Our garden had a bumper crop of serranos, and with the recent frost, we’ve harvested them all. I’ve been making a bunch of hot pepper vinegar, both as gifts and for our own consumption. I just boil some white vinegar with some garlic and salt, put two slices in each cleaned pepper, pour the vinegar over the peppers, and put it in a jar in the fridge (not canned, because I figure the fridge combined with the pickling will keep it fresh for a good while).
It’s very tasty, but what it really cries for is pork, and I eat fish, but not warmblooded meat. Are there other really good uses for hot pepper vinegar out there that would be good to make at home?
Also, do folks have other recipes? I’ve looked at some that involve food processing the peppers and vinegar together, and I’m not sure how good that would be.
hmm. my first thought is: could you make a nice hot and sour soup with it? You could certainly put some seafood in that. Could be yummy. Also mix with oil and/or herbs for a salad dressing/marinade for whatever. Might be very good brushed on grilled portobellos.
If you eat fish, what about having it with a very firm fleshed fish? I’m thinking shark or fresh tuna with a vinegarette sauce. Heck, I bet you could come up with some sort of semi-Mexican or semi-Sezchuan shrimp thing if sea bugs are to your taste.
Or there’s always the old favorite of collard greens with spicy vinegar.
What else? Sprinkled over beans and rice could be good. Or your favorite beans cooked with the spicy vinegar and put into bean burritos.
My first impulse as a Tennessean would be to say “PINTO BEANS!!!” but then I considered what it means to eat pinto beans. It means beans cooked with pork, topped with raw onion and hot Chow Chow with crumbled cornbread and liberal dashes of pepper vinegar. If you can somehow extract the meat from the beans and cornbread (and for the love of Gods I don’t want to think about how you’d do such a heinous thing ;>) then you’d be all set.
Great ideas, folks–thanks! I especially like the idea of making collards, which I’ve never made before. My wife hates black-eyed peas, but I love 'em, and that’d also be good.
The hot and sour soup sounds better and better to me. I can adapt a recipe that calls for white wine vinegar, but if anyone has a recipe that uses hot pepper vinegar, I’d love to see it.
Mmmmm…I think you should just send it to me. But if not my first thought was spagetti sauce. Admittetly I was was thinking meat sauce but not necesarrily…could be just pasta. I like a little vinegar in my sauce, it brightens the vlavors. And pepper would be even better.
I agree that on a nice strong fish…mackral anyone? even salmon, would be very good.
Lordy, yes…pepper vinegar goes on greens of all sorts. Can’t serve them without it. I’ve also been known to use it instead of malt vinegar on my fish & chips.
