... He had a ready answer:
“ Encona Pepper Sauce” he said “We use it all the time”
On his advice, I travelled the highways and byways of Balham, Brixton and Dalston, all areas with strong connections to the West Indies, and with many purveyors of Jamaican foodstuffs. No joy.
I called ... Read review
(+) Tasty and versatile, it can be added to a wide range of meals to give it a kick! (-) I wish they sold the bottle sizes that they have in the restaurants!
Advantages: Hot as Hades, but with a beautiful flavour Disadvantages: None...unless you're a foolish Customs officer or you really don't like chillies
...answer:
“ Encona Pepper Sauce” he said “We use it all the time”
On his advice, I travelled the highways and byways of Balham, Brixton and Dalston, all areas with strong connections to the West Indies, and with many purveyors of Jamaican foodstuffs. No joy.
I called Neville back in Ocho Rios and asked him if he could send me some of his magic ingredient for me to try.
I then spent a few ... ...with 47 unsullied bottles of Encona Pepper Sauce.
Back at the ranch (Monster’s, to give the restaurant it’s proper name) the chef and I made up a small batch of chilli but left out the eponymous ingredient.
Armed with a bowl and a spoon each, we tried various amounts of the sauce stirred into a portion of chilli.
We reduced the amount dramatically and tried again.
And again.
more
I recently wrote an op straight from my heart…or is that heartburn…about chillies, and offered you Ciao types my recipe for chilli con carne.
At least one person has tried the recipe already, and hasn’t as yet been spotted round Sleevie Towers wielding an axe or a writ. Supposing that he’s still alive, and isn’t lying like some burnt out husk of the tall figure he formerly was…laid low by chilli poisoning…I have to suppose that his efforts were a success.
I thought it only right to give credit where it’s due in respect of this recipe.
Oh, make no mistake…it’s an original Sleevie version of this classic dish, but it’s origins lie in the dim and distant past, (the ‘80s) when for a short time Mrs Sleevie and I had a restaurant and bar in Wimbledon. The menu was nothing special, with steaks and burgers, chicken and so on. One of the dishes, which became hugely popular, was called Tiger Thomson’s Famous Chilli. I have to confess there was no real reason for calling it this other than that my surname is Thomson, and I thought the alliteration sounded good. Believe me it wasn’t famous…at least not at the outset…and to this day, I’ve never had stripes or worn one of those natty fur coats!
The recipe was adapted from the one I’d been using and developing at home. It only needed scaling up, and this was easily done. Needful too, as we were soon cooking about 12 kilos of steak mince a day!
The problems arose when we realised that the quality and potency of our chillies wasn’t easy to control, so sometimes the stuff got a little out of control (Punters running around screaming and setting off fire extinguishers into their mouths, folk stripping to their scanties in attempts to cool off…you get the idea)
I broached this problem with a friend of mine; a hotelier in Jamaica. He had a ready answer:
“ Encona Pepper Sauce” he said “We use it all the time”
On his advice, I travelled the highways and byways of Balham, Brixton and Dalston, all areas with strong connections to the West Indies, and with many purveyors of Jamaican foodstuffs. No joy.
I called Neville back in Ocho Rios and asked him if he could send me some of his magic ingredient for me to try.
I then spent a few happy hours with those nice blokes at H.M Customs & Excise trying to explain that the package Neville had sent was certainly NOT drugs or anything else even remotely contraband. You see, Neville, being the generous sort hadn’t sent me one well-wrapped bottle…he’d sent me 4 dozen of the things!
Messieurs les Customs attacked the parcel with vigour despite my protestations. I was worried they would unseal every bottle looking for something in the Class B drugs category, leaving me with a lot of mess and (for hygiene reasons) no useable sauce.
Thankfully, Fate – blessed with a great sense of humour – intervened. The stroppiest of the officers decided to have a taste of the one bottle they had opened. He actually took a swig!
Now imagine doing that with ANY sauce: HP, Worcestershire, Tommy K, whatever. You can’t can you? It would be disgusting!
Well - now think of doing it with a bottle of distilled Scotch Bonnet chillies. (See ‘Ring of Fire’ for a rundown on the comparative strength of these mighty fruits) and you’ll get a notion of what this action did to the wee jobbie in uniform. Even his mates were going purple with bottled up laughter as they watched him swigging water and sticking his fingers down his throat (both things NOT to do when you’ve accidentally swallowed something too hot, by the way).
