Hot Sauce

A fermented treat you can tweak to your liking!

This “recipe” is actually less of a recipe and more of a technique for fermenting whatever peppers you might have on hand (perhaps from your garden?) and dreaming up ta hot sauce you’ll love. The incredible thing? You can’t really go wrong when it comes to peppers, brine and seasonal veggies. Also note that this sauce isn’t particularly hot. If you want to turn up the heat, keep the seeds!

 

Ingredients

3.5 to 4 cups of filtered water

1 heaping tablespoon kosher salt

1 to 1.5 pounds peppers (a mix of hot and mild is ideal, but you can use just one type. If you want a very hot sauce, keep the peppers whole. If you are a bit more sensitive spice, half the peppers and remove the seeds)

6 cloves garlic, peeled and kept whole

Neutral oil, for roasting vegetables

1 onion, peeled and quartered

2 large carrots, peeled and trimmed

Cilantro (optional)

Instructions

  1. In your quart sized jar, place the water and salt. Shake until salt dissolves.

  2. Place peppers and garlic in the jar with the water so that peppers are totally immersed in brine. If some brine overflows, that’s ok! Let jar sit on the countertop 5 days or so, skimming off any white yeast that might form on the surface.

  3. On the day you’re ready to finish off the hot sauce, toss the onion and carrots in a generous amount of oil and roast at 400 degrees until vegetables are soft broken down, but not burnt, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool slightly.

  4. In a high powered blender, combine the peppers (stems removed), 3 cloves of the garlic from the jar, the onion, carrots and about 1/4 cup of the pickling brine from the jar. Adjust the amount of brine and add salt to taste until you like the flavor. Add cilantro, if using, to taste, and blend. Note that the flavor will change over the course of a day, so retain the brine in a separate container for adjusting the next day (if you haven’t used it all!).

  5. Hot sauce will last about a week in the fridge, but freezes well. Use on everything from eggs to tacos to rice to soup. Be prepared to get addicted to the robust flavor!

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