Asian-Style Cayenne Hot Sauce

This year we used about a pound of LC Cayenne pods to cook up a sweet and spicy Thai sauce. Unlike “Louisiana Style” hot sauce, this one is thick, almost like ketchup, and is a lot less vinegary. It is great with grilled shrimp, over rice, for Asian cooking, and even as a dip.

Read Harald Zoschke's entire article on the Burn! Blog here.

Ingredients

1 pound red, ripe NuMex Las Cruces Cayenne chiles (or similar meaty cayenne peppers)
1/2 sweet red pepper (e.g. Gypsy or a small ripe bell pepper)
1 medium-sized onion, minced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 pound sugar
4 ounces rice vinegar
2 tablespoons olive or sunflower oil

2 ounces rice vinegar **
1 ounce maple syrup **
water (if necessary)  **

4-5 empty hot sauce bottles

** These ingredients are to be added after cooking and blending.

Instructions

Rinse the cayenne peppers, cut off the tops with the stems, and slit pods open lengthwise, discarding most but not all seeds. Cut pods into chunks. Also remove the stem and “innards” of the sweet pepper and cut the pod into chunks as well.

In a sauce pan sauté the onion in the oil until soft (2-3 minutes).

Add the garlic and simmer for an additional 2 minutes.

Add sugar and the 4 ounces of vinegar, stir well and bring to a boil.

Add chopped cayenne and sweet peppers, stir well and simmer over medium heat for about 45 minutes, until the peppers are soft.

Meanwhile, sterilize your hot sauce bottles in boiling water and let them drain upside down on a towel.

Blend the sauce in a blender, or in the sauce pan using a hand-held immersion blender until smooth. Using a whisk, blend in the maple syrup and the 2 ounces of vinegar. ***

The sauce should be smooth and thick now, with a consistency almost like ketchup. If the sauce appears to be too thick, carefully add a little water and whisk again. Bring sauce briefly to a boil again.

Using a funnel, fill the bottles with sauce and put on lids immediately.

Design a label and put it on your bottles. Enjoy! Store opened bottles in the refrigerator. Yield: about 20 oz. (i.e. four “Woozy” type 5oz./148 ml bottles). I bet now you’re glad you kept those emptied hot sauce bottles!

*** Since vinegar tends to lose acidity during cooking, we add some of it at the end. That way we’re getting a lower pH (= higher acidity), which is necessary for preservation. If you would produce such a sauce commercially, you would check the pH with a meter and keep it well below pH 4.2).