National Chilli awards winner Brighton 2009
To be honored by experts in your feild is always the ultimate compliment, a big thank you to all the organisers at Brighton Chilli festival Sept 2009 and Tony {AKA Darth Naga for his superb review} and painfull chilli eating exploits on you tube.
Great result for Mr Vikki's at the great taste awards from www.finefoodworld.co.uk {coveted Oscars of the fine food world}, now our fourth year of entering and we have racked up 28 awards, winners this year are
Banana Habanero**Gold,Satkora * Gold, Hot Gooseberry ** Gold, Hot Coriander* Gold, Hot Lime Pickle*Gold,Hot Brinjal* and another fabulous 2* for the Hot Banana Habanero, please note all products are now available on the site
2008 article on the awards
Review from Tony judge at National chilli awards and Chilefoundry.co.uk
National Chilli Awards:Best Non-sauce
National Chilli Awards:Best in show
I always seem to review sauces lately, well today thats gonna change! I have in my hands a product that is made by a little northern chap i met at the Brighton Fiery Foods Festival, “Mr Vikki” is a company run by Adam Marks and is based in the Lake District all the way up in Cumbria. The company describes itself as “a small bespoke Indian fusion pickle producer” they use only the freshest natural ingredients that contain no gluten, wheat or dairy! There recipes often use specific chillies and they keep well once opened and unchilled due to the low water content that is attained through ancient methods of preserving.
“King Naga” comes in a beautiful little 110ml jar with plenty of angles and honestly looks like it came straight out of India! there’s a little white label on the back with the ingredients above on it, and a nice warning “Warning!! very hot chilli product”, adorning the front of the jar is an eye-catchingly simple yellow and black label with the pickles name, the company name and eight little red chilli’s at the top! The pickle itself is a mixture of red,green and brown and has a consistency similar to thatof a commercially curry paste but with more seeds and you can tell this is much more fresh and wholesome.
Ingredients: Naga chillies (80%), vinegar, garlic, pure sunflower oil, celery salt, mustard, whole spices.
I twisted off the jar lid and inhaled deeply with the jar under my nose, and there it was, the beautiful smell of my favourite chilli the Naga..ahhh how i love it so, and this pickle filled my head with all sorts of great memories, for this was not the first time i had tried this pickle, i first tried it at the FFUK Festival in Brighton earlier this year, Myself, Karl from Scorchio and the amazing Dany Lamote had voted this sauce number one not only in the “Best Non Sauce” category, but it also won the “Best In Show” award as we felt it was the best thing we had tasted that day!!
I happily grabbed a spoon and was actually quite excited at this point to be tasting this amazing stuff once more, I dipped in my spoon and took a nice size spoonful and placed it on my tongue, then I swished it round my mouth to fully appreciate the flavour. The taste of garlic infused with Naga hit me hard, it was like garlic and Naga’s were dancing in my mouth and creating exactly what Adam Marks had intended, a “Fusion” of two very different flavours, only when i took a second spoonful did the heat smack me about a bit, not an overpowering heat at all but an initial bite with a gentle warmth afterward that may be considered hot to some people and it certainly gave me a bit of a sweat on! My mouth and tongue were tingling and my lips were fiery, this is the sort of pickly that would go well on an otherwise boring cheese sandwich, or perhaps used in place of grainy mustard the next time you have a bit of ham, a very nice texture with both naga seed and mustard seed adding to an already pulpy, fleshy pickle.
The only thing I have ever found similar to this was a pickle that Mr’s Naga’s mum ordered off the Internet called “Mr Naga” and while that was nice it was a little oily for my tastes, this is where “King Naga” excells! The only oil present seems to be only for preserving the pickle and it doesn’t factor into the flavour at all, there’s no oily feeling in the mouth afterwards and no oily aftertaste that I have found in some other Indian pickles.
Without a shadow of a doubt go now and buy this stuff, seriously! its available from www.mrvikkis.co.uk and at Keswick market at a modest £3.50 a jar, and at that price you may as well by a couple, because you’ll go through the first one in a matter of days!! Chuck it in a curry, spread it on toast in fact do whatever you want with it because this is bound to help out any meal with a cracking flavour and nice warmth to go with it!!
Tell Adam that you saw this review and to chuck me another jar sometime *wink*, until next we meet chileheadz, may the sauce be with you..or actually in this case “May the pickle be with you!”
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Hot stuff: Adam Marks and Mary Ballantyne
Adam and Mary are both passionate about Indian food and culture and are self confessed chilli addicts,
Mary explained "we wanted to produce a product that was natural, hand crafted and most importantly fabulous tasting, everything we tried just didnt hit the spot, especially fiery chilli products, which lacked in flavour or just were not hot enough. Adam started all the recipes from scratch beleiving they would be unique and hard to copy, testament to this is that we supply 3 local Indian restaurants, {in particular they use Satkora, and HHH in their curries}, and have won 28 great Taste awards in our first 31/2 years of trading, we rely and depend on repeat sales and would like to thank all our customers for their support.
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