Smoked Mango and Habanero

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb. Habanero peppers, smoked and stemmed
  • 1 medium mango, chopped
  • 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 1/4 tsp garlic
  • 1 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 2 tbsp honey
  • 1 tsp shaved ginger
  • 1/2 tsp allspice
  • 1/4 tsp cumin

Directions:

Blend to liquid. Bring to a boil in a sauce pan, then simmer for 10 minutes. Strain.

This is a redo of the first sauce I ever made, but with more and smoked habaneros. I put the fruit in the smoker at 200F for about three hours. Didn’t do anything else to it. The smoke flavor really came through. We had this with some pulled pork and it worked out great.

Posted on by Corey Porter

Asian Pear and Soy Sauce

IngredientsAsian Pear and Soy Sauce

  • 10 Habanero Peppers, stemmed
  • 2 Asian Pears, chopped
  • 1 C. Soy  Sauce
  • 1 Tbsp Ground Mustanrd
  • 1 Tbsp Paprika

Directions:

The usual. Blend to smooth. Bring it to a boil in a saute pan, simmer for 10 minutes and then strain.

This was my son’s recipe. And by “recipe” I mean a list of ingredients he listed off the top of his head. Apparently this was what he’d make a marinade out of if he were smoking some meat and he wanted to know if it’d work as a hot sauce.

It did! Quite well, if I do say so myself. Had this on some frozen pot stickers and it was good fun. It was also great on some slow-cooked pork. Will definitely make this again.

Posted on by Corey Porter

Yellow

Ingredients:Yellow Sauce

  • 3/4 lbs. Habanero peppers, stemmed
  • 2 Bell peppers, stemmed and chopped
  • 1 C. white vinegar
  • 1/4 C. kosher salt

Directions:

Blend to smooth, bring to a boil in a saute pan then simmer for 10 minutes. Strain.

Is it bad that I’m just going for colors at this point? I wanted something mostly yellow, and this did it. A surprising amount of flavor, though. The bell peppers seemed to mostly contribute color and bulk, and the flavor of the habaneros came through a bit more than usual.

That said, it’s… not the most interesting thing I’ve ever made. I’m not going to throw it out, but it may take a while to work through the entire batch.

Posted on by Corey Porter

Katsup BBQ Style

Ingredients

  • 3/4 C Brown Sugar
  • 3/4 C Ketsup
  • 1/4 C Red Wine Vinegar
  • 1/4 C Water
  • 1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
  • 1 Tbsp Ground Mustard
  • 1 Tsp Paprika
  • 1 Tsp Salt
  • 10 Habaneros, stemmed

Directions:

A somewhat different procedure. Somewhat. Everything in the blender. Blend to smooth. Put it in a bottle and serve. No cookin’ necessary.

The sauce is fairly sweet, and while the heat is there, it sneaks up on you. My son tried it, commented on the sweetness but said that there was only a little heat. He came back in the room a minute later to let me know that, ok, it gets a little hot after a second. A minute later he came in for a glass of water. Make of that what you will.

Best with any sort of BBQ that takes a tomato-based sauce. It’d go nice with brisket or burnt ends. (Mmmmmm, burnt ends.)

 

Posted on by Corey Porter

Moar Garlic

 

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb. Red Jalapeno
  • 15 Habanero
  • 3 heads of garlic, cloved (is “cloved” a thing?)
  • 1 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 1/4 cup Susie Q seasoning

Directions:

Just the usual at this point. I didn’t put a whole lot of effort getting the skins off of the garlic cloves. A friend told me once that a chef told him to just grind it all in with the cloves, and this chef had apparently been to France, so who am I to argue. Anyway, throw it all in the blender. Blend blend blend. Saute pan. Boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Blend it again just to be sure. Serve.

The garlic really, really came through. Heat was ok as well! Tried this on chips, wings, and put some on a quesadilla. Worked in all cases. I’d like to try making a pizza with this as the sauce next.

Posted on by Corey Porter

Purple Carrot, Ginger and Habanero

Ingredients:

  • 2 C. purple carrots, chopped
  • 1/2 lb. Habanero peppers, stemmed
  • 1/4 C. Ginger, chopped
  • 1/4 C. Kosher salt
  • 1 C. White vinegar

Directions (or at least what I did):

Toss everything in the blender until it’s the texture of salsa. Bring to a boil in a sauce pan, then simmer for 10 minutes. Back in the blender until it’s smooth. That’s it. Couldn’t be easier.

