El Yucateco Habanero & Chiltepin
Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXZNCvJWkaI
As part of their 50th year anniversary celebration, El Yucateco made a number of variants. For a while, they were available online only, with the plan to eventually get them to the Mexican market grocers and perhaps beyond. While I was wandering the aisles looking for other stuff, I happened to come across them. Some, such as the coffee one, held moderate interest for me (I may do one or both of the Marisqueras at some future point), but I held some hope for the Ghost pepper one, which regrettably also had onions. After poking around further, I eventually settled on this one.
Immediately, I noticed a sort of off flavor that I couldn't quite place and which never really went away. It's possible this is from the chiltepin, but there is also a number of spices and it could be one of those. Habanero and garlic also come into the mix a bit and, regrettably, so does the acetic acid and lemon. This creates a bit of an issue in that if you don't have something fairly strong-flavored to offset this, it notably detracts from the food. It's not awful or inedible, but is the sort of thing I wouldn't be inclined to do twice.
Heat is very moderate, so if you wanted to add just a tinge of kick to the food, this might be a good one to go with. I could see this working very nicely in a chili, for instance, where you have a composite of flavors. By itself, it frankly isn't particularly good-tasting and this is somewhat of a problem that cuts down rather notably on flexibility. Most Mexican-style sauces I prefer to keep to that type of food, but the table sauces often will work well on things like pizza and ramen and maybe even mac & cheese in a pinch. That is definitely not the case with this one.
Bottom line: A sort of interesting variation, but for me, the whole is perhaps somewhat less than the sum of the parts and is one I consider sort of a misfire.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 3
Flexibility: 3
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3
Overall: 3
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