Hot Sauce

While making my third batch of salsa at home, my darling husband came to me and asked the age old question "Do you know what I would really like you to try to make?" The answer was hot sauce. I have actually never heard of anyone making such a thing at home. Gasp. My hunny is the creative genius behind the mad science that happens in my kitchen. We make such a good team. I don't know how many times he suggests that I make something that I would never think of and when I make it whatever it is turns out so good.



Off to my favorite internet recipe sites to research just how does one go about making hot sauce. What goes into them besides peppers? How do you cook it and how do you blend it? Do you remove the seeds? What about balances of flavours? There are so many commercial varieties of hot sauce just where does one begin to try to create one at home?



His favorite hot sauce in our fridge is mail ordered from Texas and the ingredient list just shows habanero peppers so I found a recipe for habanero hot sauce. On my way to the farmer's market to get the 12 habanero peppers necessary for the sauce it occurred to me that I should also make one that has the same blend of peppers that my salsa does, because he loves it so much.


I modified the recipe for the habanero hot sauce slightly to have regular vinegar and lime juice as those were also listed on the ingredient bottle of the sauce in my fridge and made the blend of salsa peppers with the apple cider vinegar that the original recipe for the habenero sauce called for. The habanero sauce came out pure heat. My hunny loves the hot but for him it is more about the flavour that the peppers bring. I went to the grocery store and added a whole lot of pineapple juice to mellow it a bit (I don't think it worked but we will see as the flavours tend to develop over time with such things).

The salsa blend on the other hand worked beautifully and my hunny loves the depth and balance of flavours. It will long be in our fridge and will accent many dishes in my future cooking adventures.

Salsa Recipe

For those who have asked here it is. Chop everything as fine as you like it to be in your salsa. The tomatoes will break down a little bit. I hand chopped everything except the hot peppers which I put in a mini food processor to make sure that their flavour was evenly distributed throughout the salsa.

Salsa

8 cups (7 lbs) tomatoes (peeled & chopped)
2 large Onions (approx 4 cups)
2 red bell peppers
2 yellow bell peppers
2 orange bell peppers
2 cups celery
3 cloves garlic, minced
6+ hot peppers (jalapeno, banana or other hot peppers) My recipe is 2 Jalapeno, 2 Habanero, 3 Red Serrano, 2 Cherry Peppers, 2 Green Serrano chopped very finely)
4 small cans tomato paste
6 tsp pickling salt
2 tsp Cumin
2 tsp ground corriander
2 cups white vinegar

Chop all tomatoes, onions, bell peppers & celery as fine as you like your salsa to be (if you like a really runny salsa use a food processor but if you like it chunky chop it all by hand - the time is worth it). Put all ingredients in a large pot and bring to a simmer for 30 minutes. Taste and then add dried crushed chilies (1/2 to 1 tsp at a time) to get it to the heat you like.

Put into 250ml jars and can in boiling water canner for 15 minutes. Remove and rest for 24 hours before moving.

This recipe tastes awesome straight out of the pot (cooled of course), but it improves and gets a bit hotter with time. If you can, wait about a month for the flavours to fully develop.