BajaNomad

making a good liquid sauce ala tabasco?

capt. mike - 12-7-2008 at 03:09 PM

a friend just gave me 2 quarts of fresh serranos from her garden. she has pickled them before and those were good but i want to try sumthin diff. they are yellow, green and red exhibiting diff levels of vine ripeness.

have any of you ever made home made hot sauce? not salsa but sauce liquid like Tapatio, tabasco, Huachol, and others - there are hundreds. Cholula is some of my fav store bought stuff.

another friend does make some using home grown tabasco peppers and it is excellent but he will not divulge his secret.
i know it takes vinegar and spices but i am clueless on steps, ratios methodology etc. i have a blender - where do i start???:light:

BajaWarrior - 12-7-2008 at 03:16 PM

-where do i start???:light:

By not rubbing your eyes after handling the peppers!

I add them to salsa or guacamole but I'm careful to mince the Serrano peppers.

Natalie Ann - 12-7-2008 at 03:23 PM

Hey Mike, I found several recipes online. This is the one I'd choose if I were going to make hot sauce except I'd add a whole habanero:

Ingredients:

* a scant 2 cups of red serrano chilis, halved and seeded
* 1/4 to 1/2 (depending on how hot you want it) of a habanero pepper, seeded
* 1 large carrot, peeled and diced (about a cup)
* 5 cloves of garlic
* a little olive oil
* 3/4 cup water
* 1 cup vinegar (white or cider)
* juice of 1 lime
* a pinch of sugar
* salt to taste (at least a teaspoon)

Cook peppers, carrots, and garlic in a little olive oil over low heat until softened, about 10 minutes. Turn heat up to high and add water, vinegar, and lime juice. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-high, and simmer for five minutes. Remove from heat, cover, and let cool. Taste for salt.

Put mixture into a blender and process until very well blended. The mixture will be slightly chunky, but liquidy. For a more refined sauce, strain. If you're not fancy (and I'm not) pour unstrained hot sauce into a clean bottle (empty vinegar bottles work great for this) and store in fridge. Makes about 2 cups.

Use as you would Tabasco sauce.

Nena

[Edited on 12-7-2008 by Natalie Ann]

Diver - 12-7-2008 at 03:59 PM

Grill/roast the peppers, garlic and sauce tomotoe
2 cups of peeled peppers. 3-5 cloves garlic and 1 med tomotoe
add 2 tsp salt and 1 tsp sugar
add 1 cup distilled white vinegar
puree, bring to a boil and pour into jars

You can strain the mix into the jars if you like it more liquid.
I think roasting makes a nice difference if you don't have time to age the peppers in salt for a few years like Tabasco.

BajaNuts - 12-7-2008 at 04:08 PM

Nena's recipe sounds as good as any for a starting point.

Depending on how much work you want to do you can---

double or triple the recipe and if you have the equipment, can it in glass jars using a hot water bath, (do not need pressure cooker as long as the mixture has been THOROUGHLY COOKED, meaning bring to a full boil, before putting into jars). Never use hot water bath canning for anything containing uncooked onion, garlic, peppers, and most vegetables.

double or triple the recipe and put the extra in small containers in the freezer.

make a single batch to see if you like it. Take the extra peppers, chop or gring them up, put them in 1-pint Ziploc baggies in the freezer. If you like the recipe, you can take out the frozen peppers and make another batch. You can also use small bits of the frozen peppers for other cooking. The flat Ziploc baggies make it easy to break off a bit for use and reseal the bag without having to defrost the whole bag.

Hint- you can also do the same thing with garlic. Grind it up and freeze in a Ziploc. It sure saves having to peel and mince every time I need a bunch of garlic. For the serious garlic users, you can usually find 3# or 5# containers of peeled garlic cloves at Costco or if you are NOB, ask your local grocery store produce dept to order one for you. Spend 20 minutes grinding and you are set for months. I find grinding with a food processor works better than a blender for this type of mincing. You may need to add a little bit of water to the garlic or peppers while chopping, the garlic especially tends to get very thick. The water won't hurt the end product.

Happy Cooking!

BajaNuts - 12-7-2008 at 04:19 PM

Google "homemade tabasco sauce recipe" for lots of recipes, even one using Tabasco peppers, vinegar, and salt (the original McIllheney's blend).

One recipe made a good point-
Use a non-reactive pan, meaning no aluminum or cast iron as it will react to the acid in the recipe and leach into the product, possibly tainting the flavor. SS, glass and non-stick (in good shape, not all nicked up) are fine.

capt. mike - 12-8-2008 at 07:31 AM

wow! thx all - i will start with Nena's basic outline today.
cold and occasional clouds here today at 68 the high. i will stay indoors and chef up some chemical reactions in the utility sauce research kitchen.:biggrin:

bajaandy - 12-8-2008 at 08:36 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by capt. mike
wow! thx all - i will start with Nena's basic outline today.
cold and occasional clouds here today at 68 the high. i will stay indoors and chef up some chemical reactions in the utility sauce research kitchen.:biggrin:


Be sure to at least open the window when cooking the peppers!~ Pan-roasting hot peppers like that can cause an almost caustic cloud to form in the kitchen!

I was cooking a nice Chinese meal once and needed to make a chili oil sauce. Using some dried chilies and oil, I proceeded to clear the kitchen of all my guests when the toxic cloud caused everyone to cough uncontrollably.


[Edited on 12-8-2008 by bajaandy]

Natalie Ann - 12-8-2008 at 10:01 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by bajaandy
Be sure to at least open the window when cooking the peppers!~ Pan-roasting hot peppers like that can cause an almost caustic cloud to form in the kitchen!

I was cooking a nice Chinese meal once and needed to make a chili oil sauce. Using some dried chilies and oil, I proceeded to clear the kitchen of all my guests when the toxic cloud caused everyone to cough uncontrollably.
[Edited on 12-8-2008 by bajaandy]


:lol: Had that happen once. Not only did all guests vacate as quickly as possible, but my eyes burned so bad that I was teary all night. (They tell me peanut butter or milk will take away the pepper sting, but neither works well in the eye.)

Nena

(edit for grammar)

[Edited on 12-8-2008 by Natalie Ann]

BajaNuts - 12-8-2008 at 05:52 PM

We could do a whole thread on chile OOPS!'s and home remedies. I've read a whole lot of threads dealing with topical capsaisin burns, there's probably a thread or two on this site that offers solutions.

Some of the better solutions I've heard are salt (sounds like the best choice to me) followed by washing and lotion.....Go-Jo automotive type hand cleanser designed to break up grease?oil....and milk ( not sure about this one, but tons of people swear by it).
For internal fire, the only thing that truly works is sugar. It's what they use at the Fiery Foods competitions and if anyone would need an immediate relief it would be judges of a hot sauce competition.

Using the Sugar basis, other things that people "swear by" are evaporated milk (has sugar), carrots (natural sugar) alcoholic beverages (some contain sugar, especially mixed drinks).

Having personally done the stupid trick of cutting up 2 # of jalapenos with out gloves, I NEVER do peppers without gloves. As for my hands, I didn't have any good tricks back then (and no internet...that tells you how long ago that was:lol:) so just suffered for 3 days.

How's that hot sauce coming?

[Edited on 12-9-2008 by BajaNuts]