20 December 2014

Hot Pickled Onions - FIGHT! (Aldi & Waitrose) [By @SpectreUK]


I know it's the season to be jolly, but it's also the season of pickles and what better way to celebrate than two hot pickles fighting against each other amongst a snowy backdrop? Well, I know there's no snow in the Midlands just yet and to be honest it's actually fairly warm for this time of year. Damp of course, but enough about the weather... Pickles... Hot Pickled Onions in fact. Bramwells Hot & Spicy Pickled Onions against Waitrose rather posh sounding Hot and Tangy Spiced Pickled Silverskin Onions. So how hot are they both? Well let's find out... Get in the ring! FIGHT!!


Waitrose Hot and Tangy Spiced Pickled Silverskin Onions

There's no doubt that Waitrose is a posh shop, so why not make their pickles sound posh? In the pickle jar dancing around with the Silverskin onions were mustard seeds, green peppercorns, crushed red pepper, red chillies and a dash of salt. Sounds pretty hot to me. And wow to the delightful pickled sweet and sour smell on opening. The jar was brimming with pickled onions and almost overflowing with peppercorns, bits of chilli and loads of chilli seeds. The smell made my mouth water. The presentation made me salivate and also slightly fearful. On tasting the first Silverskin pickled onion there was a sweetness to start with and then a light peppery flavour to the onion which merged very quickly with a red chilli burn. I couldn't help but try another one. The sourness and chilli heat made my nose itch. The warming chilli spices gave my insides a good afternoon glow. I could feel my nose starting to run a little with the chilli heat. I can't emphasise enough how tasty these Hot and Tangy Spiced Pickled Silverskin Onion were. I also couldn't help wishing for a big block of cheese, Cheddar or Red Leicester, to sit down and enjoy with this pickled onion treat. Forget the "on the side with a good sandwich accompaniment". I just wanted these pickled onions and cheese and a little time to polish off the jar. Okay, maybe some crackers too...

Information on the jar;
295g with a net drained weight of 170g. Per 100g has 96 calories. Ingredients included; Silverskin onions, sugar syrup (water and sugar), spirit vinegar, water, salt, mustard seeds, green peppercorns, crushed red pepper, crushed red chillies, and preservative sodium metabisulphite. Allergens; mustard and sulphites.


Bramwells Hot & Spicy Pickled Onions

Bramwells always sounds like something a kindly Granny makes in a homely kitchen, but what if that Gran was pretty evil and wanted to teach a rotten teenager a lesson? This is where she brings her Hot & Spicy Pickled Onions into play. "Sit down, Dear, and have a nice pickled onion." She says with an evil glint in her eye. Silverskin pickled onions (but they don't bang on about it like that posh lot above), this time black peppercorns, mustard seeds and Birdseye chillies! Crickey from what I know about Birdseye Chillies is that once you've tried one you can hit a bird in the eye a hundred feet up when the seeds shoot out of your nose!

On opening the jar I could see these Silverskin onions were slightly bigger than those in the Waitrose jar. There wasn't so much sweetness in the odour also. The jar didn't seem so busy without the multitude of chilli seeds too. There was a blob of red chilli on top of one of the onions which stared at me rather menacingly though. I decided to avoid the red chilli pickled onion just incase and went for the one next to it. It didn't matter anyway. The pickled onion almost blew my head off. Hotter than Barry Norman's Hot and Spicy Pickled Onions, which I didn't think was possible, these Bramwells Hot & Spicy Pickled Onions were clearly born in the fires of the hottest furnace. My eyes were still watering five minutes after eating one. I could feel nose running too. So I blew it half expecting to see my brains. Seriously if you're stuck in a snow drift a jar of these Bramwells Hot & Spicy Pickled Onions will keep you alive and warm for a week. If you can't eat them you can probably start a fire with them or feed them to the person next to you and put them in the middle where the fire should be, as their glow will keep you all warm anyway! There was little sweetness to these pickled onions and some cheese would have been good with it, although if you put a pickled onion next to cheese on a plate it would probably melt the cheese, the sandwich next to it, melt through the plate and the table underneath it! Very tasty, but the chilli burn comes almost straight away merging with the mild sour pickled onion flavour, slightly taking over from the taste and then burning mouth, tongue fire... Help! Help! Eat with caution or you may die! Although I did have a second one about ten minutes later after I'd recovered a little and the burn just mixed with my already ruined senses. Pretty enjoyable actually, in a mad tasty heat fueled masochistic sort of way... Nasty Granny should be proud!

Information on the jar;
340g with a drained net weight of 215g. Per 100g has 20 calories with 0.5g of fat and 1.7g of sugar. Ingredients included; Silverskin onions, water, spirit vinegar, acetic acid, lactic acid, black peppercorns, salt, yellow mustard seeds, malt barley extract, dried Birdseye Chillies, and preservative sodium metabisulphite. Allergens; Mustard, gluten, barley and sulphites.

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