*The Saucy Affair Raw Sauces were supplied by Tried and Tested for review*
I love cooking, and own a few hundred cookbooks. Often, I follow recipes down to the letter, usually when I’m not in a “thinking mood”, so I can operate on auto-pilot and just crack on with the cooking. Sometimes I read cookery books to get inspiration for recipes that I’m trialling; I find the older cookbooks are the best to be inspired by. But as we lead increasingly busier lives and look to automating aspects of both our professional and personal aspects, it is sometimes nice not to have to think about cooking.
Enter The Saucy Affair Raw Sauces, whose recent launch on Amazon Fresh and showcase on the Tried and Tested Panel is creating waves in the food industry.
The Saucy Affair Raw Sauces is an interesting company, whose founder, Tanya made the career switch from the energy industry into the food arena. Her key driver was to highlight wellbeing, and juggling myriad hats which included commuter mum and inquisitive chef. Two years’ on, and Tanya has launched a set of six sauces in a compact collection handily housed in a bag that is to be chilled.
Who are The Saucy Affair Raw Sauces for? Inclusivity is the order of the day, as the sauces are for everyone, ranging from home-cooks to street-food vendors and professional chefs. There is a recipe booklet enclosed for those who really don’t know where to start. I cooked a number of dishes straight from the recipe book, and also tasted the sauces in their raw form, to get a true taste of their flavour profile.
The sauces don’t need cooking; you simply coat your protein (meat, fish or vegetables), provide heat (I found oven to be the best cooking method), and once the bulk of the food is cooked, simply dish up.
As I tipped the sauces to be tasted onto the plate, I felt as if I was a masterful painter about to create my own creative genius dish. (Well, followed from a recipe, but you get my drift.)
The six sauces are Cucumber Blunder, Beetroot Cahoot, Teriyaki Malarkey, Smokey Cokey, Tarragon Shenanigan and Fiery Fiasco. For the sake of brevity, here are my tasting notes.
- Teriyaki Malarkey channels oriental flavours. Top notes of ripe plum, fennel and garlic are delicious. Ginger and coriander gives this sauce a warming, earthy feel, which I love. I used this sauce with tofu, which is such a fantastic blank canvas, that the sauce really comes into its own.
- Fiery Fiasco takes a classic tomato sauce to the next level. Top notes of sweet citrus peppered with punchy paprika is tempered by cooling cucumber. I recommend fish or a meat dish to go with this dish, for example chorizo meatballs.
- Cucumber Blunder is sweet and fragrant with a pleasantly surprising radish-bite. I recommend this sauce to be paired with shrimp or seafood, perhaps a Marie Rose with a twist?
- Beetroot Cahoot provides a pop of colour on the plate. I used this as a dressing drizzle on a simple house salad, and really liked it. It’s probably the fruitiest of sauces (I could taste a wonderful hit of tangy Granny Smith’s apple), and it worked well with earthy beetroot. I cut chunks of goats cheese with the salad, but I think any tangy cheese (Lancashire, or Wenslydale) would work very well too.
- Tarragon Shenanigan has a lovely onion base (that’ll be the banana shallots). The parsnip and mustard pairing is very good, as parsnip can lean towards the more sweeter spectrum. I recommend Tarragon Shenanigan to be used in a sauce-based pie, like chicken and mushroom, or a cheese and onion galette.
- Smokey Cokey has top notes of tomato and red pepper with paprika hovering in the background. This is why it would go tremendously well as a glaze on BBQ meats, or a tablespoon of it mixed with plain mayonnaise for a spiked dip treat.
The sauces are viscous in texture and there is zero separation (I must message Tanya how she gets her sauces to be magically combined).
Whilst tasting, I couldn’t help but think of the various uses for these uses. Apart from using them as pour-over cooking sauces, I thought they would make a great dip. Here are a few ideas to use The Saucy Affair Raw Sauces:
- Use as a base for nachos. Pour 1/4 bottle of Smokey Cokey (instead of salsa) onto a bed of warm nachos, and sprinkle with grated Cheddar cheese crowned with jalapeños. Tip: The Saucy Affair Raw Sauces are made to withstand high temperatures, so a 10 minute stint in the oven will be great.
- Use as a dip for chips, crisps, crudités, buffalo chicken, or baked cauliflower florets for a vegetarian treat.
- Use as a base for soups. I recommend a liberal glug of Fiery Fiasco for a punchy casserole or hot-pot.
- Use as a dressing for salads.
- Use as sauce in pizzas or flatbreads, or drizzle over a sandwich in place of mayonnaise.
Here is my fish dish. I chargrilled a lemon and served with pak choi and to add heat (my asbestos palate adores food on the spicy side), served with a seeded red chilli to add colour to the dish too. 
Branding for the sauces is on point, the packaging cute and practical, and I love how each sauce contains over 70% of fruit and vegetables. What I love about The Saucy Affair Raw Sauces, is the convenience factor. I came home late one evening, threw a fish in the oven topped with sauce, and ten minutes later, it was done. From fridge-to-table, it is realistic to say that a supper can be ready to eat within 12-15 minutes (this includes preheating the oven and setting the table).
The Saucy Affair Raw Sauces successfully smashed their crowdfunder, garnering over £57K to bring their very delicious product to market. They are also in the middle of a pitch to get in front of Richard Branson, so please do click this link here if you’d like to support them.
I look forward to seeing more from The Saucy Affair Raw Sauces, please do feel free to stalk them on social media Twitter, Facebook, Instagram).