Pepper plants produce prolificly. Try saying that five times fast.
But seriously, a few hot pepper plants will produce lots of peppers–usually far more than a family can reasonably consume fresh.
One great way to put all those extra peppers to use is to dry them and make crushed pepper flakes. But as I already have enough of those to last me for years, yesterday I made hot sauce, another good way to preserve hot peppers.
There are plenty of creative ways to make hot sauces, but a basic simple recipe for cayenne hot sauce is very easy.
First wash the peppers and remove the stems. (Note: when handling hot peppers, especially lots of them, take care not to touch your eyes. You’ll want to very thoroughly wash your hands when finished. Some choose to wear gloves while processing them. I don’t, but I am careful not to keep my hands away from my eyes until they’re thoroughly cleaned.)
Then put the peppers into a blender, add salt and vinegar and blend them until they’re liquefied.
Then put the soupy pepper broth into a pot. Bring it to a boil then turn down the heat and let it simmer for about twenty minutes.
Finally, pour it through a strainer to strain out the pulp.
The final product
That’s it. You now have homemade hot sauce.
This batch should last me a good long time.
A link to a basic recipe and instructions is HERE.
In Kenya these are called pili-pili – and Michelangelo du Cille (3 times winner Pulitzer prize) the month we were in Kenya made this hot sauce – no blender, just by hand – offered me some at meals (prepared and eaten outdoors, next to our tents. http://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/1997/06/15/a-time-to-build/b667d787-b05f-4825-9372-8205565aa86c/
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“Chillies” are much more popular in other food cultures of course. Good point about the blender. Could do the same thing without it, but it would take longer.
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Bill, Sheeesh, that’s a lot of hot sauce. Can you sell that at the market? I’ve heard there are a lot of rules to selling homemade stuff like that. It would last me a lifetime. I’m more of a salsa kind of guy but I do like salsa with a bit of a bite to it. I guess my pallet is sensitive and I like to taste the food not just the hot. So medium hot is just right for me. It tingles the taste buds but don’t burn them out.
As Fall sets in, the schedule fills up. I still have to lift the potatoes, harvest the onions, harvest the cabbage, and make sauerkraut. I really must begin cleaning up the garden. In another month the ground will be cold and stiff and possibly frozen. There’s a lot to get done before that happens. I netted the rocks out of a neighbor’s rock retaining wall over the weekend. I have a little Ford Ranger truck and seven loads of rocks will be enough for building a perimeter around at least two 28 foot by 4 foot raised beds. I have a few more years of heavy lifting left in me then I better have all that done so I can coast into old age with just gardening. So let the structure building continue.
Have a great hot sauce day.
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Here in Virginia we’re allowed to sell hot sauce. Generally we can sell anything that doesn’t require refrigeration. But I didn’t make this to sell. Just had a lot of hot peppers left over and wanted to put them to use. Obviously this batch will last a while. 🙂
One last major job for us here before the winter chores kick in–harvesting sweet potatoes. Hoping to get that done next week. It’s an all-day job.
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You made two litres of hot sauce? Holy MOLEY!
Now how are you gonna get all of that into those tiny little bottle necks? (Lol; )
The thing I like best about prodigiously prolific pepper plants (of the normal heat variety) is how dead simple they are to put away for the winter…
Wash em, chop em, bag and freeze
Keepin’ them is such a breeze!: )
Your onomatopoea was much better than my poetry. But, just out of curiosity, how long will it take you two to go through 2L of hot sauce, anyway?
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I made a little more than that. Had to go to a second container once that one was full.
I don’t know how long it will take to use it up. I’m still using crushed red peppers I made a couple of years ago.
We put away bell peppers in the freezer that way. I like to scramble them in my eggs in the morning. Just take a handful of the chopped peppers out of the freezer bag and drop them in the pan. They thaw out very quickly and are a nice addition to scrambled eggs.
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Now I know, Bill, how you keep going and going and going. It is all that hot sauce.
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If I consumed all that hot sauce, I’d keep going all right. 🙂
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I probably could use homemade hot sauce instead of Tabasco in the Bloody Mary’s I make for our Bloody Mary Oyster Shooters. It’s the only thing we use hot sauce for… unless we start eating a lot of oysters it would take us 10 lifetimes to use that much sauce 🙂
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One of the few things I was adamantly brand-loyal about was my Tabasco hot sauce. I only gave it up when we started making our own. I think ours is pretty darn good, and it’s so easy to make that even I can do it.
I put hot sauce on lots of things, but never thought to put it on oysters before.
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During the festive season or special occasions we put the oysters into shot glasses with a dash of a Bloody Mary cocktail…
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i normally have a ton of peppers and love making different hot sauces. This year was a low production year so not many for making sauces. I have a jar that has been fermenting for a year….it just might be time to check it out 🙂
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I considering getting creative and trying to make some unusual hot sauces, maybe even to sell. But in the end I stuck with my tried and true cayenne sauce. I did throw in a few jalapenos, but it’s otherwise pretty basic.
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I see, sir, that you are among the initiates. 🙂
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Oh my gosh – A recipe with pictures! I would love to post this one my food blog as a guest post. This would be a great way to resurrect it from dormancy. What do you think?
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Of course. Feel free to use anything I post, however you like. 🙂
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You are so generous – God Bless You, Bill
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Hmmm – I’d better check out Seedbed and see what you’ve been up to then 😉
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By the way, one of the websites I have is a photo gallery of food-related pictures. Anyone can upload their pics for all to see and all the pictures go up automatically; although, there is a review process on the back end and sometimes inappropriate things are taken down. A lot of my food blogger friends have told me that they upload their pics and their web traffic increases so I’m going to put up a few of yours and see what happens – A few extra readers never hurt 🙂
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