A saucy new addition to the culinary landscape

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The Bronx is cutting a dash — with its spicy Bronx Hot Sauce.

The sauce, which uses serrano peppers, relies on small local gardens to grow the main ingredient, and on local farmer’s markets to sell the sauce. The hot sauce is a partnership between Small Axe Peppers, GrowNYC and chef King Phojanakong.

For gardeners and non-profit groups, such as Friends of Van Cortlandt Park, it is a chance to raise money by growing the serrano peppers and selling them to the makers of the sauce.

“They give out the pepper plants for free and they told us basically do what you want,” said the Friends’ executive director Christina Taylor. “You can eat them yourselves. You can sell them at the market. You can donate or you can sell them back to us. They just want more people growing the peppers.”

A market favorite

Friends of Van Cortlandt Park also sells both the peppers and the Bronx Hot Sauce at youth markets it operates in the area. The money it earns goes to support programs such as summer internships for teens.

The group’s members also use the sauce to spice up their own cooking.

“I use it when I make my enchiladas,” Ms. Taylor said. “I put a little bit on top just to give it that extra kick. I think anything you use hot sauce for, it works well with it.”

This is her first season working with the team at Bronx Hot Sauce and, to date, Friends of Van Cortlandt Park has grown 10 pounds of serrano peppers.

At The Bronx Beer Hall, another place that offers the Bronx Hot Sauce, it goes on the side of its Lizard Chips appetizer, a dill pickle that is battered and fried, and its Bronx Burger.

“Everybody loves it. It’s surprisingly sweet on the up front and it’s got a kick on the backend. It amazes them,” said Paul Ramirez, a managing partner at The Bronx Beer Hall. “It’s grown by Bronxites, so, there’s that novelty really pushes for an easy sell.”

Creating the hot sauce involved a bit of “reverse engineering,” said John Crotty, a c0-founder of Small Axe Peppers.

“Growing something for the community had to be something we could turn into more product,” he said. “Lettuce didn’t achieve that. Turning tomatoes into tomato sauce did not achieve that. But hot pepper does, because you can grow a smaller amount of pounds of hot peppers and turn it into a bigger amount of poundage of hot sauce. That was the only product we could think of that was true.”

Mr. Phojanakong, the chef behind the sauce, is of Thai and Filipino descent, and his Southeast Asian-influenced creations “try to give a little bit of both,” Mr. Crotty said. The Bronx Hot Sauce is “a little bit of reflection on his own background.”

A total of 44 gardens throughout the Bronx are growing serrano peppers for the sauce so far. Most of the other ingredients – apple cider vinegar, onion and garlic – come from farmers in New York State.

Sweet heritage

Some people complain about sugar in the sauce, Mr. Crotty said. But that touch of sweetness is a nod to Mr. Phojanakong’s heritage and the Southeast Asian cuisine’s fondness for mixing hot and sweet flavors, Mr. Crotty said.

The Bronx Hot Sauce began with a trial run of 5,000 jars in 2014. The numbers of jars grew to 35,000 in 2015 and 70,000 this year.

The community gardens had grown 350 pounds of serrano peppers by Aug. 1, and are expected to grow a ton by year’s end, Mr. Crotty said.

“I think many consumers are very socially conscious and would love to have their purchasing power be used to leverage positive outcomes in the world for things they are going to buy,” Mr. Crotty said.

“The hot sauce is designed so everyone along the chain is rewarded,” he said. “The money flows back into the gardens which really helps low-income and middle-income neighborhoods throughout the Bronx. A new product here has been helpful in trying to create and stimulate job growth both in the garden and elsewhere.”

Bronx Hot Sauce, Small Axe Peppers, Friends of Van Cortlandt Park, Christina Taylor, John Crotty, Bronx Beer Hall, Paul Ramirez, Lisa Herndon

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