hot sauce

I love hot stuff and have since I was about 5 years old. I'm obviously not alone as the use of chiles spread from the Americas through Asia, Africa and Europe. Just about any kind of condiment that has chile as a central ingredient makes me get really excited and curious. So, it might seem strange that I (and the rest of the family) still like tabasco sauce.

Last summer, we had a bumper crop of super hot chiles.


These were grown outdoors, in soil, with not a shred of plastic anywhere proving that Tasmania must have reasonable summers.

We froze and dried lots and then still had plenty to spare so I decided to try and make something that resembles tabasco sauce so that we wouldn't have to keep buying those dinky bottles in boxes imported all the way from the USA.

Using this recipe -

Ingredients:

1 pound fresh red chiles, chopped
2 cups cider vinegar
2 teaspoons salt

Directions:

Combine the chiles and the vinegar in a saucepan and heat. Stir in the salt and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, cool, and place in a blender. Puree until smooth and place in a glass jar. Allow to steep for 2 weeks in the refrigerator. Remove, strain the sauce, and adjust the consistency by adding more vinegar if necessary.

I made about one litre of this sauce


It's really great and probably even better than tabasco even though it doesn't get the 3 years of aging in oak like tabasco does.