The UK’s days of regarding chilli and garlic as tantamount to devil worship - the sort of hideous departure from boiled grey vegetables which only a…foreigner would countenance - are largely behind us, but it’s still not quite so culturally entrenched here as elsewhere.
I’ve made ketchup and brown sauce with great success, but even that’s relatively unusual - though making chutneys to sell at the village fête is very much a tradition. I’ve dabbled a little in homemade hot sauce, but very minimally and was a little underwhelmed.
I can look recipes up, obviously, but here we can actually discuss them. I’ve numerous (probably dozens) of chilli sauces in stock, but a few key-point examples:
Encona Hot Pepper (original) and Tabasco Habanero are the hotter end - good for Caribbean stuff, and probably the rough limit of what I find enjoyable, Cholula Chipotle is probably the favoured smoky one, Cholula Chilli & Garlic (a favourite on cold meatloaf actually), Flying Goose is (so far) my favourite Sriracha - unashamedly fond of what the MSG does for it, I reckon Tabasco Jalapeño is my favourite green chilli sauce these days, though it’s not a well represented category in the British grocery market. Oh…Blue Dragon Sweet Chilli is a good old standby, but that’s not really what I’m looking for here. There’s room for fiery barbecue sauces in my life too; that position is currently vacant and I’ll entertain suggestions, but again mostly what I want is hot sauce.
If I had one really good green-chilli sauce recipe, I’d be happy…but I imagine I’ll change my tune once I’ve got that down, so I’ll open it up to whatever you want to chip in.
My basic salsa caliente recipe, back when energy was cheap, required hours of boiling. Throw dried red (hot) chiles in a pan with salt and enough water. Boil it down till thick enough. To do that now I would likely stoke-up our meadow firepit, feed it enough downed wood from our forest, and watch cautiously. Or I may cheat with the Instant Pot.
I earlier lived on the Mojave Desert and grew cherry tomatoes, jalapeño peppers, and green onions (scallions). Finely chop together a few onions, a handful of those wee little tomatoes, and a whole pepper. Salt to taste and give it a squirt of lime or lemon juice.
Whisk-in a little cornstarch to thicken a too-runny sauce.
This is for tabascos, but you can of course use any chili you want. I think jalapenos, (green) espelettes or shishitos (as long as you know they are on the spicier end) would work great too.
Tabasco sauce recipe
20 tabasco chiles (about 10 ounces)
1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic
3/4 cup thinly sliced onions
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
2 cups water
1 cup distilled white vinegar
Combine the peppers, garlic, onions, salt and oil in a non-reactive saucepan over high heat. Saute for 3 minutes. Add the water and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes, or until peppers are very soft and almost all of the liquid has evaporated. (Note: this should be done in a very well-ventilated area!)
Remove from the heat and allow to steep until mixture comes to room temperature.
In a food processor, puree the mixture for 15 seconds, or until smooth. With the food processor running, add the vinegar through the feed tube in a steady stream.
Taste and season with more salt, if necessary. (This will depend on the heat level of the peppers you use as well as the brand of vinegar used.)
Strain the mixture through a fine mesh sieve and then transfer to a sanitized pint jar or bottle and secure with an airtight lid. Refrigerate. Let age at least 2 weeks before using.
Can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 6 months.
If you want sweet-hot (which a lot of American BBQ sauces are, as well as a lot of Asian chili sauces) add a sweet component - sugar, molasses, honey. I think y’all have golden syrup and treacle. Those would work too.
2 cups apple cider vinegar
2 T dark brown sugar
1 T ketchup
1 T tomato paste
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon of ground pepper
1 teaspoon salt
Sometimes some smashed garlic.
Throw it all in a sauce pan and bring to a boil, wisking to dissolve. Cool and put into a shaker bottle. Best to make ahead of time so it melds.
I was just going to post that. I made four sauces last summer, and the fermented were head and shoulders above the rest. Plus, it almost couldn’t be easier.