October 16, 2013 October 16, 2013/ Morgan
If you’re not a fan of spicy stuff it’s time to look away. This stuff is HOT – but holy hell is it delicious. I found myself eating it with a spoon (yes.. it hurt so good.) I put it on everything. On bread, on pizza, on chips, on burritos, on rice… anything I had in the fridge was fair game.
Habaneros are pretty dang hot but they also have a very fruity flavor to them. Add some peaches, some acid, some garlic and man does this hot sauce sing. It’s HOT but its incredibly flavorful. It makes a great dip but you’ll also want to pour it all over everything.
Now that I have the attention of hot sauce fans – we all love our hot sauce, don’t we? We have our favorites that we buy regularly (that perhaps we grew up with.) I believe that part of this is regional but overall I’ve found that most people I know are familiar with sriracha, Tapatio, Franks and of course Tabasco. They are all so different and have different uses that you may have all of them in your house right now. And believe me, I know that the store stuff is stellar. You might have local hot sauce brands that are amazing.
BUT… Did you know that making your own is uniquely satisfying and delicious as well? It doesn’t take much time and it makes about the world’s BEST gift. I bought these bottles at the local brew shop for under $2 a piece with the corks included. You could make a ton of these for the holidays this year – especially for those hard to buy for people.
And since I LOVE hot sauce and I LOVE making hot sauce I’ll be posting several recipes before the holidays begin so you can try them all out.
Don’t forget my warning about the gloves and peppers though in the recipe below. You don’t want to deal with pepper burns like I have (or like other people I know have.) Just break down and buy some disposable gloves. I even wore some eye protection while cutting them in case of flying pepper juice. These days I just feel like I can never be too careful.
- 1 lb chopped peaches with pits removed (frozen works great)
- 5 cloves garlic
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- 2 Tablespoons sugar (maybe a touch more if your peaches aren’t sweet)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- zest and juice of 1 lime
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar
- 10 – 12 habanero peppers, stems removed and cut in half (please for the love of all things wear gloves. These peppers aren’t a joke. They are hot. You can buy a huge box of gloves for a couple of bucks in the pharmacy department of any store and that will last you a good long time.)
Combine everything but the hbaneros in a medium sized sauce pan and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down a bit and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Take off the heat, add the peppers and blend (with an immersion blender or a stand up blender) until the sauce is completely smooth. Taste it to see if it needs more sugar, salt or lime juice to your taste. Let it cool, bottle it up how you wish (mason jars work great!) and refrigerate. It should last several months in the fridge if you can make it last. But I ate a ton of it in the first week because I found out that it tastes awesome on everything – especially pizza!
October 16, 2013/ Morgan/ 
