So, this is somewhat late, but I thought I'd hit the blogscape and tell you guys about an awesome little experience we had making... HOT SAUCE!!!
You may not know, but we have a habanero bush growing in our garden. As Ben related in an earlier post, habanero peppers are HOT! Like, really hot! And, having a bush, we have a ton of habaneros! All the time! Like, fifty habaneros! Like, seventy-five habaneros! Like, a hundred habaneros!
But actually, though, we had a whole lot of habaneros, and it seemed that the best way to use a bunch of 'em up in one fell swoop would be to make hot sauce. Lots of hot sauce! In fact, when Ben and I sat down to plan out our hot saucing itinerary, we decided we'd need a full twenty (20) fresh, home-grown habanero peppers. And that was hardly half of what was on the plant! (Disclaimer: Jordan actually pioneered the hot sauce movement when he made his famed "Holy S**t Hot Sauce," with lovely peaches mixed in with the peppers. I wasn't there for that event, though, so he'll have to tell you about it sometime!)
We found two recipes on the interwebs (what a lovely place) that were almost identical, except for the ingredients that made them each unique: both had habaneros, onions, garlic, and shallots, olive oil and sugar. But one was flavored with white wine vinegar (we used red) and cocoa powder (mole style!) while the other used lime juice and zest for a nice tangy flavor.
Once we'd gotten all our other ingredients prepared, we threw our habaneros (with the seeds still in for extra spice) into a food processor and let 'er rip. When we opened that puppy up, I've gotta say, the fumes started to get to me. BE CAREFUL WITH HABANEROS, FOLKS. Not only can you seriously hurt yourself if you, say, touch your eye after playing around with these peppers, but they really fume up a room when chopped and/or cooked. Just ask our housemates! Anyway, here's what came out of the food processor:
So then, following the directions of course, we split the peppers into two separate pans, and threw those ingredients together. The fumes only got more intense as we cooked the peppers down. We got several complaints—Clarissa even barricaded her door with pillows to stop the evil hotness from getting in! I, for one, was coughing and tearing up quite a bit. Again, be CAREFUL!
Here are the sauces being cooked:
When we'd finished, we cleaned everything very thoroughly (but apparently, not thoroughly enough: a couple days later, Noah used one of those pans to make some eggs, and residual pepper oils started fuming up the kitchen again! Remember folks, CLEAN THIS STUFF WELL!) and put those sauces in jars. We had to water them down a bit, as they were sort of thick, but it wasn't an issue. We tried them, of course— they are SPICY. Like, seriously, really hot hot sauce. But flavorful as well! The verdict seemed to be that, while both are very good, the chocolate was more interesting, and the lime more versatile. Have fun with both varieties! Or find your own recipe, and tell us about it! At the rate that bush is growing, we'll be having to make a lot more hot sauce as the months wear on.
Until next time,
Gabriel
Oh, and here's where we got the recipes. Credit where credit is due!
