Gingered Mango-Habanero Sauce

Written for the Spice is Right IV: It’s too darn hot event at Tigers & Strawberries 

Habanero (Capsicum Chinense Jacquin) the hottest pepper in the world – it is the dread of every spice wimp from pole to pole. Rated between 100,000 and 350,000 Scoville units, the pepper is often described as having a fruity heat that many chileheads fine irresistible. A native of Cubathe habanero has spread all over the world. Never smoked or dried like many of its cousins it none the less finds its way into a surprising number of dishes; from sauces to Japanese snack food. 

It is the kind of thing that also brings dread to the home cook. Even the more experienced among us who play with South American flavors and devour the milder chipotle, ancho, and pasilla chiles shy away from. We prefer, out of the desperate desire to avoid chemically burning off all of our taste buds, to leave habaneros to the professionals. 

Until this challenge, I was one of those home cooks.

While I am not exactly a spice wimp, my Eastern European bred palate is not exactly geared towards hot food. None the less I happily and recklessly go about tossing cayenne pepper into just about everything. And even though the particular version of cayenne pepper that I use is rated at 90,000 Scoville units, I pinch it like a miser pinches pennies.

I like my heat subtle. Because my palate is better suited to cream sauces and subtlety, intense heat overwhelms me quickly obliterating the flavor of the food and leaving nothing but the burn. I do not eat food to endure it. I eat food because I like the taste of it. So when I use chiles I prefer for the chile to warm my mouth slowly and leave a lasting warmth that lingers on, keeping the flavors of the dish fresh in my mind long after the last bite is gone. 

And though the bright color and lantern shape of the habanero has always been enticing, I have thus far shied away from it. What got me started on this idea was a chance purchase of Fischer & Wieser’s Mango-Habanero sauce in a specialty market. It sat upon my shelf for several months before I needed a quick marinade for some lovely tuna I was going to sear. Since tuna and fruit go really well together I opened my precious bottle and tasted.

What I expected was hot hot hot! What I got was mild, sweet, and slightly tart with a soft linger heat that built up in the back of the throat then subsided ever so slowly. It was a hit on the tuna and I was in love. It was and even bigger hit on shrimp, marinated for a half an hour, dredged in flour and pan fried. But sadly just after a few meals my sauce was gone. 

And I couldn’t find another bottle ANYWHERE. I knew that the company had a website but alas since the bottle too was gone I had no idea where to start looking. So months later when, by chance, I found another bottle, I started with the idea of recreating it on my own. The ingredient list was simple enough after all. Just mangos, ginger, habanero, water, apple cider vinegar, and spices. Nothing I couldn’t pronounce and nothing that I didn’t have on hand. Exactly the kind of product I like.

Unfortunately that is where the easy ended. I don’t know what it says about me that I walk blithely into situations that quickly become complicated. My favorite way to try new things is to find recipes on the internet and tweak them to my liking. However when I went to Google mango-habanero sauce on the internet none of the 14,000 hits seemed to be what I wanted. 

The typical mango-habanero sauce recipe was a jumble of unrelated ingredients that more often resembled a salsa than the cooked sauce I was looking for. I spent days trying different searches, none of which proved helpful. 

This was slightly terrifying as I had never worked with habaneros and my one experience with chile hands and eyes had not been pleasant. Throwing caution to the wind, I bought 5 beautiful little habaneros and a box of mangos and set to work. Fortuitously,  Alton Brown aired a show on chiles and explained that sugar helped to mellow chile’s heat. Armed with this knowledge I now knew how to fix just about any issue that should arise.

My initial recipe idea was to use 1 habanero to two mangos. This proved entirely too hot for my tastes, even with the addition of a quarter cup of raw sugar. The mango flavor was immediately subsumed beneath the fiery heat of the habanero and while it was not intolerable the heat was unpleasant. To fix this I quickly whipped up another batch of the mango mixture, sans chile, and added it to the first batch.

