Here at Milk Street we have rediscovered more flavorful pantry items including flours, vinegars, oils, and salts. At the top of our list, however, is sugar. This raw, unrefined sugar from Colombia packs a complex, earthy flavor that’s terrific in everything from tea, coffee and cocktails to oatmeal or grapefruit. The bittersweet flavor also does well in savory applications, like a pot of Mexican beans or tomato-based pasta sauces. It will become your sugar bowl standard.

This bright, yellow-orange hot sauce has a nice spice that isn’t too aggressive—a friendly heat. The main attraction is the passion fruit flavor—it’s so bright and fresh, you could be scooping a spoonful of the seeds right from the fruit itself. And the fruity flavors of the chili peppers mingle in behind the passion fruit as well. This is a really special sauce—a bit spicy but a celebration of passion fruit. Add a tropical twist to your hot sauce collection.

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The earthy, smoky-sweet scotch bonnet pepper is relatively difficult to find in the U.S. and this bright red sauce features the pepper’s flavor at the forefront. This classic Dominican extra-hot sauce isn’t for the faint of heart though—the heat is instant and lingering—but you’ll get that distinct vegetal-smokey, yet fruity scotch bonnet flavor. Scotch bonnets are used all over the Caribbean, and there really isn’t a satisfying sub for them. For those that want to be transported to the tropics, in search of the true flavors, this pepper is a big part of that. Jalapeños are incorporated here too to balance out the intensity, and make it much more palatable than many hyper-spicy hot sauces out there. Most are all about cramming in heat with no attention to flavor, while this one is complex and delicious.

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This straightforward, use-everywhere hot sauce is a great example of how simplicity is often best. While many jalapeño-based hot sauces don’t taste fresh and lose their distinctive flavor, and also use preservatives that make them cloudy and bitter, this sauce’s jalapeno flavor is almost as bright as biting into a fresh pepper. It’s mellowed a bit, so the effect is more juicy and pickled. It has a really nice amount of heat, which won’t blow out your palate by any stretch, but it has a warming, slow creep of heat. The garlic isn’t overpowering, it just adds a good foundation to keep the vinegar and jalapeño grounded. Plus, the heat doesn’t stay around too long, so you can enjoy drizzling it on throughout the course of your whole meal.

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Featuring whimsical pomegranate-shaped cups, this hand-thrown seder plate is made from enamel and stoneware by a pottery artisan in Chile. Alejandro Miranda gathers the clay he uses to make the dish from a local area in Chile before carefully handcrafting the traditional Jewish plate before it’s sent off to be cloaked in a natural, semi-glossy enamel coating. Calypso Chile Pottery has been partnering with independent artisans across the country since 1996, supporting the production of fair-trade handicrafts.

 

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