Some Like it Hot

I like to eat spicy stuff and I love peppers.  Although I like Tabasco Sauce, it’s a little too “vinegary” tasting to me.  For some reason Tabasco (and the strong vinegar taste) works great with rice and beans, but for other dishes, it doesn’t.  A couple of years ago, I thought, “Why not give it a go in trying to make our own hot sauce with Tabasco Peppers?”

At the end of the growing season, the local feed store that we frequent had some leftover Tabasco Pepper Plants that didn’t sell.  They ended up giving a four pack of seedlings to my wife and she brought them home.  I dutifully planted them in the garden near the already growing Criolla Sella Peppers, Jalapeno Peppers, and various bell peppers we had growing.  In 2014 we made our inaugural batch of Homemade Tabasco Pepper sauce and chronicled it here: HERE.  It was a big hit at our house.  For some reason more of the pepper flavor comes through and less of the vinegar flavor.

Each year since new tabasco pepper plants have sprouted and we’ve experienced a huge pepper harvest.  It was no different this year.  I figured we’d make some more and post once again on it.  I issue apologies in advance for the lousy photo quality.  New batteries are coming soon for my camera and the photo quality will improve marginally.

I walked out to the garden to pick the reddest of the tabasco peppers on the plants.  There was a big Dragonfly hanging out on the wire cage that keeps the pepper plant upright.  You can see the red peppers in the background of the dragonfly photo.

There were lots of peppers, but I picked only those that were the color red that almost makes your eyes hurt looking at them.  I perhaps picked a little more than a quart of them, pulling the stems and caps off of the peppers and putting them in a colander to wash off any dirt or bugs.

I used a big knife to cut the peppers into small pieces.  I didn’t wear gloves, but made a mental note to NOT put my fingers anywhere near my eyes!  This step could probably be done better and easier with a food processor, but sometimes I find it is easier to clean up a knife and cutting board rather than cleaning up the food processor and blade.

I scraped all the pepper pieces into a pot and added a cup and a half of white vinegar and s healthy smattering of kosher salt and put it on the stovetop until it boiled.  Then I turned it down to low and allowed it to simmer for 15 minutes.  Then I pulled it off the heat and allowed it to come to room temperature.

Then I got Tricia’s handy-dandy immersion blender out.  What a nifty tool this thing is!  I blended the vinegar-pepper mixture until it was an aromatic, fire-engine red slurry of spice.  It was a little thick, but pourable.

I poured the slurry through a funnel and into a vinegar bottle and placed it in the fridge.  Unlike Tabasco Sauce that is made in Avery Island, Louisiana, I don’t have oaken barrels to age the sauce in for years.  I also don’t have the patience to wait for that long.  I’ll “age” it in the fridge for a month and labeled it with some freezer tape to alert me when it is ‘done’. 

After a month has passed, I’ll taste it and assess the consistency.  If it is a little thick, I’ll add a smidgeon of water.  It is a tricky thing.  You want it thin enough to pour out drops, but thick enough so that it doesn’t run freely. Our 2014 batch was perfect – both in flavor and in consistency.

The Homemade Tabasco Pepper sauce next to the raw milk is an interesting contrast.  Although both are fresh and come from our little homestead farm, one is hot.  One is cold.  One is red.  One is white.  One starts a fire in your mouth and one puts it out!