Butterfly Bakery of Vermont – Cucumber Sesame Miso Hot Sauce
Bitter: 🟡🟡○○○
Salty: 🟡🟡🟡○○
Sour/Tangy:🟡○○○○
Sweet: 🟡🟡○○○
Umami: 🟡🟡🟡🟡○
Heat: 🟡○○○○○○○○○
Quick Flavor Notes: Earthy, umami, rich, toasty
Recommended: Yes
Texture: Medium with some small bits
Ingredients: Rice vinegar, Honey Field Farm red serranos, Honey Field Farm cucumbers, water, Pete’s Greens garlic scapes, Northwoods Apiaries honey, Rhapsody Natural Foods red and white miso, salt, sesame oil.
Breaking my normal first-in-first-out (or at least as close to it as I can estimate) for sauce reviews rule again I wanted to get to this Butterfly Bakery of Vermont micro-batch early both because I wanted to review it while it was still available and because I really love miso so I was excited to try this one. I’ve tried a number of miso hot sauces in the past, including a previous one from Butterfly Bakery of Vermont, and always enjoyed them so I went into this one with high hopes.
Butterfly Bakery of Vermont must have a perpetual bumper crop of red serranos because they end up in a ton of their sauces. It’s not something I’m complaining about in the least as I love that pepper and find it to have a great flavor with an easily accessible heat level. This sauce also uses rice wine vinegar instead of the distilled common in most of their sauces, so clearly going with an Asian direction here. Cucumbers may not be something you’d immediately associate with hot sauce (though they do exist) but there are a number of Asian dishes that combine it with miso (or in the case of Korean banchan dishes with doenjang, essentially Korean miso) and with sesame oil. Pete’s Greens garlic scapes are another constant favorite ingredient. As far as I can recall I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Butterfly Bakery of Vermont hot sauce that uses traditional garlic cloves, just the garlic scapes. After some honey to add some sweetness with come to the miso and this sauce uses both red and white. Miso is made from soybeans (usually, other versions exist) fermented with koji (Aspergillus Oryzae). White miso is sweet and nutty and is typically fermented for 1-3 months. Red miso, also known as aka miso, is fermented for at least six months but can be fermented for years and has an earthy and umami reach flavor. That sauce finishes off with sesame oil, always a great aromatic flavor to add to an Asian dish though a little goes a long way.
Cucumber Sesame Miso Hot Sauce is more rustic in texture like most micro-batch hot sauces but it’s also creamier due to the miso and sesame oil with a medium consistency. The earthy aroma of the miso is prominent when you open the bottle as well as that toasty sesame oil scent. Up front this is one of the earthiest hot sauces that I’ve tasted in a long time. That ties in, and is because of, the miso flavor being very strong in this sauce. That’s not a bad thing as I’ve wanted more miso flavor from some other miso hot sauces such as Bravado’s Aka Miso Ghost Reaper. I was surprised at the lack of sweetness initially but after having a few more spoonfulls some of the other flavors began to come out. The cucumbers bring a freshness that’s a necessary foil to the earthy miso. The white miso and honey give a very subtle sweetness that helps to balance the intense umami and savory earthiness of the red miso. The sesame oil is an accent flavor in this, bringing a nutty, toasty, and indescribable sesame taste to the table primarily at the back of the palate. This sauce is much less tangy than most Butterfly Bakery of Vermont hot sauces. I believe part of that is the choice to go with rice wine vinegar instead of of distilled as rice wine vinegar has a softer acidity and less “bite” with the rest being due to the earthy miso. The serrano flavor is mostly covered up by the stronger flavors in the rest of the sauce and there’s very little heat.
Since the bottle suggested using this as a dumpling sauce, and I had some frozen gyoza in the freezer, I went with that first. While I thought it was a solid combination I think I prefer the typical soy and vinegar dipping sauce when it comes to those. Much more successful for me was pairing this with some raw sliced bell peppers, broccoli, and cauliflower. The umami richness of the sauce and sesame toastiness was perfect with the raw fresh vegetables. I also liked adding a glug of this to some instant ramen, turning a pack of Shin Ramyun Black into something almost like miso ramen. One of the best uses I found was when grilling chicken. I brushed some of this one after marinating it with some chopped garlic, oil, fresh lime, and cilantro and found this sauce gave it a great caramelization on the grill plus those umami rich miso notes still came through.
If you’re a miso fan this is one you should absolutely pick up, especially if you’re looking for a hot sauce that goes great with Asian food and vegetables. This is also a great sauce for those who aren’t fans of strong vinegar tang as it’s subdued compared to many of their sauces. This sauce is also all natural with no artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, or thickeners.
