jalapeno 'n' Mint

This is a good one. The Chilli Garden’s Jalapeno ‘n’ Mint Sauce neatly fits a gap left by the sometimes tiresome bravado of the chilli sauce world’s heatmongers, delivering an interesting product you can use outside of the traditional fried fish and sausages.

This a low-heat sauce for less robust foods. It works well with salad, for instance. The flavour’s sublime, packing a bunch of mint over a refreshing body of spring water and fresh jalapeno. It’s not trying to be anything it’s not, and what it does it does well.

Ingredients: Jalapeno Chillis (40%), Mint (5%), Distilled Vinegar, Spring Water, Sea Salt, Xanthan Gum.

There’s quite a sharp vinegar hit on the nose, and the gum adds a gloopy edge to the consistency, but that shouldn’t detract from this must-try. Clean, green, summery and well executed, it’s a welcome diversion from the norms of jolly rogers and power-heat.

It appears to be out of stock at the moment, unfortunately, but you can take a look at the rest of The Chilli Garden’s excellent range  here.

Flavour
(9/10)
Heat
(2/10)
Packaging
(8/10)
Value
(6/10)
Overall
(8/10)

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Bim's Kitchen Sweet Baobab Hot Sauce

Bim's Kitchen Sweet Baobab Hot Sauce

Bim’s Kitchen has some very unique products in their range and they’re not a producer who’s afraid of being adventurous in their ingredient list. Influenced by African inspired cuisine, this new bottle, Sweet Baobab Hot Sauce, introduces us to the delights of the Baobab fruit.

This exotic African fruit grows on long stems that hang down from the mother tree, and is used along with its leaves to cure fevers and other illnesses; it’s also very rich with vitamin C. Now I’m not saying it’ll cure your woes, but it can’t hurt giving it a go. All that really needs to be known is it tastes fabulous, and gives this sauce a delicious flavour.

It’s visually exciting too; light brown in colour, filled will lots of flecks of fruit, giving a speckled red, green and black look to it. It’s easy to pour from the bottle, but avoids being too thin, so helping to prevent the spoon-spillage accidents.

With the bottle opened there’s a sweet aroma from the product, quite unlike anything I’ve experienced before in a sauce, presumably from the Boabab. There’s perhaps a hint at pineapple in it, but you’d be hard pressed to say for sure if tasting blind. Whatever complex mix it’s made up of, it’s very pleasant indeed on the nose.

There is a fair number of ingredients listed on the mostly plain bottle label – it tells the consumer just enough about the sauce, with a full ingredient list that includes:

Ingredients: Water, Sweet Red Peppers, Pineapple Juice, Demarara Sugar, Baobab Pulp 6.5%, Onion, Tomato Puree, White Vinegar, Smoked Cayenne Chillies, Birdseye Chillies, Cayenne, Tamari Soy Sauce, Molasses Sugar, Garlic Powder, Pomegranate Seeds, Ground Ginger, Salt, Caraway Seeds, Ethiopian Pepper, Parsley, Tamarind Concentrate, Mint and Cloves.

Bottle kindly provided by Bims Kitchen

That’s a pretty eclectic mix and makes picking out and individual flavours quite difficult. The taste is similar to the aroma, without any singular component over-powering it. There’s a sweetness on the tongue that lingers for a while until the chilli heat arrives, It’s a slow and mild burn that adds a little bit of pleasure to the tang. This is not a particularly hot sauce but it does have a unique and delicate flavour to it and one that will work well with chicken where it won’t be overwhelmed.

Bim’s Kitchen Sweet Boabab Hot Sauce is definitely a unique experience, but it’s a mild one. With that though it makes it a everyday usable sauce on anything that works with a sweeter
accompaniment. Like many of Bim’s products, you’re unlikely to find anything remotely similar, and for that reason alone it’s a product worth checking out; but with the fabulous flavour experience, this £4 100ml bottle won’t last you very long at all.

It’s not one for the heat fiend, but for those who like a sweetness to their sauces, it’s definitely worth a look.

Flavour
(8/10)
Heat
(3/10)
Packaging
(5/10)
Value
(7/10)
Overall
(8/10)

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Fire Foods Chilli Jam

Fire Foods Chilli Jam

My mother-in-law ate some of this experimentally and nearly melted, dubbing us “bloody mental” for having it in the fridge. Fire Foods’ Fire Jam is worth getting if only to scare old people.

