We had a bunch of fresh hot peppers from the Ministry of Peppers at the North Branch of our farm and decided to make some hot sauce. It’s probably the best way to preserve their fresh flavor. Plus, I am addicted to hot things. ;)

We used most of our habaneros for the base flavor and their pep; however, they are kind of a one trick pony when it comes to flavor. I find them a little boring after a while, so we added some arbols, jalapenos, and cayennes to fill it out.

Habanero Delight Hot Sauce

Ingredients

Equipment

• Goggles
• Gloves
• N95 (or higher) mask
• Blender
• 3 quart sauce pan

Procedure

The mask, gloves, and goggles are optional. You will survive without them, but you will be uncomfortable. You will also experience random bouts of burning hell after touching your face each time you find something else that you have no idea how you contaminated.

1. Chop all of the benign ingredients.
2. Put on the mask, goggles, and gloves.
3. Chop the peppers.
4. Wash all of the utensils and work surfaces with hot water and soap.
5. Remove the gloves and throw them away.
6. Remove mask and goggles.
7. Sweat onions and garlic in the oil with the dried arbol peppers in a 4 quart sauce pan.
8. Add carrots, water, and salt to the pot and simmer until the carrots are soft.
9. Add cumin, cilantro, parsley, and brown sugar to the pot and stir in.
10. Put habanero, jalapeno, and cayenne peppers into blender and then top with the contents of the pot.
11. Puree until smooth and uniform.
12. DO NOT open the blender lid.
13. Put the mask and goggles back on.
14. Heat vinegar and lime juice in the sauce pan until boiling.
15. Open the blender lid (it’s okay now) and pour the puree into the sauce pan while stirring.
16. Simmer for 5 minutes.
17. Turn off heat, place lid on sauce pan, and remove your protective gear.
18. Put sauce into sterile containers as soon as possible. If it is still steaming, you may want the goggles and mask again if you are sensitive to the fumes.

Notes

This makes a lot of hot sauce. If you don’t think you will be able to go through or give away 2 quarts of this, do a little math. If you’re not in the mood for math, get some jars or little bottles and pack it up. It makes a great gift!

You can use a less vinegar if you want a thicker sauce. As low as 1 1/2 cups is probably okay. I really wanted to use some molasses instead of brown sugar, but I didn’t have any. If you have some, you can thicken it up with that. You can also add more salt if you like that, perhaps up to 1 1/2 tbsp.

1a. Fry brats until brown on both sides in a little butter in a deep skillet.
1b. Have a beer.
2. Drown brats with a bottle of beer and bring to a boil uncovered. Prick the brats all over the place with a fork while this is happening.
3a. While brats are trying to be boiled, clean out and slice up the peppers into narrow strips (I use red, purple, yellow, orange, but not green since they’re not very sweet and the colored ones are quite festive!)
3b. Have a beer.
4. When brats come to a boil, add peppers and saurkraut. Try to submerge the brats, kraut, and peppers in the beer.
5a. Return to a boil, simmer covered until peppers are soft and fall apart when forked. (Takes about 15-30 mins.)
5b. Have a beer.
6. Serve on a bun with kraut and peppers. Eat with last two bottles of beer.

Sauce ingredients:

.5 cup chicken stock (plain chicken soup)
2 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar
1 tsp crushed red pepper
ground black pepper to taste
4 tsp soy sauce
3 tbsp corn starch (stir in VERY well)
4 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp wine (optional)

Mix the sauce ingredients into a mixing bowl or measuring cup in the given
order, that way you only end up using one tsp and one tbsp without making a
huge mess with all the sticky goop food ingredients. Stir the entire mix VERY
well until all dark lumps of hoisin and oyster sauce and light lumps of corn
starch are all gone.

Sliver the green onions (cut lengthwise into three or four sections, then cut
crosswise into three to five shorter pieces.) Peel garlic sections and mash,
then dice. Cut excess fat off of flank steak, then cut into long strips WITH
the grain of the meat. Cut each of these strips into thin slices ACROSS the
grain. It is easier to cut flank steak when you throw it in the freezer for
15-30 mins before cutting.

