BAJA

 The good people at ‘Culinary Twist’ have sent us an assortment of marinades and sauces for us to sample. They have sent us the ‘Taste of Paradise’ collection that is four all-natural sauces inspired by exotic destinations. We are going to try their ‘Baja’ sauce that boasts chipotle and lime flavor. Baja sauce was awarded two 3rd place awards at the 2012 Scovie awards as a meat condiment and as a mild BBQ sauce. “Culinary Twist’ has recipes on their website suggesting uses of their sauce. We will try the grilled chicken accompanied by Baja style Cole Slaw. This should be a lot of fun.

 

 The Baja sauce is housed in a fun labeled bottle. The graphics depicts a land south of the border with ripe chile’s shaded by an agave plant. The label is colorful and grabs your attention. Let’s open the top and give is a whiff. I smell balsamic vinegar and lime that is very pleasant. I poured a little taste on a spoon and was greeted with a sweet and savory flavor. I could taste honey, garlic and lime. There was a very slight pepper bite from the jalapeno and chipotle. I will emphasis slight pepper bite because this sauce is mild. This sauce is all about the flavor and not the heat. I believe this sauce used as a marinade will be a hit.

 

 Have I never needed an excuse to fire up the grill? We are grilling chicken today using ‘Baja’ as a marinade. The instructions could not be simpler. Several hours before grilling pour marinade over chicken and reserve in the refrigerator. We built a hot mesquite charcoal fire. We used sliced chicken breast and they cooked very quickly. We covered them and let them rest several minutes while we got our salad. Our salad today is a Baja style Cole slaw. It has cabbage, red & yellow bell peppers, carrots and red onions. It is garnished with cilantro and fresh roasted un-salted peanuts. The dressing is the Baja sauce. We assembled our salad before firing up the grill. We wanted to let our salad marry for at least an hour.

 

We sat down to our dinner with Baja sauce as the guest. We have a “Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner” (sorry). The marinade added a sweet component to our chicken. It added that sweet/savory flavor that made you crave another bite.  It was not overly sweet because of the peppers, garlic and cilantro. Our Baja salad was a refreshing accompaniment to our meal. The lime juice added freshness while the honey and sugars were balanced by the salt and peppers. The textures and flavors of this salad transformed our meal to a ‘South of the Border’ treat.
   Overall we thoroughly enjoyed our meal tonight. Using Baja sauce was very simple and easy. It is nice that Culinary Twist offers recipes to use their products. This meal was assembled and cooked in several hours. We love the convenience using their recipes and sauce. It is also very important that this is a great tasting sauce. We are looking forward to trying the rest of the ‘Taste of Paradise’ collection.

  Baja

recipes and ordering information
  http://www.culinarytwist.com/index.php/home