Less vinegar and more blender made all the difference in terms of texture on this one. The ratio of carrots and ginger to habanero — about inverted from last time — makes for a much more approachable sauce. The flavors of both the carrots and the ginger come through even more, and the color of the purple carrots really look great.

No pictures, but I tried tossing wings in this and what was left of the last two sauces (Habanero Ginger and Hab, Jalapeno and Garlic) and took ’em to a party. Both of the habanero-heavy sauces might have been too much for a potluck. Might save that sort of thing for a pepper-focused event.

Posted on by Corey Porter

Habanero, Carrot and Ginger

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 lb. Habanero
  • 1/2 cup carrots, chopped
  • 1/8 cup ginger, chopped
  • 2 cups white vinegar
  • 2 Tbsp salt

Directions (or at least what I did):

Stem the peppers, chop the ginger and the carrots. Everything in to the blender until liquid. Bring to a boil in a saute pan and then simmer for 10 minutes. Strain twice to remove everything pulpy.

The ingredients picture is way off on this one. I ended up not using the onion, adding in much more carrot and only using about a third of the pictured ginger.

So first off the heat with this is much more pronounced than everything I’ve done before. It’s similar to store-bought (well, Heatonist-ordered) sauces I’ve had in the 60-70k Scoville range, but who knows what it actually is. The carrots and ginger both come through the heat, which is nice. It’s definitely not as flavorful as the Mango Habanero from a few weeks back, but it’s also not just boring heat. We had this on a green onion rosti and eggs and it worked out quite well.

The next time I try something like this, I think I’ll go much harder on both carrots and ginger. Double both, maybe. For my taste, this has heat to spare but could do with a little more flavor.

 

Posted on by Corey Porter

Habanero, Jalapeno and Garlic number 2

Ingredients:

  • 10 Habanero
  • 1 lb. Jalapeno
  • 2 Tbsp salt
  • 2 cups vinegar
  • 2 heads garlic, chopped
  • 1 Tbsp oil

Directions (or at least what I did):

Stems off the peppers. Chop up the jalapenos a bit and then throw everything but the garlic in the blender. (No food processor this time.) Blend it down until it’s grocery store salsa consistency. Meanwhile, get the garlic cloves out of the heads, chop ’em up and toss them in the pan with some oil. Let that go for a few minutes until you feel like you’ve accomplished something. Add everything else from the blender. Bring it to a boil and then simmer for 10 minutes. Back in the blender until it’s liquid and then strain.

Heat and flavor were both much better than last time. Still not quite the consistency that I’m looking for. Also, I think I’ve convinced myself that I enjoy serranos meaningfully more than jalapenos. Not just for the heat, the the flavor is more interesting as well.

Posted on by Corey Porter

Jalapeno and Habanero Wildcatter

 

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 lbs. jalapeno peppers, stemmed
  • 8 habanero peppers, stemmed
  • 2 heads garlic, chopped
  • 1 c. white vinegar
  • 1 tbsp salt (to taste)

Directions (or at least what I did):

Everything in to the food processor and pulse pulse pulse. Try to get a little closer to liquid this time. In to a medium saucepan on hot until boil, and then simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. (Maybe have a beer.) Take off of the heat and hit it with the immersion blender until it’s very, very liquid. Strain in to a squeezy bottle and (at least attempt to) enjoy.

This turned out… poorly. The texture is in every way all wrong. I think I aerated it with the immersion blender. It looks and feels like baby food. Also, zero heat out of more peppers than I’ve put in anything before. Maybe it was simmering it for 20 minutes instead of 10. Hard to say.

Better luck next time, I guess?

Posted on by Corey Porter

Simple Serrano Habanero

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb. serrano peppers
  • 7 habanero peppers
  • 1 1/2 c. white vinegar
  • 2 tbsp kosher salt

Directions (or at least what I did):

Cut the stems off of the peppers. Throw everything in a food processor and process it. Pot. Boil. Simmer 10 minutes. Enjoy. Makes about three cups.

Like the last one, this turned out a little more like a salsa than a sauce. I AM NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT THIS BECAUSE IT WORKED WELL ON CHIPS. But I think next time I need to process it longer (maybe hit it with the immersion blender?), cook it longer or maybe both. We shall see.

This had about the same heat as the mango habanero from the other week. (Heat comparable to ~20k Scoville sauces I’ve had in the past.) The test kitchen recommends smoking some pork, pulling it and then covering it in this for sliders. That’s on the docket for tonight.

 

 

 

Posted on by Corey Porter