New Zing to Your Condiments

Standard condiments such as mustard, ketchup, salsa and relish are being transformed with flavor and ingredient innovations.

A typical mustard recipe used to be a simple mixture of ground mustard seeds and a variety of spices. Today’s mustard recipes build on their roots with updated twists on old favorites as well as exotic flavors such as truffle, root beer, lime and chipotle. Versatile condiments help people duplicate flavors they might have had in a restaurant. For example, flavors like Loomis, Calif.-based Earth & Vine Provisions’ Tangerine Habanero Mustard can also double as a sauce and be added into mashed potatoes to make them pop with flavor. Alcohol is also enhancing mustard—champagne and rum are two popular ingredients.

Salsa, relish and chutney are all using exotic ingredients to create new flavors that are savory, sweet and spicy. Salsas feature corn, pomegranate, aji dulce peppers and even salba, the ancient Peruvian nutrient-packed grain. Well known for complementing meats, both chutneys and relishes—savory and sweet—are giving cheese a new edge. Ingredients now include figs, bananas, ginger, apples, peaches, carrots, habanero and jalapeños peppers. Sweet and savory fruit salsas are also doubling as marinades.

Even ketchup is being jazzed up. Many manufacturers are replacing its high-fructose corn syrup with natural sweeteners such as agave, made from the extract of the wild agave plant. Companies like Krazy Ketchup (Pacific Palisades, Calif.) and Happy Girl Kitchen (Big Sur, Calif.), have added ingredients such as organic sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, dry farmed tomatoes, apple cider vinegar, honey, evaporated cane juice and sea salt to ketchup. Others have ethnic twists such as Peppery Moroccan and Sweet Orange Chile from Dulcet Cuisine.

Mayonnaise and sandwich spreads are also stepping up. American Roland Food’s (New York City) offerings include Roasted Yellow Pepper and Cranberry Horseradish; while Conroy Foods’ (Pittsburgh, Pa.) new Deli Bistro line has flavors such as Cilantro & Lime and Mesquite Smoked and Hot Ginger. J & D’s Bacon Salt (Seattle) markets a bacon-flavored spread—Baconnaise—that the company claims is vegetarian safe.

With the expanded selections, there are now condiment flavors and styles everyone.—Nicole Denis and Vanessa Facenda 

CUTTING-EDGE CONDIMENTS

Here are specialty ketchups, salsas, mustards and other products to look for

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