An colorful little pot labeled Suriano Habanero Orange caught my roving little eye at my local supermarket in Milan the other day. I had no idea what habanero was. I do now. It’s super hot chili sauce.
Down in Italy’s south, chili peppers are more popular than they are up here in the north. As well a sauces, chili also finds itself into salami, fish and pasta dishes and even in cheese. You’ll also find olive oil with added chili. Spaghetti fried in chili empowered olive oil is very tasty, by the way. This particular habanero orange sauce comes from Calabria where it’s produced by a company called Suriano.
You could use this habanero orange chili sauce to spice up your pasta or fish dishes – go easy with this sauce though. This stuff is officially very hot! How hot?
On the Scoville scale, habanero chilis are rated 100,000–350,000. To put that in perspective, Italy’s ubiquitous peperoncino chili peppers rate between 10,000 and 30,000 on the same scale. That makes habanero chili peppers are 10 times hotter! That’ll be fine, I’m sure, if that’s what you are after. If you are not, then the spiciness of this sauce may come as a bit of a surprise. Keep some bread and milk handy.
On the other hand, if you are looking for a good hot chili sauce, then you can’t go far wrong with this one.
If you are looking for some chili powered Italian dishes, you’ll find some good ones here. Should you find the dishes listed a little mild for your taste, Suriano Habanero Orange chili sauce will certainly spice it up for you.
As far as I can tell, Suriano Habanero Orange sauce is not that easy to find outside of Italy. If you are an expat in Italy though, you’ll find it in some Carrefour Market stores in Milan, and probably elsewhere around Italy too. You may even find it in Carrefour stores in France and as far a field as China.
Did I like this habanero orange sauce? Yes and no – it’s a little too hot for my liking but I’m going to add a little to a few pasta dishes to spice them up. The bread won’t be far away though.
