Review: Sonoma Jack Extra Hot Habanero Cheese

Do you like Pepper Jack cheese? Have you found that your usual brands of Pepper Jack just don't seem to have the kick they used to? That's not the cheese's fault, you know - the more hot peppers you eat, the more your tolerance for chile-induced heat increases. Eat enough capsaicin-laced foods, and what used to set your entire face on fire will barely give you a glow.

When run-of-the-mill Jalapeno Jack cheese no longer gives you the fiery thrill you crave, try this Sonoma Jack Extra Hot Habanero Jack cheese. It's far and away the hottest Pepper Jack I've tried, even hotter than most other habanero cheeses.

Lynnafred has an admirable tolerance for chile heat. The first time she tried this stuff, she came into the room holding a slice with a bite taken out of it and asked me, "Am I losing my heat tolerance? I just took a bite of this cheese and it's kicking my ass."  I assured her that her reputation as a chilehead was safe - that cheese was born to kick ass.

The only thing I kind of don't like about it is the stickiness. I know that Jack cheese isn't as hard and dry as cheddar, but this stuff is almost as sticky as Velveeta. But damn! Dat burn! It's great stuff.

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Walkerswood Jerk Seasoning

I've tried a lot of Jamaican-style jerk seasonings in search of something really authentic, without too much luck. But recently, my friend Roger discovered Walkerswood Traditional Jamaican Jerk Seaoning, and I think my search is at an end.

Unlike so many other jerk seasonings out there, Walkerswood is a paste made up of hot peppers, scallions, black pepper, onions, salt, allspice, nutmeg, cane sugar, and thyme. It's made in and imported from Jamaica, and it's the most authentic jerk seasoning I've found.

It's easy to use - just rub some into the meat and let it sit a few hours (though overnight is best) before grilling or roasting. I've used it on chicken and pork so far, and it's AWESOME. (I'm considering making some beef jerky with it to see how it turns out.)

Walkerswood also understands that not everyone has a high tolerance for hot and spicy food., so they make a mild version that has the same authentic jerk ingredients with a little less hot pepper added to the blend. Don't get me wrong - Walkerswood idea of "mild" still might ring your bells if you are a complete pepper wuss, but it does have quite a bit less kick than the hot and spicy stuff.

Availability varies depending on where you live. I had never noticed it at all until just a little while ago, when Roger brought some back for me from a recent out-of-state trip. Since I've actually started looking for it, I've found it in a couple of ethnic markets (like Food Zone International on Belmont Avenue in Springfield MA) and supermarkets (I think ShopRite carries it in Enfield CT.) If you're a fan of jerk cooking, it's well worth the search.

New Wheat Thins Spicy Buffalo & Zesty Salsa Flavors

I love Wheat Thins. Somehow, Nabisco has figured out how to make a snack cracker thin enough to just chomp at like a snack, yet be tough enough to stand up to cheeses and dips if that's what fits your mood. And the flavor is enormous - crunchy and nutty and just all-round awesome.

Every now and then, Nabisco comes up with a new flavor to add to the Wheat Thins family.  So far, just about all of them have been great. And  now, they've added two new flavors:  Zesty Salsa and Spicy Buffalo.

A few days ago, we got a package in the mail - Nabisco had sent us a sample box of each of the new flavors - and we spent the next couple of days munching our way through the boxes.

Photos by Nabisco

Zesty Salsa Wheat Thins pick up flavor from dried green peppers, onion, garlic, parsley, and spices.  While there is a certain amount of spiciness, it's balanced well with the other flavor notes (noticeable, but not overpowering, if you know what I mean.) The spicy heat has a tendency to build as you munch although it never becomes overpowering. Of the two flavors, Maryanne and Lynnafred liked this one the best.

The salsa flavor just lends itself to snacking. They're great right out of the box, but I liked them under some cottage cheese, with ranch dip, and especially topped with habanero jack cheese.

Spicy Buffalo Wheat Thins get their kick from cayenne pepper sauce, tomato powder, garlic, and paprika. There is the slightest whiff of vinegar in there (an ingredient of the cayenne sauce) but it's almost unnoticeable unless you set your mind to finding it.

