Don Tomas – Chimichurri with Shishito
Bitter: 🟡🟡○○○
Salty: 🟡🟡🟡🟡○
Sour/Tangy: 🟡🟡🟡○○
Sweet: 🟡○○○○
Umami: 🟡○○○○
Heat: 🟡○○○○○○○○○
Quick Flavor Notes: Green, vegetal, briny, pungent
Recommended: Conditional
Texture: Medium and smooth
Ingredients: Green Shishito Pepper Mash (Green Shishito Peppers, salt, acetic acid) Water, White Wine Vinegar, Roasted Garlic, Green Peppercorns, Scallions, Parsley
Dom Tomas hot sauce came about when Roseville, CA (a suburb of Sacremento) resident Tom Cianci decided he needed a covid project and turned to making hot sauce. His first product, a pizza hot sauce, came about by accident when he was drinking fennel tea while eating a slice of pizza and had a revelation about the flavor combination. His other sauces have been inspired from his travels around the world. This one, Chimichurri with Shishito, was inspired by his love of the popular Argentinian sandwich choripan, or a chorizo sausage on a roll often with chimichurri sauce. Since chimichurir is something I personally love as well I was excited to give this a go.
Chimichurri is one of my favorite sauces to put on steaks and meats. It’s typically a vibrant mixture of chopped parsley, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, and red pepper flakes. Don Tomas Chimichurri with Shishito walks away from the traditional recipe right away by using Japanese Shishito peppers instead of crushed red peppers or the fresh peppers those are based on. Shishitos are are mild green pepper, though it’s said one in ten of them are actually moderately hot. Typically served charred or blistered at Japanese restaurants they have a grassy fresh vegetal flavor with a bit of sweetness. Don Tomas does say they ferment the peppers in all of their sauces which should add additional flavor. Beyond the peppers the ingredients are similar to a chimichurri with parsley, garlic, and white wine vinegar. Scallions and green peppercorns make an appearance which aren’t traditional chimichurri ingredients and this sauce lacks the olive oil that’s always present in a real. Chimichurri with Shishito is smooth in texture, and while there are some small bits there aren’t any with bite. The consistency is medium and with an aroma of fresh grassy peppers and spices.
Despite the name of the sauce calling it a chimichurri, Don Tomas Chimichurri with Shishito does not actually taste like chimichurri. Part of it is the shishito peppers which have a much different flavor than the red peppers usually used in the topping, part of it is the lack of oil, and part of it is the texture of the sauce. Chimichurri is typically a roughly-chopped sauce that’s still very chunky as opposed to the smooth blended concoction that this sauce is. Chimichurri is also a fresh raw uncooked sauce while obviously a bottled hot sauce requires pasteurization which can change flavors, especially when it comes to delicate herbs like parsley, a dominant flavor in the classic chimichurri sauce. That doesn’t mean that this sauce is bad because of that, and it does have a big grassy ‘green’ flavor from the shishitos. The roasted garlic used in this sauce doesn’t have the same punch as the traditional raw garlic used in chimichurri and I did find myself missing that more abrasive raw garlic flavor. The parsley flavor here is not nearly as present as in the traditional sauce and it doesn’t have that herbaceous fresh flavor that fresh parsley brings. Similarly scallions are a delicate flavor and taste best when fresh, so cooked they don’t shine at their best. The green peppercorns are the wildcard here – their fresh tangy grassy pungent flavor are in full effect in this sauce. What results is a sauce that does have a lot of the fresh green taste I like in green sauces but with that bring primarily driven by the shishitos and the green peppercorns instead of any of the chimichurri ingredients, and without the chimichurri texture. The one other drawback here is the salt level in this sauce. At 135mg of sodium per teaspoon this is very salty for a craft hot sauce and on par with many Louisiana style sauces. The flavor is noticeably salty in this sauce to the point where it limits where it can be used.
On the topic of pairing I tried this first with steak since that’s a common chimichurri use case. While not awful, I found myself liking liking the bottle of Mateo Granados El Yuca Ahumado that I had open at the same time much better with steak. This doesn’t hit the same notes as a real chimichurri in terms of texture, rawness of flavor, or freshness. Thinking I’d go the choripan route while I didn’t have any Argentinian style chorizo I did have some Publix Nashville Hot pork sausage and it actually works well with this sauce on a sandwich, the green briny taste being a nice foil to the fatty sausage. I also tried this with fish tacos, a place I often like green hot sauces, and it was solid there as well, though a bit jarring in that it’s a salsa verde with no real Mexican flavors.
So the big question for this sauce is if I can recommend it. I’m torn because it claims to be a chimichurri and it absolutely isn’t, though the shishito portion of the label is accurate. While the flavor of this sauce isn’t bad, I was put off by how salty it is, and the fact that I was expecting something that tastes like a chimichurri threw me off further. Because of that I’ll give this a conditional recommendation – the sauce isn’t broken, it’s just not what it says on the top of the label. If you’d like a green sauce that tastes primarily of shishito peppers and green peppercorns and don’t mind high salt, give it a try. This sauce is all natural with no artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, or thickeners.
