Habanero Chili Sauce
August 25, 2007
Hmm… What should I do with around a pound of Habanero chilis? I’m thinking I could make a sauce, or I could chop them and pack them with salt in a sealed container for a month or so, then maybe make a sauce from that…
Roasted, I bet they would be great in a salsa….yum!
Uhm, have you ever had habanero chilis in a salsa? It’s punishing.
Roasting them would be like pepper spraying myself.
For the love of all that is holy, wear rubber gloves while chopping them or don’t ever plan on masturbating again.
I’m also planning on a respirator (with VOC cartridges) and safety glasses.
The last time I cut 1 it was bad. I can’t imagine what a whole pile of them would be like.
I was also thinking of roasting them, but that’ll have to be done outside. Away from people.
I was just having lunch at a Thai place the other day with a Chinese coworker who grew up in China. She was talking about the chili paste/sauce they had out on the table and comparing it to the homemade stuff her dad would make when she was a kid.
Basically you just chop up the chilis, add some salt, and leave it out at room temperature. The acid in the chili and the salt keep it from spoiling. The slight vinegary taste that is in most chili pastes is actually not (supposed to be) vinegar, though some commercially produced ones do have it. Sort of how kimchee ferments, so do the chilis. That is, apparently, how you get the best flavor out of a chili sauce. This is secondhand information from a vague description, though, so YMMV.
Danielle had sent me an article about doing exactly that a week or so ago, but I can’t remember where the article is. I think I might do exactly that… It’d be a good generic chili sauce for making all sorts of things spicy.
Very spicy.
I was also thinking of tempering the spicyness / deepening the flavor by using 50% of some other type of chili too.
I wonder what using garlic and tomatillo in there would do… Hmm…
Garlic would be great. I recommend cooking tomatillo first, but (and just guessing, here) you may want to stick to stuff that is likely to preserve itself naturally.
That’s true… Maybe garlic and another chili; something much more mild but flavorful.