Spicin Foods / Pain is Good – Harissa Hot Sauce
I picked this up as part of a box set of Pain is Good sauces on clearance sale on the Spicin Foods website a bit ago. This was the sauce that made me decide to go for the box set, as while I’ve seen jars of harissa for sale on the grocery store shelves, I’d never seen a hot sauce built around that flavor profile before. Harissa is a North African chile pepper sauce with a history dating back centuries, popularized after chile peppers were introduced to the region by the Spanish after having been imported from the new world. With such a long history and popularity ranging across multiple nations and multiple ethnic groups there are of course many variations on the sauce when it comes to ingredients. This is stated to be a Tunisian style harissa, with Tunisia being where harissa is most popular, to the point where the tiny nation is the largest exporter of harissa in the world and where it’s been raised to the status of a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage point for the nation.
Traditional harissa would be made with Baklouti peppers, a cultivar of Capsicum Annuum native to Tunisia, that are supposed to have a sweet and fruity flavor with a low heat. Sourcing these peppers in the USA would be rather difficult, so this sauce substitutes red jalapenos, which share a similar flavor profile. This sauce also includes Thai Birdseye chiles for additional heat, as well as some traditional harissa ingredients such as olive oil, which helps carry flavors that are more soluble in fat than in water or vinegar, garlic, and lemon juice. Other ingredients including turmeric, paprika, mint, cilantro, and tomato paste are present in the sauce and appear in some harissa recipes but are not necessarily part of the core basic harissa sauce.
I’ve found that most Spicin Foods products have a certain flavor that’s unique to the company and that carries across their product lines. It’s a brash and aggressive bite on the leading edge of the flavor profile, and this sauce shares that as well. I don’t know which part of their production process is responsible for it or why the sauces I’ve tasted from the company all seem to share it, but it’s not an unpleasant taste, just a very loud initial flavor sensation. Going past that the lemon juice in this sauce makes itself known quickly – there’s a sourness to this sauce, similar to Scorned Woman Hot Sauce which also uses lemon juice, which dominates over the vinegar also used. There is some fruity flavor from the red jalapenos, and heat from the birdseye chiles, as well as a richness and a bit of sweetness and umami savoryness from the tomato paste. The spices used don’t assert themselves individually other than the garlic, but rather combine to form a general sense of African Mediterranean flavor that comes through.
The aroma is dominated by pepper and lemon juice, and the texture of the sauce is medium and smooth. With this being a North African Mediterranean flavor I decided to try it out with some take-out kebabs first. The place I usually buy my kebabs from is run by a Palestinian family, and typically come with tahini, a creamy garlic sauce, and a spicy sauce of chopped chiles in vinegar. All of those sauces are delicious and compliment the meat well without covering the flavors. Subbing in the Pain is Good Harissa Hot Sauce I found that the strong lemon flavor and that overall brash initial bite was a bit too dominant for the grilled meats for my personal preference. Trying it again with a gyro was more successful – the heavily spiced gyro meat and thick creamy tzatziki could stand up to the acid and aggressive flavor of this sauce and created a more harmonious union. Putting a dollop into some rice and beans also worked well, with the strong flavor of the sauce able to elevate the flavors of the starchy combo.
While this sauce isn’t the most versatile I’ve tried, it is unique and has a pleasing flavor when used with the right dishes. I could see this working well as an ingredient in cooking meats with lentils or couscous, which is how harissa is often used in North Africa. Using fresh lemon juice instead of the concentrate used in the sauce as well as a softer vinegar may have given this a more rounded flavor profile that’s less aggressive. The sauce is unique enough that I can recommend checking it out if you have the opportunity and you like sour and aggressively flavored sauces.
Ingredients: Red Jalapenos, Water, Distilled Vinegar, Tomato Paste, Garlic, Birdseye Chili Powder, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Salt, Spices, Cilantro, Turmeric, Paprika, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Mint, Xanthan Gum
Heat Level: 3/10. While there is some bite from the birdseye chiles there’s little burn in this sauce
