Nando's Peri-Peri Sauce (extra hot)

If you like hot sauces that are complex, this one is pretty good.

I like spicy foods.  They are good for you, actually.  And yet, so many Americans turn their noses up at a good spicy Vindaloo.  And this is a shame, too, as spicy food is not only good tasting, but good for you, too.  As I have noted before, flavors satiate the need to eat.  And one reason Americans are overweight is that they eat a lot of bland, carbo-centric foods.  A plate of potatoes (french fries) has little flavor - just texture and mouth feel - so you eat a lot of it, and don't realize you are eating anything.

Many American "hot sauces" are really a joke.  They just add cayenne pepper until you head explodes and your mouth feels burned.  Good spice should build up slowly - to a slow burn - until it comes around and hits you on the back of the head with a little hammer.  Vindaloo is like that.

And so is Nando's Peri-Peri Sauce  if you order the extra hot version.  I found this on a shelf in a Canadian grocery store (which is unusual, as in the maritimes, sweet and savory seems to outnumber spicy by 10 to 1).  It was so good, I had to go online and track it down - and order six bottles, which I quickly consumed.

Nando's is a chain of chicken restaurants that advertises South African Portuguese-style chicken (how's that for fusion cuisine?).  I have never been to one, but I suppose now, I will have to go.  They are in Washington DC and Maryland.

But their hot sauce, which features the famous (or infamous) South African peri-peri pepper, is something to behold.

I usually don't endorse products, but damn, this stuff is like crack!