I love hot sauce and I always bring a bottle as a souvenir for my hot sauce collection at home. The ingredients of local hot sauces tell me a lot about the culture of a certain era before the ‘globalization’ of ingredients. Find it kind of interesting. I mean we can get McIlhenny Tabasco everywhere, but it’s hard to find sambal for example. And yes, Spain has been influenced in the past which you can call the early globalization actually. The bananas where the Canarian make their Cobana liqueur from comes from South East Asia, almonds where the Canarian make paste and sweets from are originally from the middle east and the chillies for mojo is globally introduced by Columbus and brought from South America.

Mojo Picante
Like a lot of Caribbean and Asian countries, Tenerife has its own hot sauce too. Mojo picante is the well known Canarian hot sauce served with new potatoes (Papas con mojo picon like what you see in the picture) cooked in sea salt. The sauce is made from oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, garlic, parsley, cumin and Spanish red peppers blended together. I recommend you to try it out and make your own when you’re home. Makes a good dip!

Mojo verde
Island visits asks for seafood! Fresh fish or squid, what I’ve ordered. The picture is missing, but it was something like this: Grilled squid with an ‘after’ marinade made from salted butter, garlic and parsley served with mojo verde. An interesting greenish sauce made from oil, garlic, salt, pepper, a lot of parsley and cumin. Ideal for your grilled seafood dishes!

*The picture was taken in Orotava, Tenerife