Finding myself with a surfeit of leery red bird-eye chillis, I was minded to replenish my supply of hot sauce. I still had half a bottle in the fridge, which by now was at least three years vintage and over time had lost in heat and gained in sweetness. The sauce, in short, had had its chips.
I'm very particular about my hot sauce - as are most sauce afficionadoes. A friend keeps one cupboard stocked end-to-end with his favourite brand - that sauce being so hard to source. For me, the heat has to be countered by sweetness, sharpness and a richness of texture. Excessive fire is optional (but a good option indeed). So. To business.
A couple of finely chopped shallots are sweated off in a dash of light oil. Garlic is added - three or four cloves to a bottle - and ginger, equally chopped. Fried lightly, and then the chillis are thrown in, chopped up and all. Salt, and pepper, lots of that.
If you want more flavour and less heat, de-seed fifty percent of the peppers and use more of them. If you want more heat, add a scotch bonnet or two - that'll add a bit of a kick. If you're a freak, use those big peppers which aren't so hot, but, really, if you're doing that what are you doing making hot sauce?
This whole lot is loosened up with some vinegar, and then blended to a saucy consistency. Here's where things went strange - I discovered that Billy, my trusty hand blender, was leaking a strange smelling liquid. Whether it leaked into the sauce or not I couldn't tell - the heat masked any unwarranted scents.
Having done that, slip in enough sugar to make it all sharp-yet-sweet, and simmer until it thickens up nicely. Shove it into an unlabelled bottle, and there you go. Motor-oil sauce - hot sauce flavoured with the juice of a blender's engine.
A little maturity always helps - you may want to shelve it for a month or two before uncorking.
I have been thinking also of hot sauces made with green chillis - I was inspired by the notion of flavouring a green chilli sauce with freshly distilled wormwood. Thujone and Capsaicin are potentially a marriage made in heaven. Sadly I didn't have the time to fabricate a still; I'm not sure if my Wormwood will still have any leaves by the time I engineer something suitable.
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