As you might expect, there's more of an immediate chile pepper kick from this variety than there is from the Zesty Salsa.  It's a good, warming heat and not a mouth-killing blast, though (if you're a chilehead, the heat from these will register on the low end of your sensors...for the rest of us, the glow will be a notch or so above "mild.")

Here again, the heat builds up on you the more you eat. And true to typical cayenne behavior, that heat stokes up in the back of your throat and might start feeling a little harsh after half a box or so. Of course, you can modulate the heat a little by serving them up with cheese or creamy dips. Spicy Buffalo pairs up nicely with onion dip or a good sharp cheddar.

Spicy Buffalo is my own favorite of the two. Lynnafred, who is very sensitive to vinegar flavoring, didn't care for them very much. That's okay with me, though - it just means that I'll get to have the box all to myself. OM NOM NOM

Both Zesty Salsa and Spicy Buffalo are solid additions to the Wheat Thins line. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Fresh Horseradish

Every year, I make my own prepared horseradish and give bottles of it to family and friends to enjoy with their Easter and Passover meals.  It's a tradition my mother handed down to me.  In the mid-1990's, I wrote up my technique and posted it to the Fidonet COOKING echo (a sort of international messaging system for cooking enthusiasts that predates the internet.) Since then, these instructions, like many of the other recipes I've shared electronically over the years, have been scraped by bots and stolen and added into recipe archives all over the internet and beyond, usually with my name and location stripped from it.  In fact, only website other than my own has actual permission to archive and distribute my recipe, and that is Bert Christensen's Weird And Different Recipes, a website well worth browsing if you're looking to cook something...unusual.

Anyway, the genie is out of the bottle, and I doubt I will ever be able to get my bylines back onto the bootlegged copies of my horseradish recipe that are floating around in cyberspace.  But I can, however, print the recipe right here, so everyone can know that those instructions are mine, developed and written my me.  And if you ever see them anywhere but here or over to Bert's Place, you're seeing ganked content.

Fresh horseradish root.  Yes, I know what it looks like.  I have a 12-year-old's sense of humor.

Dave's Horseradish

Horseradish roots
Vinegar
Kosher salt

Every Spring, for the Easter/Passover season, I make gallons of prepared horseradish for my family and friends. My horseradish has a reputation for being the strongest kickass root available. Anyone, though, can make root that can stand up to mine...if you use my instructions.

Selecting the root: Bring a small knife with you to the supermarket. Pick up every root you're considering buying and give it a squeeze. If it's limp, feels fleshy or flaccid, or wrinkled, forget it. Select only fresh roots that feel rather heavy for their size and are as hard as wood. Use the knife to pare off a thin bit of the root and pop it in your mouth. Bite down on it. If it makes your lip and tongue go numb and tingly, it's good. Don't buy it if it's weak, or if it leaves a bitter quinine aftertaste (the bitterness will be magnified by grinding.)

Preparation: Set up a table in front of a window. Open up the window and set up a fan to blow air OUT the window. Horseradish fumes are crippling and you will NOT be able to do this without pulling the fumes out the window. By exhausting air out rather than blowing in, you can even do this on a chilly night when you might otherwise not want a window open.

On the window table put your food processor. If you can run your processor with both the shredding blade in the top and the puree knives in the bottom, great. Set it up that way. If not, you'll have two steps (grating and pureeing) instead of one. Next to the processor, still in front of the window, put a large bowl. That's where the ground root will go. Close at hand (maybe on the kitchen table) put the jars where the root will be packed, a large bottle of vinegar, and your salt.

Step 1: Wash and peel. Put all the roots into the sink and start running a thin stream of cold water. Get them all wet and let them sit a few minutes to soften the dirt on them. With a stiff bristle brush, give them a good scrubbing under the stream of water. When they're clean, use a veggie peeler to pare off the brown skin and green tops (if they have green tops. You can cut the top inch off the root, leaving the greens alone, if you like, and plant them in your backyard if you want to grow your own.) Do the peeling under the running water, also. Keeping the water drizzling over the root while you peel carries off some of the volatile chemical, saving your life while you work in the sink.

