It’s January and it’s cold outside – even here. This week we’ve had several nights with -4 degrees. The days are sunny but cold and gardening is no fun and no use in these temperatures – the garden is at rest.
So I’ve turned to the freezer to use up the stored bounty of the last summer in jams, jellies, and other preserves. All the bags of frozen Cayenne peppers I collected in the summer became fermented hot sauce. It is not all that hot and spicy and has a great umami-type flavor that goes well with just about everything except maybe vanilla pudding.
Why frozen peppers? Chilies ripen all through the summer and summer is not a good time for fermentation processes. That’s why I collect cut up and de-seeded chilies in the freezer and make hot sauce in the winter. It would of course also work with dried chilies.
Fermented Hot Sauce
I don’t follow an exact recipe but use whatever is at hand:
- Chilies of whatever type I have. I don’t like very hot varietes so it’s mostly Jalapeno, Cayenne, Serrano etc.
- Onions and garlic
- Vegetables like carrots, pumpkin, chayote…
- Fruit like khaki, apples, limes or lemons, kiwi, berries, cherries, pineapple, even bananas. Peel only if necessary because of the tipe of skin (i.e. bananas, kiwi, pineapple…)
- Maybe some ginger, peeled
- Peppercorns or other spices
You’re aiming for a salty, sweet and sour flavor.
Chop everything, mix well and fill into large and clean glass jars up to about 3 cm from the upper rim.
Prepare a 2-3% saline solution by dissolving 20-30g of salt in 1 l warm water.
Pour the salt water into the jars up to the rim. Weigh the contents down with glass weights or small plastic bags filled with salt water and put the lids on loosely. Put the jars into a flat bottomed bowl (to catch juices) and let the contents ferment in a cool room at 13-20 degrees for about 7 days. The salt water brine may become milky and/or produce bubbles. Open the lids once a day to let off any developing pressure from fermentation.
Strain the contents of the jars while keeping the brine. Blend the contents with enough brine to make a thick sauce. You can add chopped herbs, spices, honey etc. to taste.
You can now store the sauce as is in clean jars in the fridge. The content will continue to ferment slowly so open the jars every now and then to let out fermentation gases. The sauce will become milder over time and it will become brownish. Not pretty but tasty and fermented products are supposed to be very healthy for your body.
In order to stop the fermentation process, keep the original bright color and store the jars outside of the fridge, you need to add vinegar and heat for conservation: Put the strained contents into a pot with a mix of 50% brine and 50% cider vinegar. Bring to a small boil and simmer for 20 minutes, then blend well. Or blend first, then simmer – that way you can season to taste before heating. Put into sterilized jars and refrigerate or keep in a dark, cool room. Keeps for several months. To be 200% safe, sterilize the jars by canning process.


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