The Hot Pepper Sauces have begun!
We planted quite a few – for us – hot pepper plants this year with the hope of getting some unique pepper sauces. I was able to get just enough Thai Peppers this morning to make a small-ish batch of sauce.
Canning has always intrigued me. I remember as a young kid, my grandmother canning in her kitchen in Bakersfield – in August with no air conditioning. It would be sweltering in there, but that didn’t stop her. She did paraffin wax canning – a method no longer recommended – but she was scrupulous in her cleaning and never had an issue. I wondered why she went to all that trouble when you could just go to the store and buy them canned or frozen. I definitely had plebian taste buds…
I tinkered with canning and preserving – and dehydrating – things in the hippy-dippy ’70s, but never really took things seriously until we started gardening back in Pennsylvania. Tons of tomatoes ripening daily made for some quick decision-making! We had a finished basement with a wall of floor-to-ceiling shelves – a pack-rat-canners-dream-come-true. We had the kitchen to do it and a bottle and jar warehouse/distributor less than an hour away. I went to work filling those shelves. – (And I still buy my jars and bottles at Fillmore Container – except now I have to pay shipping…)
A smaller kitchen and less storage has slowed down the volume but I still really like the process. We will never buy pasta sauce – ever. Victor makes a batch of sauce and I get 12-14 quarts – enough to last a few months. But that’s pretty much the largest volume product we’re making nowadays.
In the meantime, stay tuned for several more small-batch hot sauces…
We have a single Thai pepper plant that has been producing some extremely hot peppers. Now, I like heat – and I can usually tolerate quite a bit, but I also want some flavor involved. These peppers have been pretty much blinding heat, so I decided they really needed to be pared down. My solution was jarred roasted red peppers – from Trader Joe’s, of course! They added the bulk pepper flavor and the Thai peppers added that lovely heat.
Thai Red Pepper Sauce
- 6 oz Thai Red Peppers, chopped
- 2 jars Trader Joe’s Fire Roasted Red Peppers
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 cups white vinegar
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup hoisin sauce
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Wear Gloves.
In 4 quart saucepan sauté chopped union and garlic in a splash of oil until wilted. Add chopped Thai peppers and cook a few minutes. Add jarred peppers and their juice, chopping up peppers – everything is going to be blended, so don’t go crazy.
Add sugar and hoisin sauce, heat through, and then add vinegar. Bring to a rolling boil. Reduce heat and hard-simmer about 10 minutes.
Remove from heat and place in blender – blend until smooth. (I have a Ninja and let it go for 3-4 minutes.)
Strain through a mesh strainer back into the pot.
Check for seasoning and add salt and/or pepper, as desired. Bring it back to a boil.
Strain it once again with a very fine mesh strainer into your fully-sanitized/boiled bottle(s) of choice.
If you have never done canning or made shelf-stable hot sauce and the like, please check with your local Department of Agriculture or whichever agency is responsible for accurate information on food safety. Just because I do something doesn’t mean it’s the proper way to do it!
Now for the other fun stuff – making labels!
In my time, I have decorated cakes, I have set up lavish buffets and created fabulous food displays What I cannot do is draw a straight line with a ruler. I cannot put pencil in hand and create. What I can do, however, is use my Adobe Suite to manipulate and create. I started with Macromedia back a bazillion years ago before they were bought out by Adobe – and then continued on with them. I will never be able to use more than a tenth of it to its full potential, but me and YouTube have a lot of fun figuring things out! Once you get a couple of things down, it’s easy to just switch things out!
I’m a 74 year old man who is trying to keep my brain functioning. Nothing I make is for sale, everything is for personal consumption. I look for pictures in the public domain or fair use. It is never my intent to abuse a copyrighted work, and will immediately remove anything if there is an issue.