Step 2: Grate and Grind. Bring the peeled roots over to the window table and turn the fan and your food processor on. Feed them down the chute to the grating wheel. The top wheel will grate the root, and the bottom knives will do the fine chopping (if you can't run both knives in your machine at once, you will have to grate each bowl full of root, then put the chopping knife in to finish separately.) As the root gets finer and finer, it will begin sticking to the sides and bottom of the bowl. Slowly, and with the processor still running, pour in vinegar to get a thick but not sticky consistency. Continue to whirl in the bottom knives for several minutes, until the root bits are very very fine. Stop the processor and dump the processor bowl into the large bowl. Repeat these steps until all the roots are grated, ground, and in the large bowl. Remember to keep the fan on all this time! When all the roots have been processed, rinse the processor knives and bowl with cold running water. Wash them as necessary. Put the processor away or aside. You'll need the space on the table in front of the fan to pack the jars.

Step 3: Seasoning. You've still got that fan running, right? Leave the bowl in front of the fan. The grated root in the bowl should not be too dry. Stir in enough vinegar to give a smooth consistency. Taste a little bit of the puree (be careful! This is likely to be the strongest horseradish you've ever tasted.) If you think it needs salt, add some Kosher salt or canning salt. I usually add about half a teaspoon per quart.

Step 4: Packing. Use a ladle and a canning funnel to fill pint jars with the prepared horseradish. Fill the jars up, cap them off, and put them in the fridge. Do not process the jars. Keep them refrigerated. You may turn off the fan after all the jars are full and after all implements have been rinsed. The horseradish will maintain full potency for a couple of weeks (I make mine no more than a week or so before Easter) but will still be pretty damn strong for a month or two. Use it before it turns brown.

Cleaning up: Most of your tools (the bowls, ladle, etc) will require little more than a good rinse with cold water first (to neutralize and dilute any horseradish fumes) then hot water, since you aren't cutting any greasy fat.

That's it; that's how to make horseradish.

Wendy's Spicy Chicken Nuggets

I've been seeing the ads for Wendy's Spicy Chicken Nuggets for a couple weeks now, and finally decided to give them a try.

They're okay, I guess, but nothing really special. The spongy, meatlike chicken patties are solidly average. The breading is crispy, tinted red with paprika and cayenne pepper, and studded with bits of cracked black pepper. The contrast between the crunchy coating and soft meat inside is pretty enjoyable.

The flavor isn't all that great, though. Salty with a canned-chicken-broth flavor, they are disappointing as a spicy food. The characteristic cayenne heat hits at the back of your mouth as you swallow, with a harsh and flavorless heat that offers little else than a vague burning sensation.

That's not really what I look for in a spicy food. I don't generally use cayenne pepper at all because I prefer hot and spicy foods to have a depth of flavor that cayenne can't offer. I can't really recommend these, but if Wendy's in on your way home and want a fast spicy hit, check it out for youself.
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ANGRY WHOPPER - YEAH!!

Burger King introduced their latest spicy offering earlier this week: the Angry Whopper. A Whopper patty topped with pepper jack cheese, bacon, pickled jalapeno slices, "Angry onions," tomatoes, lettuce, mayo, and "angry sauce," all on a sesame seed bun.

I really liked Wendy's Spicy Baconator during that sandwich's limited run, so when I heard about the Angry Whopper I decided to ignore the stupid name and give it a try.

My daughter and I got to Burger King during the quiet lull between lunch and supper, hoping that the lack of a crowd would mean the BurgerDoodlers on the line wouldn't just chuck our sandwiches together. Hahaha! Good one, right?

