The Ups and Downs of Making Homemade Hot Sauce

You know what they say, 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!'

When we first began cutting out processed foods early last year, I thought mostly about making our about our meals and our snacks from scratch. I never gave much thought to our condiments. Condiments were, in my mind, an INGREDIENT, not something with their own list of ingredients! Making homemade mustard and mayonaise, however, have been some of the highlights of our eating non-processed foods. My interest in making condiments stems slightly from my desire to know exactly what is in my food, my homemade versions do not contain yucky preservatives or food colorings. But really I think my interest comes from the desire for enlightenment. How does one go about making mustard? I mean, who is even talking about that?

I read The Nourished Kitchen's recipe for Fermented Hot Sauce almost a year ago. And I was fascinated by it. The ingredient list was impossibly small, peppers, salt and whey. The whey is even optional. And I do love a good hot sauce! But the post came out after pepper season was already over here last year. So I waited until this year.

I have investigated my beloved Frank's Red Hot and it does not contain any highly processed ingredients. I was pleased about that. But I am concerned about the salt content of such sauces. I am definitely a hot-head. If I am not sweating, it is not hot enough. On tacos and chili and the like I use alot of hot sauce to achieve my desired heat level. Alot of hot sauce equals alot of salt. And too much salt doesn't do anyone any good. So....that was my other motivation, not having bags under my eyes the morning after a heat seeking journey.

The first time I made the recipe, I followed the recipe. But I only had 9 ounces of peppers. So I adjusted the measurements accordingly. It was unlike other fermented recipes I had tried because there was no bath of whey and water enveloping my pepper puree. I was concerned about how the whey was going to get to all my peppery bits. Then after two or three days, my habenero puree came down with a powdery looking white mold on the top. I left the jar sitting on the counter for almost two whole weeks before I decided to deal with it. After reading several articles that told me that no injury would befall me as long as the mold was white, I decided to proceed. I finished the recipe. And my sauce was the exact consistency of my Frank's Red Hot. But the habeneroes made it super crazy ridiculously spicy. My kinda sauce!

I am living proof. White mold on the top of fermented foods will NOT make you sick. Whatever it is, it is benign. However.....the white mold does do something to the flavor. My super crazy hot sauce, as much as I wanted to love it, tasted off. It tasted turned. I ate it several times before I threw it out and started over. I never got sick but I never LOVED the sauce.


On my second try I purchased a greater quantity of peppers so as to remain closer to the original recipe.. Habeneroes are all done around here, so I chose serrano peppers. The original recipe calls for three POUNDS of peppers. Do you have any idea how much three pounds of peppers is?! It is a crazy amount. Only slightly less than 2 pounds fits into my food processor, so that was where I stopped. I used the full amount of whey given in the recipe. And the full amount of salt. I also figured since I had a mold problem the first time around I should add a quarter of a cup of water so as to increase the whey's ability to get into every pepper crevice. I did not want mold coming to the party this time!

Fortunately the sauce fermented on the countertop for a full week, and no white mold ever developed. Hurrah!! I strained the sauce and tasted it. It had the right balance of salt and sour from the fermentation. It was perfect on the heat level! It was overall exactly what I wanted it to be. Only problem...the sauce is way to watery. It is fine to add to chili. But it has the same consistency as water. So putting some on a taco might not be so awesome.


Oh well...here we go again. Do I make a new batch? Or just live with this one? Did I make a mistake in adding the extra water? Did I not strain it well enough?

I had a truly brilliant math teacher in high school that always told us, 'You don't learn much from a right answer. One must do many many things right to get a right answer. But when you get a wrong answer it is important to look back at your work and find the ONE thing you did that produced the wrong answer.' Every recipe we make is an opportunity to get some new outcome. Limiting sugar, replacing eggs for baking soda or playing with water contents have all been some of the things I have tried in coming up with the perfect recipes. And with each triumph and failure I have learned something new. Some recipes have been good. Others have been total throw aways. This one has been in between. But I definitely plan on dusting myself off and getting this one right again.

This post is shared with Traditional Tuesdays Healthy 2Day Wednesdays and Real Food Wednesdays and Simple Lives Thursday and Fight Back Fridays

Recipe: Chiles Rellenos

As you all know, my love of all foods Mexican continues. My dear friend TQ again shows us a beautiful authentic Mexican recipe. With pepper and tomato season almost upon us (or totally upon you depending on where you live), this is a great meatless recipe to try out. Be sure to check out TQ's other post on Authentic Puerco en Adobo. Thank you again to TQ for contributing! Enjoy!

Chiles Rellenos (Poblano peppers stuffed with cheese in an egg batter)
Ingredients:
8 Medium to large Poblano peppers
Oaxaca cheese (mozzarella is ok too)
2 or 3 eggs
Flour for dredging
Tomatoes
Chicken Stock
2 cloves of Garlic
4 or 5 peppercorns
Salt
Oil or lard for frying

Roast the peppers in your broiler or directly on the flame of your burner until skin is charred and peeling. Let them rest, preferably in a paper or plastic bag, but it’s not necessary.