This was perfect. Bright yellow; the sauce was fruity, slightly sweet, subtly gingery with heat that built slowly and subsided without being incendiary. Even my mother approved… after the tiniest bit of complaining about the heat which in her vocabulary was a seal of approval. 

But now that I had the sauce…what should to do with it?

Since it had been hot, my first though was ice cream. Alas, because I lack a working ice cream maker I could not turn it into ice cream but I could certain top vanilla ice cream with it. 

WOW. 

There is nothing like the experience of ice cold ice cream straight from the freezer slowly warming your mouth. The contrast is electric. A contradiction in sensations that produces an unparalleled rush. As a bonus, the mango and vanilla are perfect together, a sort of tropical creamcicle. Had I an ice cream maker, I think the mango habanero would make an absolute perfect swirl in vanilla ice cream. Add at just the last second so that it would cleave a spicy ribbon through the rich field of cream.

But the sauce isn’t just for desserts. My original bottle of Mango-Habanero sauce was used up in savory dishes. And since I didn’t have any shrimp on hand, I marinated the next best thing; chicken tenders. Left over night in a cup of sauce and some salt, they were quickly pan fired to caramelize the marinade creating a sublime combination of flavors. The cooking had also performed a sort of magic. While the sweetness of the mango was immediately felt upon the tongue, the heat of the pepper was hardly detectable at all. 

Untill you stopped chewing. 

The habanero crept slowly in leaving behind a sweet heat that left me aching for another bite. 

Will I be making this recipe again? 

Absolutely. Over and over and over again. 

Will I play with the habanero again? 

Probably not. At least not outside of this particular recipe. As much as I love the way this sauce turned out, the pepper is just too hot for me. As it was, I pulled the stem and dropped the pepper into my food processor whole, loathe to actually cut it open. Since the only way I could manage the heat of this pepper is to use tiny pieces in a huge quantity of food, it is not worth the risk. I would rather use the far more controllable cayenne pepper which I can measure precisely. 

Still this is a recipe that will go in the permanent recipe file. Just the sensation of hot ice cream alone was worth the effort.
 

Gingered Mango-Habanero Sauce 

4 large mangoes or 6 smaller ones
1 ripe habanero pepper [1]
½ cup lemon or lime juice
a 3 inch piece of ginger, grated [2]
¼ - ¾ cups of raw sugar
1-2 cups water or apple juice
 

Remove the stem from the habanero and toss into the food processor whole. Pulse the processor on and off until the chile is in tiny pieces. This is best done in a mini food processor or chopper. 

Peel the mango and remove the flesh from the pit. Add to the food processor with the habanero and process until the mango is completely smooth. 

Pour the mixture into a medium sized saucepan and set on low heat.[3] Add all of the lime juice and ginger. Add a quarter of the cup of sugar and 1 cup of water. Mix until the mixture is loose. 

Bring to a boil and continue to cook on low heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture has reduced and thickened again. About a half hour to forty-five minutes. Taste and adjust the sugar. She sauce should be pleasantly sweet but not cloying. If a thinner sauce is desired, add some of the remaining water or juice. 

Allow to cool and refrigerate over night.

Use either as a dipping sauce, marinade or dessert sauce. 

[1] Underipe habaneros are green. They ripen to a startling array of colors from white to bright red. If a hotter sauce is desired two habaneros may be used. 

[2] I freeze my ginger to make it easier to peel and grate. The frozen ginger is not as fibrous and produces a very fine, almost invisible shred on my Microplane grater. 

[3] Use a larger saucepan than necessary as the mango has a tendency to splatter leaving colorful yellow spots everywhere. Like on your cat. Cats do not appreciate being mango napalmed. Trust me.

 

 

Comments

[Tanna]

What a fun read! And you've given me courage. I also love those sauces but am reluctant to play with those peppers. I've gotten very good with rubber gloves from the dollar store. I would very much like to try your recipe. Hot ice cream!

[Cereselle]

I would never have thought to try this in a million years. But now I desperately want to. I am a complete pepper wimp-- I have a hard time dealing with cayenne, even. But this sounds just amazing.

