August - It's Hot Sauce / Salsa time!!

Chiles are grown to be eaten and what better way to enjoy the fruits of your labour than to make up a batch of salsa, chutney or hot sauce for the summer barbeque. Ive had great fun experimenting with different peppers and ingredients over the years in a quest to develop the ultimate recipe. However, whatever your making there are a few hard and fast rules you must follow to avoid getting food poisoning/botulism.

1. Make sure your working in a clean environment
2. Sterilized all jars or bottles before use. You can do this by boiling them in a pan of hot water (with the jar lids off!) for a few minutes
3. For sauces in particular, you should use plenty of vinegar (acetic acid) and fruit juices (citric acids) in your recipes to kill off any bacteria and prevent your sauce from spoiling. Most sauces should keep for a few months in a refrigerator.
4. Take great care when handling hot chile pods, preferably wera gloves. If you touch somewhere sensitive ‘Jalapeno eye’ could be the least of your worries!!

Although there are literally 1000’s of recipes, here are a few simple ones to get you going:

A Hot Sauce Recipe (makes about 3 medium sized bottles)
- 1 onion (diced)
- 2 large carrots (diced)
- 2 Tomatoes (roughly chopped)
- 3 cloves or garlic (minced)
- 1 lime (or Orange/Mango/Grapefruit) - juiced
- 1 tablespoon of Virgin Olive Oil
- 1/2 cup of distilled vinegar (or white/cider vinegar not malt vinegar)
- A pinch of Cumin
- A large pinch of Salt
- Chopped Chiles to taste*

* The pungency of your Chiles will determine how hot your sauce is (check out the chileman database first). For a really hot sauce use Habenero’s, Scottch Bonnets or even Naga Morich -if your feeling really brave

Directions

1. Sauté the onions and garlic in the oil until soft and lightly browned. Add the carrots and tomatoes with a small amount of water. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the carrots are soft.

1. Add the tomatoes, lime juice, vinegar, salt and the finely chopped Chiles. Let the mixture simmer for 5 minutes to combined the flavours.
2. Blender the mixture to a smooth puree and leave it to stand for a few more minutes to cool. Strain the puree into sterile jars, seal and refrigerate.

A Salsa Recipe (makes about 3 cups)
- 4 Tomatoes (roughly chopped)
- 1 Onion (roughly diced)
- 1/2 cup Celery, chopped
- 1 large green (or red/yellow) mild pepper (capsicum)
- 1/4 cup of Olive oil
- 2 tablespoons of Red wine vinegar (or white/cider vinegar not malt vinegar)
- 1 teaspoon of Mustard seeds
-1 teaspoon of Coriander seeds (crushed)
and One large bag of Nachos !!

The key to proper preparation is to never use a food processor or blender. Salsa should be chunky and you should chop all ingredients by hand. There is no need to cook this mixture simply cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.

Do you know any fantastic recipes/manufacture a gorgeous hot sauce?
More recipes will be posted in the chileman recipe section in the coming weeks. If you have a fantastic recipe that you would like included please contact us here: thechileman@hotmail.co.uk

Weve also just set up our Chilemans Guide to Hot Sauces. If you are a hot sauce manufacturer and think we (and our thousands of regular monthly visitors) should know about your products, please contact us.

Enjoy