It’s more of a jelly than a jam, with a thick, hard consistency. This is no bad thing; it spreads easily on toast, and thanks to its physical nature you can cover the surface of whatever it is you’re seeking to enheaten with a small amount. There are no lumps in it at all.

The jar reckons it’s great with toast, bagels, croissants, cheese and cold meat; I can’t argue with that. It’s 175ml for £3.50. Fire Jam’s really sweet, and the ingredients have been kept simple:

Ingredients: Apple, Sugar, Pectin, Chilli Extract and Cinnamon.

Jar kindly supplied by Fire Foods

My biggest problem with it is that it has a sense of artificiality. There’s a stringent note to its odour. It tastes mega-appley and it has a well above-average heat level, but I feel I’d be scoring higher if the freshness of the fruit had been replicated with chillis as opposed to extract. Nice lumps of pepper and a natural heat would have lifted the entire concept.

But. It’s tasty; we’ve eaten it all; and it greatly distressed my mother-in-law. All reasons to definitely give this a shot.

Flavour
(7/10)
Heat
(8/10)
Packaging
(6/10)
Value
(7/10)
Overall
(7/10)

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Though it might look daunting, erecting a polytunnel is not difficult. It is simply a step-by-step process.

Preparing the site

1. The first step is to find a suitable site. There are certain requisites; firstly the land must be relatively flat or at least only gently sloping in one direction. The site must also not be shaded and have a water supply for irrigation. Shelter from the wind is desirable, as is soil that is not too stony.The water meadow
2. Cutting the ryegrass pasture. If there is plenty of time a sheet of black plastic (silage plastic bought from agricultural suppliers) spread over the proposed site will also kill the grass.Cutting the grass
3. It is easier to cultivate the soil before erecting the polytunnel.

Rotovating the soil

Pounding the posts

Tunnel frames are quite simple structures, composed of posts pounded into the ground in two parallel lines, and hoops that slot into the posts, forming a line of arches. The first job in erecting a polytunnel is to pound the corner posts firmly into the ground. If they are placed in exactly the correct position the polytunnel will be easy to erect and will stand firm for many years.

Mark out where the corner posts go. If they have been measured out correctly, the two diagonals will be the same length. A simple equation called ‘Pythagoras’ theorem’ can be used to calculate the correct length of the diagonals.

If your tunnel is measured in feet (a lot still are) convert the lengths into metres before calculating the length of the diagonals; doing Pythagoras’ theorem in feet and inches is very difficult.

The Pythagoras equation is the length squared + width squared = diagonal squared

The tunnel in the photos is 14 x 40 feet. This is 4.2 x 12.2 metres

So: 4.22 + 12.22 = diagonal²
17.64 + 148.84 = diagonal²
166.48 = diagonal²

Therefore the diagonal = √166.48 = 12.903 metres

It is a wise precaution to check and double check your measurements. It is easy to make a mistake and any discrepancies at this stage will affect the quality of the rest of the job.

4. Once the exact position of the corner posts has been determined they are pounded into the ground. A sledge hammer is good for the job, but it should not be allowed to hit the metal posts directly as this will damage the rims and the hoops won’t be able to slot in. In the photo a rubber plug that fits over the post is being used. However, an old plank of wood held on top of the post does just as well.The posts should be vertical – use a spirit level to ensure this.If a post stops going into the ground when it is hit there may be a stone in the way. To remove the obstacle the post has to be pulled out (wobble it from side to side to loosen it). In most cases a stone can be dealt with by pounding a crowbar into the hole until the stone has broken up. Occasionally, this does not work and the only way to remove the stone is to dig it out. The hole must then be filled in and packed down as hard as possible with soil, then the post hammered in again.

Pounding the corner post in

5. Once the corner posts have been hammered into the ground, string should be attached to them marking out the perimeter of the tunnel.Tie the string around the posts
6. The string must be attached to the top of the posts and pulled tight so there is no slack. It should be level throughout – use a spirit level, do not do it by eye. This means if there is a slope some posts might have to be knocked deeper into the ground than others.It is possible to erect a tunnel on a slope provided it is even. In this case the corner posts should be hammered in all to the same depth, so that when the perimeter string is tied around it is not level, but rather runs parallel to the ground.

String attached to top of post

7. Once the string is in place lay the other posts along each side.

Lay the other posts out

8. Using a measuring tape running the length of the tunnel, the posts can be pushed into the soil in exactly the correct place.

Use a measuring tape

9. The posts are then pounded into the ground.

Pound all posts in

10. It is essential that the posts are all hammered in so that their rim is the same height as the string.

To height of string

[click to continue…]

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