Here's what my Angry Whopper actually looked like inside: A whopper patty, as expected, topped with pepper jack cheese. There is a slice of bacon on there somewhere - it's hiding under the tomatoes at the top there. I guess the "Angry Onions" got pissed off and stomped away, because there weren't any crisp spicy fried onions on my burger, just some plain old sliced yellow onion. That orange stuff is supposed to be "Angry Sauce." I thought it tasted more like sugary French dressing, but my daughter swore that it had some heat when she tasted it. It didn't do anything for me, though.

The pickled jalapenos were generous and quite hot - spicier than the average jalapenos in this case, and after getting about three of the slices in a single bite, I opened up the sandwich again and repositioned them to spread them more evenly around the inside. That made the heat much nicer, and reduced the vinegar concentration from the pickled pepper. Lettuce was standard iceberg, looking like they'd cut it up with a weed whacker, and tomatoes were also substandard winter tomatoes, with grainy pulp and hardly any recognizable flavor.

In spite of the obvious defects, the Angry Whopper was pretty decent. Heat level was adequate for me and not overwhelming. I fall fairly in the middle of the "heat tolerance" range, though, so if you're a chilehead you may find the "Angry Whopper" to be a "Somewhat Annoyed Whopper." I'd like to try it at a different Burger King restaurant next time, just to see if they have all the correct ingredients.

If you plan to try it out, you've got until 30 March 2009 - this is a limited-edition burger.

Links:
Burger King's website. (No mention of the Angry Whopper on their main site at the time I wrote this)
Angry Whopper press release at Business Wire.
Burger King's "Angry Gram" website, where you can send an "angry gram" e-mail featuring a talking Angry Whopper to someone you don't like.

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Ramen Review 9: Nissin Chow Mein Kung Pao Chicken Flavor

Nissen Chow Mein, Kung Pao Flavor.

Ease of Preparation: 6/10.
Add water and contents of vegetable packets to the bowl; cover and microwave for six minutes; stir in contents of seasoning packet and "liquid" packet; let stand 1 minute before serving. Like the beef flavor I reviewed earlier, this gets a couple points off for the six-minute microwaving time and the very flimsy bowl that needed the support of a plate underneath it in order to be removed from the microwave after heating.

Vegetable packet: 8/10
Onions, green onions, carrot, shiitake mushrooms, small bits of meat-like TVP, rather nice chunk of dried red chile pepper (hot!). This flavor also came with a small pouch of chopped nuts and a third pouch containing hoisin sauce and a small amount of hot chile oil.

Taste: 7/10
Tasty but not exceptional. The nuts were virtually indetectable in the final product and really added nothing to the flavor, which was predominately hoisin saucy with some mushroom backnotes. The texture was decent thanks to the occasional lumps of TVP.

Spiciness: 7/10
Nice background heat from beginning to end with frequent explosions of FIRE provided by the generous chunks of birdseye pepper. Made my nose run! Won't be hot enough for hard-core chiliheads but it was good enough for me.

Overall rating: 8/10 - Recommended.

Relevant links:
Nissin Home Page
Nissin Chow Mein Kung Pao Chicken Flavor Nutrition Facts (at www.thedailyplate.com)

Sargento Chipotle Cheddar And Spicy Twice-Baked Potatoes

I'm trying to figure out why it took me so long to notice the Sargento Bistro Blends Chipotle Cheddar shredded cheese in the supermarket's ever-more-humongous Cheese Region. It might be because there are now five hundred different types of bagged, pre-shredded cheese hanging in that refrigerated area (not including the store brand varieties.) Or it might be because "chipotle" stuff is so common nowadays that I don't even notice when some corporate food giant decides to add them to another substance and slap a red chile pepper on the front. Doesn't matter, I found some last week and brought it home, and discovered that it really isn't all that bad.

A somewhat dry, medium-sharp orange cheddar, it wouldn't really have much going for it if it weren't for the addition of the chipotle peppers. It works out well for the combination, because the mildish cheese offers an unobtrusive backdrop for the smoky heat of the chipotles. While not exactly the boldest kick in the ass ever to come out of a bag of cheese, the peppers still add a deeper flavor and a pleasant zing. My daughter loves it for quesadillas and cheese omelets.

