The Hot Sauce Cookbook (9 page)

2 cups
Pepper Vinegar

2 cups (70 grain) sherry vinegar, diluted with 1¾ cups water

2 tablespoons salt

¼ cup molasses

2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon crushed chile pequín (or substitute dried red pepper flakes)

Combine all the ingredients in saucepan over medium heat and stir until the salt and molasses are dissolved. Allow to cool and transfer to a glass jar. Cover and store in the refrigerator for up to a month.

CARIBBEAN PEPPER MASH

———
Makes about ¾ cup
———

Many Caribbean cooks keep a jar of pepper mash in the fridge. It’s a lot simpler than buying fresh peppers and chopping them up every time you cook. Be careful when making this with
Capsicum chinense
pods. These peppers are so hot that just touching the outsides will sometimes burn you. Don’t be proud—wear rubber gloves.

4 ounces habanero-type chiles, stemmed but not seeded

About ½ cup vinegar

½ teaspoon salt

In a food processor or blender, grind the whole chiles with just enough vinegar to get the mash moving through the blades. Carefully transfer the mixture to a jar, close the jar tightly, and store it in the refrigerator. Use 1 teaspoon pepper mash in place of one fresh Caribbean pepper.

Fermented Habanero-Type Chile Mash:
Ferment the peppers in a small canning jar following the instructions for
Fermented Pepper Mash
. To substitute the fermented chiles for the fresh peppers in this recipe, add ½ cup brine from the jar, reduce the vinegar to ¼ cup, and omit the salt.

PAPAYA FIRE

———
Makes 4 cups
———

Classic Caribbean papaya sauces like Matouk’s of Trinidad are made with fermented pepper mash. The small, sweet Jamaican pawpaw is the favorite papaya in the islands. We use the larger, stronger-smelling Mexican papayas since they are easier to find in the American supermarket. Papaya is said to be an aid to digestion. The papain enzyme is also a natural tenderizer. If you marinate your fajitas or pork chops in this salsa before grilling, your meat will come out extra tender. Serve the sauce on the table in a squirt bottle, or use it as the base for freshly made table sauces, such as
Mango Salsa
.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

2 cups diced white onions

6 allspice berries

10 peppercorns

4 thyme sprigs

¼ cup finely diced peeled fresh ginger

¼ cup sugar

4 cups diced papaya

5 habanero-type chiles, stemmed but not seeded, or ½ cup fermented
habanero-type pepper mash

1 cup cane or rice vinegar

¼ cup prepared mustard

2 tablespoons tamarind paste

Juice of 4 Mexican or key limes, about ¼ cup

Water

In a saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until they are transparent, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the allspice, peppercorns, thyme, and ginger. Simmer the mixture for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the sugar, papaya, and chiles. When the sugar has become syrupy, add the vinegar, mustard, and tamarind. Turn the heat to very low and simmer, covered, until the mixture is mush, about 10 more minutes. Turn off the heat and allow the covered pot to sit on the stove for an hour or more until completely cool.

Remove the thyme sprigs. Purée the mixture in a food processor; then pass it through a strainer, or purée it in a high-speed blender. Add lime juice to get the blades moving and balance the sweetness. Thin with water as necessary. The paste should be about the consistency of Sriracha sauce. Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Papaya Curry Sauce:
Add 1 tablespoon of curry powder with the mustard and proceed as directed.

Antigua Pineapple Salsa:
In a glass bowl, combine cup Papaya Fire, 1 cup fresh pineapple plus 3 tablespoons pineapple juice, 1 minced red onion, 1 tablespoon minced and peeled fresh ginger, ¼ teaspoon ground allspice, ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, and ½ teaspoon salt. Mix well and refrigerate the sauce until chilled. Serve immediately—this goes great with grilled seafood (especially shrimp) and all kinds of pork dishes. Alternatively, try mixing 1 cup of the Pineapple Salsa with 4 cups of your favorite coleslaw, then serve on barbecued pork sandwiches.

MANGO SALSA

———
Makes 1½ cups
———

The red and green peppers may seem superfluous in this habanero salsa, but don’t leave them out. Along with the red onion, they add some color to the bright orange relish. This modern salsa tastes great on grilled salmon. It also makes an amazing shrimp cocktail.

1 teaspoon minced peeled fresh ginger

2 cups diced mango

3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

1 cup minced red onion

½ cup minced green bell pepper

½ cup minced red bell pepper

Juice of 2 limes

Juice of 1 orange

½ cup
Papaya Fire
or 1 habanero-type chile, stemmed (but not seeded) and minced

½ teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and chill for at least 15 minutes. Serve with grilled seafood or pork. Stored in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator, this sauce will keep for one week.

Mango Salsa Shrimp Cocktail:
Toss ½ cup Mango Salsa with 1 tablespoon ketchup and four boiled and peeled jumbo shrimp. Arrange in a 10-ounce martini glass and garnish with diced avocado. Serve with tortilla chips or saltines.

CHEZ FRANCINE’S SAUCE PIMENT

———
Makes 2 cups
———

I sampled this sauce at Chez Francine’s restaurant on the French island of Guadeloupe. It’s typical of the French Creole style in that it combines the Caribbean passion for peppers with European shallots, parsley, wine vinegar, and olive oil. Use it as a spicy salad dressing or a marinade for steak. The flavor might remind you of a spicy chimichurri.

