1st time seeing fresh super hots, I need recipe ideas please

1 pint of salsa with one HAB can be more heat that some can handle....I find that supermarket peppers don't pack the same punch as home grown.
 
Sometimes this holds true, sometimes not...Using the pods fresh is fun, but after discovering making them into powders and then seasoning meals, plates with them has opened up a huge new opportunity for enjoying and using peppers.
 
youtube is a good place to search out ideas for hot sauce recipes mild to wild...as far freezing. ziplock is good for a few weeks but like anything they will crystalize from water moisture eventually.
 
Vacuum pack and freeze works excellent...vacuum in small batches(2 -3 - 6) for easy use for the small do it yourselfer.

If you have multiples of each sort, get a good, fatty meal in you. After that has a couple minutes to settle you can start taste testing pieces of each chile raw to gauge your heat tolerance and preference for them. (I guess keep some whole milk handy in case it's too much.) Either bite a bit off, or don some gloves and cut them up. Remember that the heat you get from a small piece of innocent flesh will be a fair bit less than what a big chunk of oil-laden placenta will have. If the heat is too intense, make sure you remove the placenta when you're prepping them to make your sauces. Bonnets are basically better tasting habaneros in every regard. I love them. If munching on a whole habanero pod would give you a bad case of instant regret, you need to be careful with the Bhut Jolokias (ghost) and Scorpions at first.

For salsas, I'd say start with a single pepper until you know your tolerance for certain. Maybe even less, if you're putting a Bhut in. You can always add more, but you can only make a larger batch if you go overboard with the heat. Vacuum sealers aren't cheap, but will generally pay for themselves within the first year if you do much cooking and can justify the expense. Makes things freeze way better and stay good much longer. Even if I didn't freeze peppers on the regular, I'd still use the hell out of mine with cheap meat at the grocery, dry storage, meals-to-go, and homebrew supplies.

For fermentation, hit the Hot Sauce thread on that subject, here:

http://thehotpepper.com/topic/23146-fermenting-peppers-101/

My one caveat to that post is to sterilize things with either iodophor or Starsan from a local homebrew or culinary supply shop. Both chemicals are 100% food safe in any concentration, unlike bleach; and you dilute them so much for use that a tiny bottle will last you essentially forever.

If you have a food dehydrator or want to try your hand at drying some the old fashioned way, then you're one purchase of a small spice grinder or a blender bullet away from the delicious powders that Masher mentions. Someone on here turned me onto putting the powder in dirt cheap food grade mini test-tubes with screwtop lids and I take my dry spice everywhere I go. When people ask me about it, I have to fight the urge to do an impression of David Morse with the security guard at the end of 12 Monkeys. "It doesn't...even...have an odor."

Do you like salsa verde? Tomatillos are delicious and balance out heat very nicely. There's a Mexican place near me with a giant punchbowl of tomatillo salsa that I want to swipe and run out the door with any time I visit.

Here's my plan for now

Today going to make pickled scorpion eggs. I picked scorpion because scorpion eggs sounds cool. 12 eggs, pickling salt, baby dill, and 1 maybe 2 scorpions

Also going to make fermented tomato based ghost pepper sauce. I got two pounds of tomatoes, will add garlic and 1 maybe 2 ghost peppers

Freeze the rest

Buy a dehydrator and next time dry a lot of them, save some for fresh cooking, or hot sauce. The ghost are good for some Indian curries, the bonnets for Caribbean, the scorpion, whatever... have pickles in your fridge? Slice a scorpion in half and pop it in the in jar. Things like that.

jturkish said:

Here's my plan for now

Today going to make pickled scorpion eggs. I picked scorpion because scorpion eggs sounds cool. 12 eggs, pickling salt, baby dill, and 1 maybe 2 scorpions

Also going to make fermented tomato based ghost pepper sauce. I got two pounds of tomatoes, will add garlic and 1 maybe 2 ghost peppers

Freeze the rest

Click to expand...

 
Haha I posted before I read this. Great minds think alike. Good plan!

A little goes a long way with superhots, even habs and fataliis.  I've found that 2-3 fatalii in 2 gallons of fruit-based sauce will make it about a 3-4/10 heat level for most non-extreme chileheads. 
 
Have Fun experimenting!  And remember, if it's too hot to start with, just add more of the non-hot ingredients. 
SL

Oh, and freezing is an excellent way of preserving pods for future sauce making.  They will be mushy when defrosted, but that's not a problem when making sauces.  Might not be so nice for things like the pickled eggs~

Thanks SL, great info

PS-