Meanwhile, I had a bunch of leftover baked potatoes that I wanted to use up. Twice-baked potatoes are always welcome, but let's be honest: they're boring. But would they still be boring if they were twice baked with Chipotle Cheddar?

Spicy Twice-Baked Potatoes

Baked Potatoes (cooled enough to handle, or even chilled is OK )
Sour Cream
Milk
Tapatio Hot Sauce
Chipotle Cheddar
Paprika
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut each baked potato in half the long way, and scoop out the center. Reserve the skins. Mash the potato with sour cream, milk, and hot sauce, then mix well with chipotle cheddar cheese and paprika. Stuff the skins with the cheese-and-potato mixture, season to taste with salt and pepper. Bake uncovered in a 400 F oven until piping hot and melty.

Sorry I don't have exact measurements in the ingredient list - potatoes vary greatly in size. To help you with the proportions, I used somewhat small 4-inch-long Russets, so for each potato (i.e. two halves) I used:

3 tablespoons of sour cream
2 tablespoons of milk
About a teaspoon of Tapatio (you can use any hot sauce you like, but I don't like Tabasco because it's too vinegary.)
A big ol' heaping quarter cup of chipotle cheese (call it 6 tablespoons or so)
A quarter teaspoon of paprika.

They turned out great, and were a big hit. Even my daughter liked them, and she usually doesn't care for twice-baked spuds.

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Wendy's Spicy Baconator

If I could choose just one reason to buy fast food, it would be the bacon cheeseburger. Nothing satisfies the Burger Jones like beef, bacon, and cheese. And Wendy's new Spicy Baconator is quite possibly the best fast-food bacon cheeseburger I have ever had.

Wendy's website describes it like this:
"Spice up your day with six delicious bacon strips piled on two 1/4 lb. fresh, never frozen, burger patties, topped with Pepper Jack cheese, Chipotle Ranch sauce and jalapeños for an added kick."

Let me tell you: It's delicious.

One of the things that is so great about Wendy's is that they don't cook the living hell out of their burgers. The quarter-pound patties in my Baconator were cooked medium - still tender and juicy and a bit pink inside, not dried-out like a McD's or BK burger. The pepper jack cheese had a moderate amount of pepper embedded and it nicely balanced the mild cheese flavor. The Chipotle Ranch sauce, while not being a great source of heat itself, added a pleasant smokiness, and the jalapeños were a great touch: hot and spicy and crispy, with very little of the grassy flavor that green jalapeños often have (that might have been because they were pickled, which was a nice surprise.)

Don't expect to breathe fire after eating a Spicy Baconator, though. You will feel some heat, and there will be some residual fire on your lips when you're finished, but most chileheads will find the Spicy Baconator to be on the lower end of the heat scale. I suspect that a lot of Average Joes will think it's pretty intense, though, especially when they chomp on one of the jalapeños.

If you're a bacon cheeseburger fan looking for something different, the Spicy Baconator is for you.

Related Links:
The Spicy Baconator page at www.wendys.com

Doritos Fiery Habanero Tortilla Chips

So I was surveying the treats available in the cafeteria at work the other day, and I noticed something new: Doritos Fiery Habanero tortilla chips. It piqued my curiosity - most mass-marketed foods that are labeled as "fiery" really aren't that hot (it's that lowest-common-denominator thing) and most of them rely on cayenne pepper for their heat and paprika for their flavor. So I gambled eighty cents and bought a bag.

You know how sometimes things are labeled as being HOT, but they really aren't that bad? There might be the suggestion of some spicyness, but there's nothing special or exceptional about them and usually they aren't even as hot as you were hoping? Well, that does not describe Doritos Fiery Habanero chips. They really are hot. Capital "H" Hot, even.