So, after this light-hearted ending to a monumental waste of an afternoon, I was permitted to make my way home with 47 unsullied bottles of Encona Pepper Sauce.
Back at the ranch (Monster’s, to give the restaurant it’s proper name) the chef and I made up a small batch of chilli but left out the eponymous ingredient.
Armed with a bowl and a spoon each, we tried various amounts of the sauce stirred into a portion of chilli.
We reduced the amount dramatically and tried again.
And again.
Eventually we arrived at an amount of sauce per portion that normal human could stand, and a quick reckoning had it that we would be able to serve the Tiger’s Finest to roughly the population of Tokyo with the 47 bottles…but no seconds!
So…Encona Hot Pepper Sauce…the op was supposed to be about this stuff, wasn’t it…before I got sidetracked with memories of the customs man’s face (hahahahaahha…BONK! Laughing my head off again – sorry)
This native of Jamaica comes in a clear glass bottle standing about 18cm high…that’s…I dunno…about 4/6 in old money (ask your gran…she’ll remember) and square in section…like the old HP Sauce bottle…(ask your gran…she’ll remember) with a plastic screw top. It contains 142 ml of an opaque liquid of orangey-red colour in which are clearly visible many, many seeds. These are of course the chilli seeds you are often advised to remove from fresh chillies before you use them...you've been warned. The label is a red, white and blue concoction which looks like it was done in 1953 by a talented schoolboy with blunt pencils; no computer aided design and marketing b*llsh1t here!
The ingredients are a model of clarity…no artificial anything…just Scotch Bonnet and Habañero peppers, spirit vinegar, onion, salt, corn starch and spices. 1.2g of fat per 100ml of sauce won’t kill you or add the dreaded millimetres to the waistline…don’t worry, you won’t be consuming 100ml of THIS baby, I can tell you! (Just ask an apoplectic customs man at a convenient airport ) Nowadays, the sauce, while still prepared in Jamaica, is bottled here in the UK, so you don’t need to be worrying friends and relations in the West Indies to send you a sample. Good delis, larger supermarkets and many a corner store will have this on the shelf, or if not, should be able to get it for you easily.
The summary of this op should be…and indeed is (after all, as I’m the one writing it, who better than me to decide?) that every home should have a bottle of this stuff…even folk like Sersha, who professes to hate all things chilli, and DiFranco01, who has every reason to be suspicious of stuff like this (and I know, ‘cause she told me so). Even folk like these have friends who might like to jazz up a pasta sauce or give their pizza a little culinary frisson…and there’s no better way to do it than with a dash of Encona.
There’s no website for Encona, or none that I could find, and a random selection of suitable words seemed only to summon the Tabasco website from it’s unquiet slumbers. I finally came up with a site for Martin’s Island Hot Sauces at http://www.gourmet-sensation.com/ where, though you’ll find no mention of my favourite sauce, there is a wealth of Caribbean recipes…a consolation prize. You might like to look at http://www.geocities.com/oneelkruns/hot.html for a rundown on other spicy condiments, including the legendary ‘Dave’s Insanity’. Me - I’ll stick with the insanity I know and love, (inside my head) and the sauce I know and trust; Encona!
Advantages: A powerful sauce Disadvantages: small bottle
...different flavours available in the Encona World of Sauces. They are Tropical Hot Pepper Sauce, Creole Hot Pepper Sauce, Jamaican Jerk Sauce, Original Hot Pepper Sauce, Smooth Hot Pepper Sauce, Thai Sweet Chili Sauce, Cajun Hot Pepper Sauce. I shall be writing this review on the later of these, Cajun Hot Pepper Sauce.
I have had this sauce for some time and only use a splash now and again. I mainly use it on Spaghetti Bolognaise and Chilli Con Carni, ... ...slightly feminine in shape. Encona is embossed on either side of the bottle. The lid is red resembling the red hot chilli's that went into the bottle to make the sauce. It has best before date clearly marked on the top of the lid. The front of the label has a picture of a steamboat paddling across Mississippi. Just like in Tom Sawyers, Huckleberry Finn. The background of the label is patterned with what looks like hessian sacking. Enconas Logo can ...
Kingkarliii 09.05.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Encona Hot Pepper Sauce
Advantages: It's exactly what it says on the bottle, HOT Disadvantages: Can be a pain (literally) if you use too much, slightly vinegary aftertaste.
...I thank the heavens for Encona Hot Pepper sauce.
