I have a confession to make.
I’m getting tired from processing the garden. This is a fabulous place to be, because it means that I’ve been getting a decent harvest this year and am putting all kinds of tasty treasures away for winter. This week I’ve frozen a second batch of blanched zucchini, a whole pile of roasted eggplant for pizza and pasta, and I also harvested the carrot patch and put that in the freezer. I meant to can the beets this week, but closer inspection of the patch showed me that Peter Rabbit found the beets to his liking, and once he’d sampled a beet, the slugs moved in. The whole patch went into the compost pile. So that was a little discouraging, but since there are plenty of other treasures to be had yet, I continue harvesting and preserving what I can.
Today’s treasure came from the pepper patch. I’ve lost a great deal of peppers this year to rodents- could be mice, could be rabbit, could be mole… I’ve yet to actually see the critter, but I definitely see the debris left behind, and unless a pepper is high in the air, it’s not safe from the rodent, regardless of heat level. That’s a bit of a bummer overall, as I’d been looking forward to roasting green chilies for the freezer, pickling more pepperoncini, and making some cowboy candy. Alas, I’ve had enough peppers for salsa making, and today I thought that if I harvested everything that was ripe I would have enough for a batch of Basic Aged Pepper Sauce. I was right on the money, I had exactly two pounds of hot peppers on my plants that were ripe and ready. Some were blazing superhots, like the Red Fatalii, Yellow Fatalii, Madame Jeanette and Bahamian Goat, some were much more mild, like the Mild Habanero, Aji Fantasy, Barro Do Ribeiro, Aleppo, and Cherry Bomb. Then there were the medium-hots, the ones that I left the seeds in, hoping their seeds would contribute some heat, but not so much to make the end sauce overwhelming. I would place my Serrano, Hanoi Market Peppers and Bulgarian Carrot peppers into that category.
All together, these peppers smelled amazing! This hot sauce really couldn’t be easier. I went through the peppers one by one, cutting off the tops, removing seeds and spongy placenta, and then tossed them in the food processor. Once the peppers were pulverized into small bits, they went into a stockpot with a bit of vinegar and salt, and boiled for just a few minutes. I poured that all into a jar, added a lid, and now we wait until Christmas to taste. It really is that easy. When the sauce is finished, there is the optional step of straining, but I like my hot sauces chunky, so we usually use it just as it is.
One word of caution about making hot sauce. There’s the obvious precaution of wearing gloves when handling hot peppers that a lot of people use (I don’t), but the first time I made this sauce several years ago, I gassed my family. The kids literally had to leave the house from the fumes while the hot peppers and vinegar boiled. So this time, when I cooked the hot sauce, I did it while the kids were at dance and Andy was gone. The windows were also wide open. Since this sauce cooks for a very short amount of time, it clears out quickly, but for those with breathing issues, please make sure you make this (or any) hot sauce with proper ventilation in place.
Basic Aged Hot Sauce
2 pounds hot peppers, de-seeded and chopped
3 cups white vinegar
2 teaspoons salt
Finely chop the hot peppers in a food processor, then add to a non-reactive saucepot. Add the vinegar and salt, and bring to a boil. Boil gently for ten minutes.
Pour into a mason jar and allow to cool so that you can touch the jar without scalding. Add two piece lid. Set in a cool, dark space and allow to rest, undisturbed for three months.
After three months the sauce is ready! If you prefer a smoother sauce, you can strain the solids out and discard. Store in the refrigerator.
If you’d like to can this, you need to bring it back to a boil after aging and pour into 4-ounce or half-pint canning jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Process in a boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes.