Hot Sauce Recipes

[VVolfpack]

I'm starting to get quite a load of Cayenne coming in, Would love to make some hot sauce out of these guys... Anyone have any world famous recipes for me

I've also got some Tabasco, Jalapeno, and Habanero that should be ready for pickin in a week or so

 

[hoodat]

There isn't much to it. it's just a matter of chopping and boiling down hot peppers, straining out the seeds and skins and adding a bit of salt and a touch of vinegar to keep it from spoiling. Keep the seeds in while you are boiling it. That's where most of the heat is. You can add a touch of tomato sauce if you want it a little thicker. Now McIlheny's Louisiana hot sauce is another matter It's made by a secret drawn out process involving aging and fermenting and even if you knew the process it wouldn't be practical to duplicate it.

 

[digitS']

Would salsa work for you, VVolfpack, or are you just looking for a straight pepper sauce?

There are some world-class cooks on TEG. My DW even makes a very nice salsa with tomatoes, cilantro, green onions and hot peppers.

Steve

 

[VVolfpack]

I would love some Salsa Recipes, I'm gonna be loaded with peppers in a few weeks... I've already bought my canning stuff, Just need some ideas

I've also heard of making a pepper relish, which sounds good but I'm not sure exactly whats involved there

 

[hypnofrogstevie]

http://www.hotsauceaddicts.com/hot-sauce-recipes.asp

 

[Dave2000]

I've been experimenting with sauce making all summer, previously hoping to find some thorough writeup of preparation methods and never found any that satisfied me, so here are the results of months of happily researching in the kitchen. Sorry for such a long post, but since I couldn't find this and had to work for it, maybe it will save someone else some time as I feel the same sauce every time is boring but certain prep steps can always improve it.

Try to keep as much of the pulp as you can, even after cooking the sauce will age and the flavor will change, especially sitting in the acid (vinegar, etc).

I usually make one big pure pepper sauce batch then mix it up, meaning a variety of different sauces with each subsequent batch (and as I get different quantities of different peppers ripening in bulk).

Some ingredients to consider adding any or all of in moderation:

Tomato
Carrots
Fresh Onion
Garlic
Cilantro (or pick among several italian seasonings)
Corn Syrup, honey, etc. (only if using bitter peppers and nothing else to counter them)
Salt
Xanthan Gum
Lemon Juice
Pineapple or other fruits for a more caribbean flavor

I'm sure I've left out a few, I dig around my refrigerator and veggie table for things to add, whatever I have fresh especially. I used to hate sauces with a lot of garlic, but I found that sometimes it is good if used in lesser quantities. Point is this is all very subjective, I also like pure habanero sauce without anything else for flavoring except salt and vinegar, which some may feel needs *something* added still.

Pick vinegar type (I usually use white just to minimize the flavor it adds) OR use vitamin C tablets (ascorbic acid) for a little more neutral slightly citrusy flavor. You can get pH test strips off eBay dirt cheap to test sauce pH. Generally it is recommended to keep pH below 4.5 for longest storage, meaning add more vinegar or ascorbic acid till it drops below 4.5 unless you'll use the sauce up quick. Try to find some test strips with a narrow pH range that includes 4.5, the orange full range pH strips are hard to accurately gauge on yellow, red, orange or dark hot sauces (which covers most sauces). I make different quantities of sauce each time so I unfortunately can't remember the final amount of vinegar I use to achieve that, but a guess would be about 2 tablespoons per 3 cups of sauce, but that's 3 cups before boiled down a bit and seeds + a little remaining pulp colandered (is that a word?) out.

One thing I was never satisfied with was the texture, I had been straining and using xanthan gum to thicken it and I thought it was good. In retrospect it wasn't when compared to not only texture but also flavor of my revised method. Two words:

Crank Colander!

Say colander and many people just think of a strainer bowl, but some have crank handles, a propeller or wedge looking center piece that spins, and slightly raised protrusions in the holes on the bottom like a fine grating cheese grater would have. It also has a sweeper bar on the bottom to help deposit the exiting pulp into a pot it sits on top of. Then again, I am a guy who doesn't know a spoon from a spatula in the kitchen so maybe the type of utensil I am describing is called something else instead of "colander" but that's what I was told and it looks like the same class of device as in the linked picture below.

I could not find a picture of the one I use, it is probably decades old, but the rough idea is it is like the following except mine has the tiny holes at the bottom of it, no inserts needed to reduce them and the holes are raised up slightly.

http://i43.tinypic.com/6r6o08.jpg

It allows me to turn the pulp into a finely pulverized paste without the seeds getting in (except if I used something with really tiny seeds like undergrown dwarf peppers or smaller tabascos, and even then I use it anyway to get out 90% of seeds and make pulp of the rest and a last step is a normal strainer.), I end up with a lot more pulp than any other method I tried including different strainer mesh sizes till the mesh was large enough to let seeds through.

Normally I do not strain it at all, just the colander.

Whole prep process (hope I don't leave out anything):

1) Rinse & de-stem everything

2) Slice peppers in half (to inspect, make sure nothing nasty inside, same applies to any questionable produce used). Leave seeds and placenta inside.

3) Slightly dice any veggie too big to blend well as-is.
Throw in blender with slightly dull blades (so all seeds remain whole)
Add most liquidy veggies first and vinegar if applicable, make a pulp out of those so blender doesn't choke on harder produce later (we have a semi-weak blender and make dense sauces).

4) Add everything else a bit at a time and let that blend till there are no chunks of anything (except seeds of course). At this point and thereafter if using really hot peppers you may need a kitchen exhaust fan on. I didn't but the rest of the family starts gasping for air if I don't. :/

5) Simmer for a good long time, basically dozens of minutes to break down pulp or longer to boil off some liquid if/as needed

6) Dump into colander and start cranking away. Don't be anxious to get every last particle of pulp out, but try for about 80% out the bottom. % also depends on what is in it, if a lot of vegetables were added the percentage will be a little lower, as it will also be if there were a lot of seeds creating a wall of overlapped seeds blocking the pulp.

7) Taste and add salt or other ingredients if not satisfied yet.

8) If it is not thick enough for your purposes, VERY slowly shake in a tiny bit of xanthan gum for thickness and to prevent separation of the liquid and pulp or the need to shake the sauce before using. By tiny I mean for 2 cups of sauce, about 1/4 teaspoon of xanthan gum but it depends on the recipe. It films up and needs either wisked well to mix in, or you can shake bottles of sauce vigorously later, but don't go by how thick it is till you thoroughly do one of these two mixing methods as the xanthan gum just globs up way too easily even if you use a strainer to sprinkle it in while stirring.

 

[hoodat]

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. Sometimes the only way is to just give things a try and see what happens.
BTW, that untensil you described is a Foley food mill. I wouldn't be without mine, especially at canning time.

 

[digitS']

This is Great, Dave!

Thank you for sharing ! I have just been exploring making dry pepper mixes (with salt & dehydrated onions and garlic). I'm trying to come up with something for the table rather than just a 1/4 teaspoon tossed in the pot.

Apparently, a special type of salt is important for a dry mix . . .

How about a Foley Food Mill? Mom used one like this forever, making her tomato sauce and jams.

Steve

ETA: You sure that guy's 80 . . . he always seems a minute ahead of me!!

 

[Dave2000]

digitS' the mill you linked looks almost if not exactly like mine.

 

[dickiebird]

I was given one of those food mills the other day.
The young lady that gave it to me said she used it for a short time to make baby food.
She says no more kids!!!
How long before you think I'll need to return it???
I've only used it once to make pasta sauce, worked OK.

THANX RICH