Spice up your life with hot sauce

Thinking back to how my love of all things spicy evolved, I can think of one truly memorable batch of salsa that my father made. For the sake of backstory, I grew up on 13 acres near Colona, the child of homesteaders. If you could grow it, you grew it. Animals weren’t named, aside from food derived names, like “bacon” or “Thanksgiving dinner.”

Mom has (to this day) a medicinal herb garden, and concocts a variety of homemade remedies for any number of ailments. Scraps and refuse go to chicken feed and composting. And everything from the gardens and fields gets put up for winter in one way or another. Which brings us back to the salsa. Dad makes jars upon jars of salsa every year from the farm’s bounty, and he is good at it. Every year, the recipe changes ever so slightly, dependent on what the harvest has yielded, but every batch unmistakably tastes like dad’s salsa.

Nothing store-bought comes close to the flavor of his salsa, and every year, my brothers and I look forward to the jars he gives us. One year, when I was around 8, one batch of salsa came out ... a bit different than usual. All the jars from that batch were lovingly branded “Jet Engine Cleaner,” because it was far, far hotter than any batches that had been made prior. And I loved it! Ever since then, I’ve chased the heat, leading to what could easily be termed as hot sauce addiction.

Every grocery store trip finds me looking over new arrivals in the hot sauce section, looking for my next favorite thing. The entire door of my refrigerator is filled with bottle after bottle of different varieties. And recently, in the footsteps of my father, I’ve begun to make my own, chasing the perfect balance of heat and flavor that no store-bought sauce seems to be able to capture.

Hot sauces can be made several ways, from quick cook methods, to barrel aged, to vinegar brined, to fermented. I personally prefer the fermented approach, for several reasons.

The first is very simple. Through fermentation, the depth of flavor that you can develop is greater than that of a quick cook method. Barrel aging is typically more logistically sound in a commercial operation than in a home kitchen. And while I love me some vinegar, I prefer to add it in a controlled fashion at the end, rather than bringing my whole solution in it. Another reason I prefer to ferment is the health benefits. Fermented hot sauces develop bacteria from the Lactobacillus genus, which is one of the probiotic strains that assist with gut health. Other health benefits can be found as well, including boosted immune function, cholesterol maintenance and increased nutrient absorption from all foods you eat. Eating fermented foods is even potentially linked to increased weight loss results.

The downside to fermented hot sauce is that it must be done correctly to avoid cultivating harmful bacteria. Luckily, it’s very easy to mitigate that risk. The harmful bacteria that can form while fermenting are aerobic bacteria strains, meaning that they need oxygen to survive. So, to prohibit any aerobic bacteria from forming, you just have to make certain no food matter is exposed to oxygen.

The other downside is that the lactobacillus that is cultivated doesn’t die when the hot sauce is finished, as such, it must be refrigerated at all times. The sauce could be heat treated to kill the lactobacillus, but the sauce would then lose its probiotic qualities, so I just prefer to keep all mine refrigerated.

The process for fermented hot sauces is really far simpler than one might think. Chiles and base foods, like tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, etc. are placed in a glass jar, and covered with a salt brine. The food matter is then weighted, to keep it submerged completely, thus prohibiting that pesky aerobic bacteria from forming. After fermenting, which can last from one week to several months, depending on the level of flavor you wish to cultivate, the mixture is strained, pureed, and finished with vinegar and spices. I do recommend using all red or all green ingredients in each batch, to keep a nice vibrant color. Mixing colors can result in a muddy, unappetizing looking sauce. Darker colored base ingredients, like blackberry, can hide a bit of color mixing well. I make a beautiful pineapple, ginger, and habanero sauce, with a base of yellow bell pepper. A strawberry and Carolina reaper sauce is amazing, and more versatile than you’d expect. A tomatillo and avocado based sauce made with serrano peppers and finished with fresh cilantro is flavorful, creamy, and spicy! So, feel free to change up ingredients, experiment, and make a sauce that is all your own!

Basic fermented hot sauce

• 1 pound chiles and “base ingredients” (tomato, tomatillo, fruit, bell pepper, onion, etc.) The higher the ratio of chiles to base ingredients, the hotter your sauce.

• 6 cloves garlic

• 4 cups water

• 4 teaspoons of kosher or sea salt.

• Unfiltered Apple cider vinegar to taste

• Kosher or sea salt, to taste

• Raw honey, to taste

Additional flavor ingredients (ginger, avocado, carrot, cilantro, cumin, curry paste, etc.)

Note: Additional flavor ingredients may be used either during fermentation or for finishing the sauce. Ingredients such as ginger, carrot and avocado work well during fermentation, while fresh herbs/pastes/powders work better for finishing.

Instructions

Combine water and 4 teaspoons salt in a saucepan, heat until salt has dissolved. Place chiles, base ingredients, and additional flavor ingredients that you wish to ferment into a 1-quart glass jar. Cover all food with the water and salt mixture. Weight all food down, so that nothing is above the waterline. You can use a plastic bag full of water, a food weight, or a flexible plastic lid for this purpose. Cover tightly with a cheesecloth, or use an airlock if available.

Store in a dark, room temperature area for one week to two months. New fermenters are encouraged to only ferment one to two weeks, until you become familiar with the process. The brine liquid will begin to look cloudy, this is normal! Discard the entire jar if mold begins to grow in your ferment. Small amounts of mold on top of the brine may be discarded if they are floating on the top of the brine, and not touching any other food matter.

After fermentation, drain off brine, reserve in case you need more liquid. Puree all food matter with vinegar, salt, and additional non-fermented flavor ingredients until smooth. Add honey if necessary, to smooth out flavor. You may put the pulp through a strainer if esired, for a smoother sauce. Funnel into glass bottles and refrigerate