We love spicy food. Ok… maybe not everybody fancies the kick of spiciness in their food. But since you are reading this post we hope you share our love for all that is HOT.
At Maldonado Bistro we like to make our own hot sauce. There is something satisfying when you put in the effort to do it yourself than purchasing it off the shelf. (Also some of our staff love spicy food and it comes in handy to use during our daily staff meal.)
Making your own hot sauce is not rocket science. Yes, certain renown hot sauce brands have a laborious process to make their product what it is. It can take months if not years.
For example the classic Tabasco brand preserves the chilli for 3 years before making the final hot sauce. Here is an interesting video to demonstrate the effort (and patience) in making that little punchy bottle of Tabasco.
Back to our recipe!
Below we are sharing with you the recipe we use to make our own home-made hot sauce. Certainly we can’t wait three years to make our hot sauce. But fermenting the chillies for one to two weeks is sufficient for what we need it for.
The process to ferment the chillies is called lacto-fermentation. It is a simple process of brining the vegetables, in this case the chilli, in salt and water. Lacto-fermentation is an ancient method of food preservation that has been around for thousands of years. Be it sauerkraut, pickles, or Korean kimchi, the process is the same where the vegetables are brined for a period of time in salted water.
Lacto-fermentation happens when natural starches and sugars found within vegetables and fruits are converted to lactic acid by the friendly bacteria lactobacilli.
One last thing to mention is on the choice of chillies you use to make the hot sauce. It all depends on how hot you want it to be. If you know your chillies you will know the difference in intensity from chilli varieties like bird’s eye, habanero and scotch bonnett to mention a few.
We prefer to opt for a mild and sweet chilli like the Medusa or Italian Sweet variety which are regularly available in Malta. We like the sauce to be hot but round and mellow. Not piercing hot like a needle. We love hot sauce but we also want to taste the actual food too. It is all a personal choice which you will probably have to experiment yourself from batch to batch.
Another trick to consider is adding a red pepper to the brine. This can develop a different layer of flavour and actually make your hot sauce a little more accessible to those who fear that pinch of heat.
Good luck on your hot sauce making. We are sure it can be a summer hit at the barbecue. Also great to spice up a rich tomato-based pasta dish or stew.
Fermented Chilli Hot Sauce
Equipment
- Large Glass Jar (minimum 3 litres)
- Weighing Scale
- Blender (with jug)
- Sieve
- Glass Bottles (sterilised)
Ingredients
To Ferment The Chillies
- 500 grams Red Chillies
- 50 grams Sea Salt
- 1.2 litres Water (filtered)
To Make The Hot Sauce
- 100 ml Vegetable Oil
- 8 cloves Garlic (sliced thinly)
- 1 sprig Fresh Rosemary
- 150 ml Cider Vinegar
- 50 ml Brine Liquid (from chilli fermenting jar)
- 1/2 tsp Xanthan Gum (optional)
Instructions
To Brine The Chillies
- Wash the chillies and slice off the green stems. Then slice through the chilli's length to make two halves.Depending on how hot you like your hot sauce, and also depending on how intense the chilli flesh actually is, you can decide to remove or keep the seeds.
- Pack the chillies in a big jar which can store all the chillies. Dilute the sea salt with the filtered water and poor into the jar.
- Place a plastic bag filled with water in the jar to press down the chillies to be submerged in the salted water.It is important that chillies remain submerged through the process to avoid undesirable mold on the top.
- Seal the jar with a lid and place in a dark place at room temperature for a minimum of 1 to maximum 2 weeks.
To Make The Hot Sauce
- Take the chilli brine jar out of storage and open. Do not be worried if the brine has become a bit cloudy and there is a white film layer on the surface. As long as there are no fuzzy black threads (i.e. mold), you are good to go!
- Empty the contents of the jar through a sieve and reserve some of the brine liquid.
- While the fermented chillies drain, heat up the oil in a skillet and fry the garlic until dark. Careful to not burn the garlic because it can become undesirably bitter.
- Drain the toasted garlic and reserve the garlic-infused oil.
- Fill the jug of a blender with the fermented chillies and add the toasted garlic, rosemary, 50ml of the reserved brine and cider vinegar. Blend until smooth.
- With the blender still running add some of the garlic-infused oil. Not more than half of it. And once emulsified add the optional xanthan gum and continue blending until combined.
- Taste and decide if you need to season with a bit more salt and if you desire a bit more acidity with an extra dash of cider vinegar.
- Pass through a fine sieve and bottle the hot sauce in sterilised bottles.It is up to you if you would like to reserve the chilli pulp and seeds left in the sieve. All you need to do is store in a sterilised jar and top it with some oil. Could be handy if you would like to add a punch of heat to a sauce, minced meat, or vegetables.
Notes
Did you try this recipe?
Please let us know how it turned out for you! Send us an e-mail or tag @maldonadobistro on Instagram and hashtag it #amaltesepantry.