Heat wok with oil. A 12″ flat-bottomed frying wok works well with 2 lbs of
meat. I use a Circulon, the preferred wok of Martin Yan of Yan Can Cook. (So
can you!) Add garlic to hot oil first and brown. Add green onion and ginger
and brown. Add meat and fry until it’s cooked (no red showing ANYWHERE.) At
this point I usually drain MOST, but not all, of the juices from the meat and
veggies into the sink and leave a little in the wok. If you drain anything,
be sure not to lose any of the green onion and chopped garlic and ginger (pour
with some meat and your spatula in the way so the meat catches all of the bits
and pieces.) Put the wok back on the stove and add the sauce mix, stirring it
before you pour it in because it will separate some. The sauce will thicken
into a gloopy brown mess like most Chinese food is, but don’t stop stirring.
After the sauce is thickened fully (stuff annoyingly sticks to your spatula
and it’s a pain in the ass to get off), turn the heat down to low or med-low
and let sit while you cook your rice or ramen noodles.

Serves 2-4.p

Instructions:
1. Separate the eggs (white from yolk.) Set the white aside.
2. Mix yolks well, gradually adding the cream, milk, and sugar.
3. Whip whites thoroughly until peaks form. Fold the white into the rest.
4. Gradually add the alcohol.
5. Add some nutmeg right away.
6. Cure for 2 hours in fridge, uncovered.
7. Sprinkle some nutmeg on top before serving.

Carrots, apples, chicken, and peppers should be all of approx. equal volume,
so bullshit it as well as you can. :)

In a frying pan:

Brown chopped onions in butter over medium to low heat, keeping them moist
with butter so they don’t turn dark brown and burn. When they are all goopy,
add the garlic and brown. Covering the garlic with the onions helps, cuz
chopped garlic tends to explode and burn you all over! It only takes a min.
or so. Add chicken and cook thoroughly. Add peppers and cook until they are
soft and break easily.
When they are soft, just pour a nice amount of the mirin over the mixture,
wetting it all nicely. This will cook down into a goopy sauce-like mixture.

In a large pot:

Add 3 cups water and bring to a boil. Carefully add apples, carrots, and
frying pan mixture to water. Bring to a boil. Lower heat, cover, and cook
for 15 minutes, or until carrots are tender. Turn off heat, break up curry
sauce mix, and add the curry to the water. Stir frequently for five minutes
as the curry melts. Let stand a few minutes and serve over rice or drained
ramen noodles.

Freeze the chicken breasts partially so they are easy to cut into strips about
1/8″ wide. Clean out as much excess fat from the chicken as you cut because
you don’t need it. Heat up some oil in a large non-stick frying pan (the deep
kind, since there is going to be a lot of liquid in it soon) and add the
chicken strips. As soon as they start to cook pepper the chicken evenly, but
generously, and add some salt to your liking. Once the chicken is fully
cooked on the outside shake enough Tabasco sauce on the chicken to turn it a
nice light reddish-orange color. Don’t worry about it being nuclear-hot when
it’s finished, because it won’t be. Cook this until most of the fat comes out
of the chicken and the juice boils evenly. This is where the lemon comes in.
Squeeze half, or all, of your lemon juice into the chicken, then in a couple
minutes add the salsa. This is mostly what determines how spicy and hot your
quesadillas will be. I prefer to use a nice chunky one like Pace “Thick and
Chunky” because veggies are good for you. Mix this all up and cover it,
letting it boil. Don’t forget to stir it often. You’re basically waiting for
it to cook down so the chicken falls apart and gets all juicy, but you don’t
want soup.

About the time that you realize your stew of chicken and salsa is nice and
thick, you want to heat up a frying pan (the shallow kind, because you’re
going to be flipping these giant tortillas with the mixture and melted cheese
on them.) Add oil to your pan and when it heats up shift the oil around so it
isn’t a big puddle in the middle, then add a tortilla and swish it around so
it gets coated evenly. Put a wad of cheese in the middle and kind of spread
it from the middle of the tortilla outwards, but don’t get within about an
inch from the edge of the tortilla. Cover this cheese with a layer of the meat
mixture. Add as much as you want, but remember you’re going to have to flip
it over soon. When the bottom tortilla is crispy and brown on the bottom, put
more cheese on top of the meat, another tortilla, smoosh it all flat and even
(pressing the meat and cheese mess outwards so it’s relatively flat,) and flip
it all over. Fry it until it’s crispy and brown, just like the other one!

That’s it. You’re finished. Just repeat this until you run out of meat
mixture, cheese, or tortillas. Wait for them to cool off a bit so they’re not
all stringy with cheese and cut them like pies.

Serves 2-4.