Homemade Hot Sauce

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Many chili cooks like to adjust the heat in their chili by adding various kinds of hot sauces. For the purists in the crowd who insist on making everything from scratch, here is our recipe for a homemade hot sauce. Any chiles of choice can be used. When substituting dry chiles for fresh ones, soak them in warm water for ½ hour to reconstitute them. For more body in this sauce, add the carrots. You can easily double or triple this recipe.

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup chopped onion

  • 2 cloves garlic, minced

  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

  • ½ cup chopped carrots (optional)

  • 10 small fresh hot chiles such as tabascos or piquins, chopped (or substitute 4 habaneros)

  • ½ cup distilled vinegar

  • 1/4 cup lime juice

  • Pinch salt

Instructions

In a saucepan, saute the onion and garlic in the oil until soft. Add the carrots (if used) with a small amount of water. Bring to a boil, reduce, the heat and simmer until the carrots are soft.

 

Place the mixture and the fresh chiles in a blender and puree the mixture until smooth.

Combine the puree with the vinegar, lime juice, and salt and simmer for 5 minutes to combine the flavors.

Strain the mixture into sterilized bottles and seal.

 

Belizean Habanero Hot Sauce

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After cooking and pureeing the sauce, stir in the habanero juice. The sauce is very smooth, very hot, and has a strong habanero flavor.

Ingredients

Carrots, Lime Juice, Vinegar, Habanero Juice

Instructions

In this recipe I never cooked the habaneros in order to preserve their distinctive flavor, so it was a perfect choice for our readers’ first experiment with juicing chiles. After cooking and pureeing the sauce, stir in the habanero juice. The final consistency of the sauce was very smooth, very hot, and had a strong habanero flavor.

  • 1 small onion, chopped

  • 2 cloves garlic, chopped

  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

  • 1 cup chopped carrots

  • 1/4 cup lime juice, fresh preferred

  • 2 tablespoons distilled vinegar

  • 1 teaspoon salt

  • 1/3 to ½ cup habanero juice

In a saucepan, saute the onion and garlic in the oil until soft. Add the carrots and 2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the carrots are soft.

Remove from the heat and transfer the mix to a blender or food processor. Add the lime juice, vinegar and salt, and puree until smooth. Add the habanero juice and mix well.

Store the hot sauce in a glass bottle.

Yield: 1½ cups

Heat Scale: Extremely Hot

Brazilian Malagueta and Bird Chiles

Molho Apimentado (Malagueta Hot Sauce)

Mark Masker Cooking with Chiles at the Holidays, Recipes Leave a Comment

Latin America is well known for it’s spicy, hot, flavorful foods. However let it be known that their cuisine does not acquire its famous flavor without a little help from a friend, namely the hot sauce, known in this case as Molho Apimentado. Malagueta peppers rank hot on the list of peppers and this sauce, as most hot sauces, can be used like the American version of gravy, on any dish be it turkey, rice, kale or stuffing. The hot sauce brings the different flavors of the meal together with one cohesive taste and many textures to give Latin American food lovers the taste they’ve been waiting for.

Louisiana-Style Hot Sauce

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This very easy to prepare sauce only gets better as it ages. Allow it to sit for at least a week before using, if possible. For a green version of this sauce, use serrano, jalapeño, or Thai chiles in their green stage, instead of the red varieties called for below. Note: This recipe requires advance preparation.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup fresh tabasco chiles, stems removed, or substitute cayenne, piquin, or japones chiles

  • 2/3 cup white vinegar

  • 1 3/4 teaspoons salt

Instructions

Place all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth.

Pour into a clean, sterilized bottle and let steep in the refrigerator for a few weeks before using.

 

Hot Sauced Shad Roe with Green Chile & Cheese Eggs

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You can actually use any fish roe in this recipe, so ask your local fishmonger what is available. If you’re in Richmond in April, you’ll find this breakfast shad recipe in restaurants. Of course, you won’t find the green chile eggs, as we do that here in New Mexico. This recipe will not win any awards from the Food Police.

Ingredients

  • 4 shad roes

  • 1/4 cup bacon drippings, melted

  • 1 tablespoon butter

  • 6 eggs, beaten with a little milk

  • 1/4 cup chopped green chile

  • 1/4 cup grated pepper jack cheese

  • Hot sauce of choice

Instructions

In a skillet, combine the shad roes and the bacon drippings and fry the roes for about 10 minutes, turning several times. When the roes are half-done, in another skillet melt the butter, add the eggs and scramble with a fork. When the eggs are nearly done, add the green chile and cheese. To serve, sprinkle the roes with your favorite hot sauce and place next to the eggs.