[CH] El Yucateco Achiote Annatto
Alex Silbajoris (asilbajo@hotmail.com)
Thu, 28 Feb 2002 14:27:12
Last weekend, in the North Market, I found a new vendor of Mexican
foodstuffs. Among various familiar sauces, I saw a few new ones, including
an El Yucateco product I hadn't seen before.
It is called Achiote Annatto all purpose seasoning for grilled and roasted
meat. The rest of the information is in Spanish and English, in nearly
unreadable tiny type. Ingredients are annatto seed, water, salt, spices,
garlic, ascorbic acid and sodium benzoate. NO CONTIENE COLORANTE
ARTIFICIAL.
The flavor is intensely rich, reminding me of a good cocktail sauce but
without horseradish. I haven't tasted annatto seed before, so I can't
compare it to this. But that must be the 'mystery flavor' dominating this
sauce. There is some heat, too, but apparently not enough chiles to merit a
separate entry other than 'spices' in the ingredient list.
Also, the instructions say to add it to meat before cooking, so perhaps to
get the proper flavor it is intended to be cooked like the meat. Lordy, I
can imagine brushing this on some cubed pork and smoke-grilling it over
mesquite in my Lodge iron casserole.
- A
_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com