1 habanero-type chile, stemmed, seeded, and minced, or 1 teaspoon
Caribbean Pepper Mash

4 shallots, minced

½ cup chopped fresh parsley

1 cup Champagne vinegar

1 cup best-quality olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Process all the ingredients in a food processor or blender until well blended. (You can leave it chunky if you like, or process it until smooth.) Stored in a sterilized jar in the refrigerator, the sauce will keep for up to two weeks.

Steak St. Bart’s:
Pour 2 tablespoons Sauce Piment over two steaks in a covered container, toss well, and marinate overnight in the fridge. Grill as desired, then carve onto a platter and drizzle Sauce Piment over top of the steak slices. Put the rest of the sauce in a bowl and pass at the table.

PICKAPEPPA POT ROAST

———
Serves 8
———

Straight out of the bottle, Pickapeppa has a strangely sweet taste that might not seem like the best complement for a pot roast. But by the time the beef and gravy cook for several hours, the Pickapeppa mellows to a deliciously mild flavor that reminds many people of Worcestershire sauce. Serve with the Jamaican coat of arms (rice and beans), quinoa, or grits with some extra hot sauces on the side.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil or bacon drippings

4- to 5-pound beef pot roast (such as rump roast, brisket, or flank)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 cups chopped onions

2 cups chopped celery

2 cups chopped carrots

1 cup chopped green bell pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 habanero-type chiles, stemmed (but not seeded) and minced

1½ cups beef broth

1 (5-ounce) bottle Pickapeppa Sauce

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

In a Dutch oven over medium-high heat, heat the oil. Season the roast with salt and pepper to taste and brown the meat on all sides. Remove the meat and add the onions, celery, carrots, green bell pepper, garlic, and chiles to the pot. Sauté until the onions are soft, about 5 minutes. Add the broth and return the roast to the pot. Pour the Pickapeppa sauce over top of the meat.

Cover and cook in the oven, turning once or twice so the meat cooks evenly, for 3 to 4 hours. When the meat is falling apart tender, remove the pot from the oven. Transfer the meat to a bowl and skim the excess fat from the liquid. Process the vegetables and pan juices with an immersion blender, or put about three-quarters of the cooked vegetables and some of the juice in a food processor or blender and purée. Return the purée to the pot to thicken the gravy. Adjust the seasonings. To serve, slice the pot roast and serve with gravy spooned over top.

Backyard Oyster Bar

———CHAPTER 4———

LOUISIANA HOT SAUCES

While pepper sauces made with Tabasco
and cayenne peppers have long been associated with Louisiana, they weren’t actually invented there. A New Hampshire farmer advertised his cayenne pepper sauce in a Boston newspaper in 1807. Pepper sauces in glass bottles were imported from England along with mustard and horseradish in the early 1800s. Much of what we know about the
history of these early pepper sauces has been deduced from the study of antique glass bottles. A dome-shaped bottle filled with vinegar and bird peppers was sold by J. McCollick & Company in New York sometime around 1850.

After the Civil War, Edmund
McIlhenny put his bright red Tabasco-brand hot sauce in a cologne bottle and sealed it with green wax. Tabasco was patented in 1870. Today it is produced by a sixth-generation family business headquartered in Avery Island, Louisiana. Everything used in the early production of
Tabasco sauce was produced on Avery Island. The island is an outcropping of an underground salt dome. The cane sugar plantation produced cane vinegar, and the peppers were grown on the island as well. Edmund McIlhenny’s great-great-great-grandson, Paul C. P. McIlhenny runs the company today.

The name of the hot sauce comes from the tabasco pepper (
Capsicum frutscens
var.
tabasco
) of the Tabasco state in Mexico. Company literature once claimed that the McIlhenny plantation on Avery Island was the first place the peppers were grown in Louisiana. When that claim was challenged, the company employed a historian to sort out the many conflicting accounts. With his help, the company published the book titled,
Tabasco: An Illustrated History
.

As it turns out, a well-known plantation owner and Louisiana state legislator named
Maunsel White actually grew tabasco peppers ten years before the McIlhennys. White’s Concentrated Extract of Tabasco Sauce was praised in a New Orleans newspaper article that said a single drop of the sauce “will season a whole plate of soup.” White’s sauce was sold in a hand-blown bottle with a red devil trademark years before the McIlhenny’s Tabasco sauce came along.

The ingredients of Maunsel White’s and Edmund McIlhenny’s tabasco sauces were similar: Each contained tabasco peppers, vinegar, and salt. But the recipes were worlds apart. White boiled the peppers with a little salt, mashed them, added vinegar, and put the strained contents in a bottle. The McIlhennys mashed very ripe peppers, mixed them with salt, and fermented the mash in bourbon barrels. The fermented mash was then blended with vinegar. About a month later, the pepper solids were strained out and the sauce was bottled.

Fermentation, the ancient method of preserving food, was the key to the process. Prior to 1941, when vinegar was standardized, fermentation was the primary method of pickling. By fermenting the pepper mash, the McIlhennys improved the flavor. And as anybody who has ever closely examined a Tabasco sauce bottle in a roadside diner can attest, fermented pepper mash thinned with vinegar will keep somewhere close to forever.