Can I just say how much I love your blog? The pictures are gorgeous, the recipes are interesting and fun, and it's so great to read about how you chose them and how you went about making them. I love love love this blog.

(also, honey, it's 'palate', not 'pallet.' Homonyms. :)

[Kitarra]

Tanna,

The hot ice cream was awsome. The idea of putting something cold in your mouth and feeling heat is just soo cool! I admit that I was too chicken to cut it open and risk contaminating the surfaces of my kitchen with it. Hence why I just lightly tossed it into the mini-prep food processor. Let me know how it turns out for you!

Cereselle

Arg! That spelling mistake was word's fault! It auto corrected. Fixed now. Thank you!

And that you on the blog. I LOVE doing it. I am having a blast! Chris helped with the site colors so some of the credit goes to him! Thank you.

And if you try this recipe and its still hot, add another two mangoes or some sugar untill its too your liking. *hugs* See you soon!

-Kit

[jenjen]

what an interesting combination. I would be expecting the sauce to be hot hot hot too, but I guess the mango adds a bit of sweetness to the flavour. I will definitely be on the look out for something like this, thanks

[keiko]

Kitarra, I'm so tempted by this sauce - even though it's extremely hot! It sounds really versatile too, thank you for the inspiration.

[Kitchen Queen]

This sounds divine! I love lots of chiles and can handle hotter habaros, but the idea of a chile sauce for ice cream makes me smile. I'll definitely be making this!

[Kitchen Queen]

Oh wow, did you ever create something wonderful! I made it and used it last night on ice cream...you can read about it at my blog if you want. Thank you so much for posting this recipe!!!

[Kitarra]

JenJen

If you want to try a comercial product www.jelly.com sells the one that I modled mine after. The taste is a little more savory but its very good. And its not nearly as hot as you might think. Let me know if you try it!

Keiko

I would love to see your pictures of it. Also, since you make your own ice cream frequently, you should be able to just pour some of the sauce in to your mix and get mango-habanero ice cream! I can't wait to see what you do with it!

Kitchen Queen

You are very welcome! I love your recipe for popcorn! Sounds yummy! I am glad you enjoyed the sause as much as I did! Thank you!

[ejm]

I really like hot food but I'm leary of habaneros too. They are SO hot (although not as hot as some really tiny birdseye-like peppers we got once in Italy - those were killer hot.)

My husband, on the other hand, has been known to shave habaneros and eat them with crackers....

I think your ginger mango habanero sauce is tailor made for us. Many thanks for posting it!

-Elizabeth

[aria]

i love the *sweet heat* and maaaango's, YUM. i have to admit though, i am timid when it comes to habeneros. i think my fingers are still burning from chopping them years ago w/o gloves. your potstickers look AWESOME and i love the idea of eating it with icecream.

[Kitarra]

Elizabeth,

Shaved habaneros? WOW! Brave man. I don't think I could handle that much heat. The first part of my batch was hot enough for me and I had to dilute it. Let me kn ow if you try making it. Reports have been very positive so far!

Aria,

The postickers are called vareniki and they are stuffed with potatoes. I am working on the dough recipe so I can post it, cause its kinda the type of recipe where you fiddle with it untill the dough looks right and that's not easy.

I am kinda leary of hot peppers as well. When my mom had a restuarant we use to chop up pickled peperoncini and those ended up burning my fingers all the time. I can't imagine what habanero would do. This is why I just three it all in the food processor. I didn't want to touch them. Though I suppose you could make this less hot if you took out the seeds!

Eating it with ice cream seems very popular. My guests loved it! Though in my house most of it went to marinate chicken!

-Kit

[kate]

I am so impressed with this recipe & I hav'nt even tried it yet.
I am a similar cook to you & love to try & invent new recipes, but the story behind this one was even better than the forthcoming recipe.
I wish you lived near me, as I grow my own habanero's & would happily share them with you.
Thanks heaps for the entertainment you brought, in this great piece of literiture,
Regards & happy
Cooking ,Kate

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