Red Hot Sauces

At the beginning of the year I was asked if I could devise a sauce for Red Hot World Buffet. For anyone who has never been, Red Hot offer an all you can eat buffet with a variety of world cuisines.

With so many different cuisines on offer in the restaurant, it was initially difficult to decide where to start with a suitable sauce... Indian, Chinese, Italian, British...? So I decided not to focus on just one but to come up with several sauces and to see which one they liked best. On that basis I made a lime chutney suitable for Indian food, a plum sauce for Chinese food, a sweet chilli sauce, a tomato ketchup and a brown sauce.

After several weeks of maturing in the bottle, it was time for the sauces to have their first outing so on Tuesday I took them to the Red Hot restaurant in Milton Keynes' theatre district where the chefs & service staff had a chance to have a taste. Oddly it was both exciting and slightly nerve-raking to be present as people tasted my sauces. After many years of making preserves I have learnt to have faith in what I make because lots of people have told me that it's good stuff but usually people just buy a few jars and disappear, to eat and comment in private.

The feedback from the Red Hot staff was both useful and interesting and soon it became obvious that the Lime Chutney, Plum Sauce & Sweet Chilli Sauce were the 3 favourites. Another or maybe several tasting sessions are needed yet but it was a good start. It will be interesting to see how the process unfolds.