I've known about this stuff since 1990 or so when I started trawling around delis in Liverpool looking for various spicy condiments and stuff after THAT curry. The bottle is nothing special to look at. It's a clear class bottle containing some orange stuff with bits in it (mainly the seeds). It's got a blue and white label that looks very West Indies and little pictures of scotch bonnet chillies. ... ...bonnet and Habanero chillies, onions vinegar and a few other natural ingredients. No E numbers or colourants in this stuff. The taste is pleasant in a hot sort of way with a slightly vinegary after taste. To be honest this isn't as bad as it sounds and as your unlikely to be eating this stuff neat not a major problem.
Where the pepper sauce stands out is it's consistency and it's versatility. It's not like some sauces I've had where the heat can ...
ayanayuk 04.07.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Encona Hot Pepper Sauce
Advantages: Incredibly hot and tangy Disadvantages: overpowering at large quantities
Absolute Genius! By far the best 'hot' condiment (the only, in my opinion) ever to hit the shelves!
To spice loving novices, be careful...dip your finger in for a small taster before squirting this stuff all over ya plate like it was HP! This stuff is exactly what it says on the label...HOT! You've been warned!
For people like me who actually go through an entire bottle every fortnight...do as you please!
A fiery orange puree of Scotch Bonnet ... ...water just typing this and will yours when you pick it up from your shelf and open the lid. My advice would be to use no more than 1 tsp in a chilli, curry or whatever... peronally i add it to anything and everything so long as it is savoury!
Ingredients include:
Scotch Bonnet & Habanero Peppers, water, Acetic Acid, Salt, Onion, Mustard, Modified Corn Starch and Xanthan gum
It gives an immediate hit which actually intensifies while you are eating ...
browny78 20.08.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Encona Hot Pepper Sauce
Advantages: Feeling hot hot hot!! and u only need to use a little amount Disadvantages: None, unless you hote hot sauces!
Chillis, cant get enough of them…so when I saw this bottle of sauce on the shelf of my local supermarket, I thought Ive got to try that! yself and my boyfriend absolutely love hot and spicy foods, and if anything isn’t spicy, then we tend to MAKE IT spicy!!
The first time we used this pepper sauce was in a chicken stir fry, we used just under a teaspoon full and cor blimey govnor, it blew our mouths off!! It was really really and spicy, not that ... ...you only need to use a little of it to taste the benefits.
This sauce is produced in the Caribbean and imported over to the UK. Its made with Scotch Bonnet peppers and Habenero peppers which I believe to be some of the hottest peppers. Other ingredients are vinegar, onion, salt, corn starch and Spices. Its also suitable for vegetarians.
The bottle I bought is 142ml and contains 1.2g of fat per 100ml so the fat content is pretty low. I paid 99p ...
Haybo 23.09.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Encona Hot Pepper Sauce
Advantages: It is The Buisness Disadvantages: Not for Chilli Beginers
Quite simply the best chilli sauce on the market.
This is a Jamaican (though bottled in the UK) medium hot sauce made with scotch bonnet peppers (the little shrivelled up evil ones). It has a fairly runny texture and it has seeds in it, which adds to the heat, woo hoo. Whereas Tabasco sauce is really vinegar with chilli added to heat it up this is a proper chilli sauce. The flavour is quite rich despite the temperature of the sauce and it compliments ... ...your pizza base sauce and it brings it alive, stir fried with chicken and it is truly amazing, or with chips and cheese.
It really has a million and one uses (4 actually) as a barbecue sauce, a marinade, an ingredient or as a dip. Controlling the heat of the final dish is easy, following my sure fire way of calculating the heat of a dish:-
I dollop = spicy 2 dollops = hotter
3 dollops = hotter still Stop poncing around and pour the dam thing = ...
Champ666 22.03.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Encona Hot Pepper Sauce
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Advantages: Great taste and price, perfect for parties + gatherings Disadvantages: Not good for anyone who hates anything slightly spicy.
doesn't stock it.
There are also different flavours of Enconasauce that you may wish to try. These include:
~HotPepperSauce
~Sweet Mango Chilli Dip
~Jamaican Jerk Sauce
~Cajun HotPepperSauce
~Smooth Papaya HotPepperSauce
~Chilli Barbeque Sauce
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*~Overall view~*
If you ever buy a dip for personal use or for a social gathering I recommend this one above all others, particularly if you are making oriental snacks. Whilst you don't need to use too much of this sauce to enjoy its flavour I find than I use copious amounts on my food (especially fried rice) that I should because I enjoy it so much. That means ...
