What is Chilli sauce?
Chilli sauce is a type of food condiment, seasoning, or spicy tomato sauce(salsa) made from blended chili peppers with other ingredients.
Historically, the earliest to be domesticated of the types of chilli we have today still remains the most popular. It is Capsicum annum, chilli pepper. Its domestication from wild bird pepper dates back to Mayan empire in today’s Mexico, about 6,000 years ago.
Why is a chilli called chilli when actually it’s hot?
The word “Chilli” is a Nahuatl (Uto-Aztectan language ) word, it means Peppers or Capsicum. Though this ancient Nahuati word is still being used in the modern age, it now shares similar pronunciation with “Chilly”,an English word for very cold and unpleasant to touch, “Chilli” when used to describe sauce, means that the sauce is made from pepper.
Why is Chilli hot?
Pepper contains a chemical substance called Capsaicin. This chemical ,in chilli pepper and your hot sauce, when in contact with your body cell,activates a certain protein(TRPV1) in the cell and you immediately get a burning feeling as the feedback of your body’s pain response.
The hot ‘taste’ you feel in your mouth when eating hot sauce is not actually a taste phenomenon and that’s why capsaicin is used in topical analgesic creams for pain management too.
How To Choose the best pepper for your hot sauce?
The choice of pepper in your hot sauce depends on how spicy or ‘hot’ the pepper used in the sauce is and the amount of the pepper spice present in sauce.
There is a scale that rates how spicy each pepper is. That scale is known as Scoville scale.The spiciness of the pepper is determined and recorded in Scoville Heat Units (SHU), based on the concentration of capsaicinoids,especially capsaicin.
The scale is named after American Pharmacist Wilbur Scoville, who invented the method in 1912 and named it Scoville organoleptic test which uses the subjective feedback you get from capsaicinoid sensitivity of people experienced with eating hot chilis.
In this digital era, use of advanced machines like HPLC has replaced the subjective feedback.
Below is a sample of the Scoville Scale.
What are the categories of hot sauce.
Hot sauce can either be home made or commercial branded hot sauce. These days, there are many commercial varieties of mass-produced hot sauce.
Hot sauce is sometimes called Chili sauce, but when it is chilli sauce, it is usually thicker in texture and viscosity, and comes in sweeter or have milder to taste varieties.
How do you make home made chili sauce from scratch?
Choose your spicer based on the level of spiciness you want then get all the other ingredients and mix. For example, check the ingredients below(you can replace the cayenne pepper with another pepper on the Scoville scale)
1 can of tomato paste(#6Z size).
Add between 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water to thin the paste,
1/4 cup brown sugar.
2 tablespoons honey.
1 tablespoon of corn flour mixed with water,
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar or to taste (you can experiment with hard cider)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon paprika,
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Depending on how hot and concentrated you want for your hot sauce,add as much as you want quantity of blended cayenne for spicier.
Mix and cook ingredients together for few minutes to conceal into a consistent paste and chilli flavour.
What is chilli sauce made of?
Ingredients in commercially prepared chilli sauce typically contain ingredients such as puréed or chopped chili peppers, vinegar, sugar and salt that are cooked, which thickens the mixture.
Other ingredients added may include, water, garlic, other foodstuffs, corn syrup, spices and seasonings. Some of the milder varieties use ripe red puréed tomato as the primary ingredient.
What do you use chili sauce for?
It can be used as an ingredient in food recipes and give a spicy taste to mild tasty or bland foods like vegetables, pork/beef chops, spaghetti sauce and many others.
What is the nutrional benefit of chilli sauce?
In a quantity of 112grams of your common chilli sauce like Home Pride chilli sauce, there are;
Energy 269kJ/64kcal
Fat 0.5gram
Sugars 6.7grams
Salt 0.78 grams
Saturates less than 0.1gram
What are the health benefits of chilli sauce
Chilli sauce is rich in essential antioxidants, minerals, and vitamins, such vitamin A and vitamin C.
These antioxidants in hot sauce effectively help slow down premature aging of cells, lower blood pressure and reduce inflammation in the body.
What are the examples of best chili sauce?
Home Pride Chili Sauce,
Franks red hot sauce
Thai Kitchen Gluten Free Sweet Red Chili Dipping Sauce, GNT
Spices chilli sauce
Huy Fong Fresh Chili Garlic Sauce
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