Friday, August 8, 2008

Homemade Tabasco

Easy, very hot sauce to dribble onto everything. Except people. This could seriously burn eyes and sensitive membranes (never pick your nose after cutting peppers...it's just a bad idea). Use hot pepper safety.

Homemade Tabasco - makes one jar

  • Save yourself a Tabasco jar with lid and plastic stopper.
  • Simmer about 1 cup of distilled white vinegar with about 1 1/2 cups tabasco peppers until peppers look soft and mushy (maybe 15 mins?).


    The little orangey-red peppers in the left hand corner are tabasco peppers


  • Grind it up in a food processor or food mill. If you are so inclined and have the time and equipment, put it through a sieve to get out the seeds, etc.



  • Place a funnel into the neck of the bottle - you might have to shove it down on there. This one came from a flask kit.



  • The bamboo kebab stick helps you poke the pulp and seeds through so they don't just bottleneck the funnel. Top remaining pulp with enough vinegar to cover (maybe a tablespoon or so).

  • Shake! Shake! Shake!

  • I left enough room to add more peppers, so adjust accordingly. I think I'm going to regrind this or maybe sieve it because it's getting clogged. Or I might just remove the stopper and see how that goes.

  • This sauce is really hot! It tastes a lot like regular Tabasco except it's not fermented for three years because frankly I don't have that kind of patience or self-discipline. We had it on eggs and on jambalaya and it really is great on most savory things. But be careful, though, because it's firey hot. The seeds make it hotter than the real deal.

    Et voila!

2 comments:

Meryl said...

This is something I've never thought of making for myself before--thanks for the tip!

Anonymous said...

Seeds don't make it hot, it's the membrane. The seeds retain light potency only because they touch the membranes. Just like when your fingers touch the membranes.