The first thing you notice when you crunch into one is the slightly sour "nacho cheese" flavor that Doritos is famous for, but it is immediately followed by a subtle hint of habanero's signature "rotten apricot" taste. (Unlike some other habby products, this characteristic taste is not overwhelming; in fact, it is so well balanced with the cheeses and other seasonings that it's a lot more enjoyable than you might think.) The heat immediately blasts forth starting at the tongue and racing for the back of the throat. This fast attack makes the heat feel initially hotter than it really is, because after a couple chips you realize that the Doritos are delivering a pleasantly sharp burn, not so overwhelming that someone with medium tolerance will find them unpleasant, and not so mild that a real chilehead will be disappointed. I have to say, however, that these chips are likely to be too hot for nOObs.

It pleases me greatly to see on the back of the bag that the ingredients do not list any other chile pepper than habaneros. Frito-Lay is not taking a cheap shortcut and dosing the chips with cayenne - they're doing it right and using the real thing, 100%.

These get a strong thumbs-up.

Farmland Blazing Hot Bacon

Browsing through the local butcher shop last week, I noticed something new: Farmland brand Blazing Bacon. It claimed to be "Hot and Spicy Cured." The price was right - $2.39 for a full 16-ounce package - so I tossed one into the carriage. At worst, I'd end up with cheap but probably edible bacon, and at best, I'd have a spicy breakfast treat.

An examination of the packaging revealed some details: "Cured with water, salt, sugar, sodium phosphates, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrite. Rubbed with natural flavorings." So Blazing Bacon is pretty much a normally-cured bacon that's had some spices rubbed on. The packaging does not specify what the "natural flavorings" are, but a close look shows red powder. Probably cayenne pepper and paprika.

Above: Farmland's Blazing Bacon out of the package. Check out the top edge of the bacon slices. The hot spices are along the edge of the bacon with little penetration onto the surface of the slices.

The first thing I noticed when the bacon hit the hot frying pan was the rich smell of toasted paprika. It's an unmistakeable aroma that you just don't get with other pepper powders. As the bacon cooked and the fat tried out, the spices on the edges of the strips mingled with the fat and more evenly coated the bacon.
The bacon also got really wrinkled and curly. Farmland bacon is always pretty decent. It's never overly salty, doesn't seem to be too sugary, and has a well-balanced smoked flavor. It does tend to be a little fattier than some other brands, but hell, it's bacon: what do you expect? But I have noticed that Farmland is also a "wetter" cure than some others, and that's what makes it wrinkle and curl so much - the water frying out with the fat. Thankfully, it's not too "spitty" - it doesn't "pop" a whole lot, and it doesn't leave a lot of caramelized sugars at the bottom of my spider*.

And what about the taste? Very much like a standard bacon, but with a noticeable hot "edge." Not "Blazing," and not even very uncomfortable (even for my non-chilehead wife) but there it is. For all the wonderful paprika smell when the rashers hit the pan, there is no noticeable pepper taste, but there is that vaguely annoying "back-of-the-throat" cayenne pepper burn and lingering heated aftereffect in the mouth.

The verdict: Thumbs up, actually. Farmland really does make a good-quality product and sells it at a fair price, and Blazing Bacon with its mild capsaicin kick makes for a nice bit of variety at breakfast.

* - Spider is a New England term for "cast iron frying pan." See? You learn something new every day.

Fishy Delights 3: Bumble Bee Sardines In Hot Sauce

Bumble Bee Sardines in Hot Sauce - the label says "Premium Quality," and that's sad because it means that Bumble Bee has really lowered their standards pretty dramatically.

Under the attractively-designed lid of this sardine tin, I found four massive fish and two smaller ones, rather haphazardly packaged and looking a little like they had been processed with a weed whacker (at least they'd been scaled - it is so disgusting to get a mouthful of fishscales.)

The term "hot sauce" on the front label is a little deceptive. The deeners are packed in oil which seems to include a cloudy red slurry. That must be the hot sauce, and there is nothing subtle about it - The harsh cayenne heat is virtually devoid of any flavor and slams into your mouth and throat like a chunk of burning sandpaper. Not my favorite kind of spiciness, but tolerable with a handful of nori crackers for me and probably enjoyable as-is for many others.

Regardless of their shortcomings, these fishies are selling for fifty cents a can at the local job lot stores, so they're a cheap and decent lunch.