One of my favorite hot sauces is Marie Sharp's Hot Habanero Hot Sauce . It stands out with its great natural taste and by using carrots and onions instead of sugars, which adds an earthy natural sweetness to it. If you haven't tried it, I can really recommend buying a bottle!
Inspired by Marie Sharp's, I decided to make my own version based on fermented chilis, carrot and parsnip. It turned out really well and I am putting the recipe online to make it easy to share and improve on.
Preparation tips
- Brad, from It's Alive by Bon Apétit, has a great episode, where he does a fermented chili sauce.
- Use gloves and work fast! :-)
- ~400g Habanero Chilis
- ~250g Piri Piri Chilis (exchange with Cayennes, Birds Eye or similar)
- One large Carrot (~160g)
- One large parsnip (~130g)
- Three garlic cloves
- 5% Brine --> Per Liter; 950g chlorine free water, 50g salt without additives (sea salt, rock salt or kosher salt)
Wide-mouth clean jar to ferment in.
- Wash all ingredients to remove dirt and any residues of pesticides
- De-seed all chilis and chop roughly (prevents air pockets from forming in the jar)
- Peel and chop carrots and parsnip roughly
- Peel and crush the garlic cloves
- Add everything to the jar and pack it
- Top up with brine, so that it covers all and everything is submerged. Use a spoon to pack it and get rid of any air pockets.
- Weigh down the vegetables with pickle weighs, or simply a small, sealed plastic bag filled with brine
Fermentation should begin within 1-3 days.
Let sit in room temp, away from direct sunlight for about two weeks, minimum seven days.
After the ferment, it is time to mix and bottle the chili sauce.
- Strain the vegetables (keep the brine!)
- Mix thoroughly in a kitchen mixer (don't let it get hot, since it can kill the culture)
- Add brine until it has the desired consistency
- Bottle
- Keep refrigerated
DONE!
It should keep for a couple of months at least.
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Add a splash of fresh lemon, lime or fruity vinegar when mixing. This not only brings out the taste, it makes it more shelf stable
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Add Mango cubes or Plums to the ferment for the last 4-5 days to make it more tropical and fruity
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Add cane sugar
Copyright: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Legal: License CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
