Bitter: 🟡🟡○○○
Salty: 🟡🟡○○○
Sour/Tangy:🟡🟡○○○
Sweet: 🟡🟡🟡○○
Umami: 🟡🟡🟡🟡
Heat: 🟡🟡○○○○○○○○
Quick Flavor Notes: Tomato, garlic, sweet, smoky, earthy, rich
Recommended: Yes
Texture: Medium-thick, smooth, creamy
Ingredients: Purified Water, Onion, Tomato, Chilies (Bhavnagiri Chilies, Sankeshwari Chilies), Sugar, Vinegar \[Water, Acidity Regulator (INS 260)\], Garlic, Vegetable Oil (Rice Bran Oil), Soya Sauce \[Soyabeans, Wheat Flour, Spice Extract, Flavor Enhancers (E621, E631, E627), Natural Color (E150c)\], Salt, Permitted Class II Preservatives (E211), Stabilizer (E415).
Naagin Indian Hot Sauce was founded in 2019 by three friends Mikhel Rajani, Kshitij Neelakantan and Arjun Rastogi. Rajani, who’d always been interested in food entrepreneurship and had left his family’s textile business to study hospitality in Hong Kong before founding his own ghost-kitchen pizza business, realized that India needed a homegrown hot sauce brand. India is the world’s largest consumer of chile peppers and the world’s largest exporter of dried chiles being responsible for 40% of the world supply (Mexico leads is fresh chile exports). The trio decided that they should launch an Indian hot sauce made from Indian peppers grown by Indian farmers. Today the company partners with small and family farms throughout India developing ongoing relationships with fair trade practices. The name of the company came from a cricket match Rajani was watching where he saw the players and spectators doing a snake-like dance called the Naagin Dance, meant to imitate a cobra (as naagin means cobra in Hindi). Thinking it was a great name for a hot sauce the brand was born.
India was first introduced to chiles by the Portuguese through their port city of Goa. The Goans embraced them almost immediately turning the Portuguese wine and pork dish carne de vinha d’alhos into the vindaloo curry which is still wildly popular today. Over the next two centuries chiles spread throughout India and evolved into unique peppers not seen in the rest of the world from the mild yet aromatic Kashmiri chile to the scorching ghost pepper. Naagin Original uses two chiles I haven’t encountered in a hot sauce before – Bhavnagiri and Sankeshwari. Bhavnagiri chiles are from Bhavnagar, a city in Gujarat (which, coincidentally, is the Indian state where a ton of Indian immigrants to the USA come from) and are green with a mild heat and a thick flesh. They’re known to have a mild sweet fresh pepper flavor. Sankeshwari, likewise, come from Sankeshwar a town in Maharashtra, western India’s wealthiest and most developed state. Sankeshwari chiles are medium-heat that builds over time and are said to have a smoky and earthy flavor. In addition to the chiles this sauce includes tomatoes, onion, garlic, sugar, rice bran oil (which isn’t something I see often, but it’s nice to see a unique oil), vinegar, and soy sauce. The soy sauce used doesn’t appear to be an artisanal product as it includes flavor enhancers E621, E631 and E627 (which are MSG, disodium inosinate, and disodium guanylate) plus ‘Natural Color E150c’ (caramel coloring). This also includes preservative E211 which is sodium benzoate and stabilizer E415 with is xanthan gum. I have notices many hot sauces from developing nations tend to have artificial preservatives so, while I don’t like to see them in hot sauces, it may be a requirement in India.
Naagin Original Indian Hot Sauce has a medium-thick consistency and a smooth texture. The aroma is a combination of sweet, earthy, and somehow almost mushroomy and meaty. With the oil this sauce is almost fully emulsified, not quite to the level of a mayonnaise, but certainly creamier than the majority of hot sauces. Naagin Original has a mellow sweetness that’s evident at the front but that’s balanced against the rich flavor of the tomato, onion, and garlic as well as the smoky earthy Sankeshwari chiles. With the tomato, onion, and chiles plus the creamy texture this sauce has a hint of a butter chicken or chicken tikka masala vibe, though it doesn’t have the traditional spices used in either. The soy sauce comes through as the flavor develops and brings a salty umami element that again help offset the sweetness at the leading edge of this sauce. Being generally unfamiliar with the Indian chiles used the Bhavnagiri seem to be used primarily for bulk and substance in this sauce, similar to how many sauce makers use bell peppers, and they do bring a bit of a vegetal quality which is nice. The Sankeshwari remind me somewhat of certain dried Mexican chiles like guajillo or ancho with a earthy smoky dried-fruit flavor, and in many ways this sauce is similar to La Pimenterie’s Mycelium though without the maple-syrup mushroom element. Naagin Original isn’t vinegar forward and leans much more towards being rich and luscious than tangy and bright, but there is enough acid to keep it from being dull. There’s an initial sting of heat and then a low warm build but this never rises above a low heat.
I was a little bit perplexed on what the best pairings would be with this sauce after the first taste. Although it seems initially counterintuitive I very much enjoyed this with rigatoni bolognese. I sometimes find very acid-forward hot sauces to be too much when paired with an acidic sauce, but the lower acidity in this sauce combined with its rich flavor and having the tomato commonality made it work very well, and the umami boost was a great added benefit. I also liked this poured over a burger. With the tomato element, the sweetness, and the creamy silky texture it was almost like a ketchup and mayo in one without the overtly overdone sweetness that ketchup has, and the earthy smoky vegetal fruity chile flavors plus the onions and garlic went perfectly with the beef. The one pairing that I found didn’t work was, surprisingly, pizza, especially since apparently the founder of the company was inspired to make this sauce in no small part to have something that would go well with pizza. Since pizza can already be rather rich with the cheese and toppings I found that the lack of vinegar-forwardness and umami richness of this sauce was too much of a same-on-same and didn’t provide enough contrast.
While I do wish they’d chosen a higher quality naturally brewed soy sauce for inclusion and I’m not a fan of the use of artificial preservatives in hot sauce I did enjoy Naagin Indian Hot Sauce The Original quite a bit and am happy to give it my recommendation. This sauce will especially appeal to those who prefer a smooth and creamy texture to their hot sauces and don’t care for a very vinegar-forward taste profile. The combination of the tomatoes, onions, garlic, soy sauce and unique Indian chiles results in great flavor and a great opportunity to try a sauce based on some peppers you don’t see every day.
by MagnusAlbusPater
