HITTING THE HOT SPOT
Doctor cracks sauce code in our chilli challenge
THE sauces lined up last Sunday were hot, medium, mild, salty, sweet, savoury, gingery, lemony, vinegary, herby and everything in between. More than 100 entries were received from all over South Africa.
“The range of colours and flavours has been amazing,” said Sunday Times Food editor Hilary Biller. “South Africans are really passionate about their chilli sauces, obsessive almost.”
Forty chilli-mad Sunday Times readers (who could not be entrants to the competition) volunteered to judge the competition at HTA School of Culinary Arts in Randburg. Judges were allowed to “raise the red flag if overcome by chilli exhaustion” but all held fast. Biller said: “We bought litres of yoghurt to cool the judges’ palates . . . some sauces were explosively hot. But we were looking for a sauce that balances heat with flavour.”
While the chilliheads proclaimed many of the sauces too mild for their experienced palates, there was sweat on returning judge Carlos de Oliveira’s brow after a potent round of tasting. Last year, De Oliveira got in the way of a sauce that sprayed out of its bottle when it was opened. “No explosions this year, but there were interesting ingredients. One sauce I enjoyed contained dates,” he said.
Other unusual ingredients included whiskey, pumpkin and anchovies, although a jar containing whole tiny fish was deemed by returning judges Kat and Dave Fenn to not quite qualify as a chilli sauce. “It was interesting, something from my part of the world,” said Singapore-born Kat.
“It is fascinating what people consider to go well with chilli,” said Keshantha Naidoo. “I loved a sauce with hints of mint, cumin and garlic.”
Public management graduate Wonder Ximba got nods of agreement from his team when he suggested that a sauce rejected for containing more ginger than chilli would go rather well with sushi.
Daphne Rapodile, a property broker who cultivates chillies as a hobby, said the bestlooking sauces were not always the besttasting. “Some of the most delicious need more attention paid to their looks. They need Botox.”
Young chilli fan Adrian Hogan had some eye-watering moments with his buddy Karl Molchin. “We couldn’t imagine a better way to spend a Sunday morning,” they said. Chilli aficionado Kirsty Schaaf said she entered chilli-eating competitions in KwaZulu-Natal as a teenager. “I once had heart palpitations after a competition.”
Blowing her nose, she said these sauces were nothing to be afraid of. “There were really good flavours. This one I would smash all over prawns,” she said of a pungent peri-peri.
Another Durbanite, Hopewell Khuzwayo, said he eats fresh green chillies with almost every meal. “I’d say the hottest sauce we tried today would score only about seven on my heat scale.”
Jason Joffa, who lived in India for a year, was not the only one feeling euphoric during the tasting. “Chilli is like a drug,” he said. “A good chilli session puts you on a high.” Most of the judges are also keen saucemakers and shared their tips. Theo Lepelle is experimenting with lemon juice instead of vinegar to improve the consistency of his sauces. Lourens Notman (see page 13) imports the world’s hottest chillies. He looks for sauce with “a sustained burn”.
Each team worked through a dozen sauces and scored them according to appearance, heat and flavour. In the final round, the top 10 sauces were tasted and deliberated over by all the judges. The winner, a blend of sweet, hot and savoury, was made by Joburg doctor Anisa HoosenAmos, who won R5 000 and a copy of the Sunday Times Food Weekly Cookbook 4.
‘There were really good flavours. This one I would smash all over prawns’