The Melaniff Family Cookbook

Hot Sauce

From Roberto Costa, Sao Paulo Brazil

Ingredients

2 Lbs Chile Peppers

1 T Salt

2 T Sugar


White Vinegar

Procedure

PHASE 1: FERMENTATION PROCESS

1) get two pounds of pepper
2) Wash it in tap water (do not boil it!!!)
3) Select one by one, only the fully ripe one and cut off the stalk
4) Smash the peppers in a blender or with a mixer (if necessary use a little water to help it, but the minimum necessary)
5) put 1 tablespoon of salt
6) put 2 tablespoons of regular sugar
7) Mix it all
8) Clean the water bucket with boiling water
9) Put the resulting blend in the bucket and remove all the air
10) Put it in a closed place and take a look daily, until the fermentation process start, shaking eventually
11) When the bucket is more than half full of C02 open the tap and push until the CO2 is gone (take care to avoid Oxygen to return inside)
12) Wait until it stops to produce any C02 for more than 2 weeks.

PHASE 2: MAKING THE SAUCE

1) Add 10 ounces (a little more than a quarter liter) of white vinegar in the resulting blend and shake well
2) Sterilize a saucepan and a medium size strainer with hot water
3) remove the seeds with a strainer pressing the mesh with a tablespoon
4) measure the resulting volume, take out the 10 ounces and this is the volume of sauce produced
5) Define the volume of additional vinegar to add to have a 1/1 vinegar/sauce final volume
6) Mix the resulting seeds the this new volume of vinegar and pass it again in the strainer
7) Try it and adjust the salt as necessary
7) Sterilize a white glass bottle with hot water (empty Absolut vodka bottles work great)
8) Put the result in the bottle and let it aging in a cool place for at least two weeks before consuming, shaking eventually

TIPS

After the basic recipe is done you can add in small bottles new ingredients to test and add flavor like garlic, herbs, smoked flavor, tomato sauce, etc...


Some people add annatto powder to get hot red color in the sauce.


In Brazil we mainly use alcohol vinegar (cheaper and easy to find), but you can use any kind of vinegar but select one with high acidity (4% minimum)


My bucket: http://dx.com/p/outdoor-sports-pe-folding-water-bucket-transparent-10l-186739

The secret to avoid contamination is keep the oxygen away of that until the fermentation is done
Always keep the fermentation process away of the sun light or some seeds will germinate inside the bucket!


The basic recipe can be kept in bottles for at least one year until the next harvest...








































On www.melaniff.com since 2013