Meanwhile, boil tomatoes until soft and skin is peeling off.

While your peppers are roasting/resting and tomatoes are boiling, separate the cheese into segments about 3 to 4 inches long and 1 to 2 inches wide. It doesn’t have to be precise, you want it to fit inside the pepper but you want to fill up the pepper too.

By now your tomatoes are ready. Remove skins and discard. Place tomatoes into a blender with the garlic, peppercorns, salt and enough stock to loosen the blade. Puree.

Add a couple tablespoons of cooking oil to a pot, when it’s good and hot pour the tomato sauce into the pot and add a little more stock so it’s fairly thin and soup like, bring to a boil and then simmer. It should reduce a bit but you want it kind of thin.

Back to the peppers. Peel of the skin. Cut a slit down the side of each pepper and remove as much of the seeds and veins as you can without tearing the flesh. It’s not the end of the world if it tears, but do your best. Stuff cheese into each pepper and set aside.

Heat oil or lard in a deep frying pan, you want it ready for you because once the eggs are beaten you have a narrow window before they start to fall.

Now, separate your eggs and put the whites into a large mixing bowl. Beat with beaters or stand mixer to a firm peak. Then, one by one, add the yolks in and keep beating. It should look like yellow meringue.

One by one, dredge the stuffed peppers in the flour to coat, and then dredge in the whipped eggs carefully coating the entire pepper, your fingers will get battered too, that’s the name of the game! Then place carefully in the hot oil. When it’s good and golden on one side, carefully flip. It helps to spoon oil over the sides and edges if your oil isn’t too deep. Again, this is messy, wear an apron.

When the whole chili is golden, place on a paper towel to drain for a few minutes. When they’re all done, put them directly into the pot with the salsa. The batter does loosen a bit in the salsa but that’s ok.

To serve, place a chili into a bowl and spoon the soupy salsa over it. Serve with warmed corn tortillas.

Then a few minutes later it will look like this…
This post is shared with Healthy 2day Wednesdays

Hot Pepper-Apple Jelly

So I said on Wednesday that I had three weeks worth of peppers, and I really didn't want to throw them away, because that is kind of against the purpose of a CSA, right? Try new things and learn to love vegetables that are in season? But I hate peppers. I always have. I still remember a salad my father made when I was 5 years old with green bell peppers from his garden. YUK! I never ate another pepper.

Today I am an adult and I can tolerate peppers a little better. And I have discovered that I like chiles, just not so much bell peppers. But the summer always produces more than I have the stomach for. I got a thought this week though, Hot Pepper Jelly. This is a very southern thing, because we love to douse everything with sugar and stick it in a jar that can last all winter. Of course as I have mentioned before, I hate all the recipes for canning jams and jellies that I find on the internet because they all have 3-4 times more sugar than they need and they always stupidly include manufactured pectin. Yuk. So, I made up my own recipe. And yes, I brashly contend that it will be safe for consumption after it sits in a properly sealed mason jar for a few months. And if not, I guess I will find out in January!
Hot Pepper-Apple Jelly (Jam really...)
2 Apples with their skins on
Several Chilies or Peppers, Bell, Jalapeno, Cubanelles (thanks TQ), Hungarian Hot, etc
1 Cup of Apple Cider Vinegar
1 Cup of Water
1 Cup of Sugar (I actually used about one and a quarter...but I didn't need that extra bit, I just wanted to empty the bag).

First off I put the cored apples and the seeded and cored peppers through the shredder attachment of my food processor. I was going for a jelly that had a uniform consistency, I wanted the little bits to be small.
Then I dumped all the bits into my three quart saucepan and added the water, cider vinegar and sugar. And I boiled the mixture for about an hour or an hour and a half, until it became very thick and syrupy. Then I filled my glass jars leaving a little head room and processed them in a good old fashion water bath for 15 minutes.

There was enough leftover to store in a tupperware and DH and I had some as a snack before dinner. You know what? I tasted the mix while it was cooking and it was quite spicy. But by the time it got all cooked and done, it wasn't spicy at all. But what an interesting flavor combination, sweet, savory, sour and a tiny bit spicy. Nearly every website I found recipes on recommended cream cheese and crackers. But EVERY cream cheese in the grocery store contained Locust Bean Gum, and the brands named after that city in Pennsylvania had alot more unidentifiable stuff in it than I cared for. So I got a little container of Quark, a light cream cheese meets creme fraiche (it was cheaper too!). And I used our 100% whole wheat crackers and some quark and some pepper jelly. It was really awesome. Tomorrow I am going to put this stuff on a turkey sandwich with munster cheese. Anybody have any other good ideas for it? I have two jars of it put up. That is more than enough for us for now! I might not swap out my CSA peppers any longer. This is a sweet vegetable redemption.