Hi y'all,
So I'm new here, I decided I'd share a recipe that I thought up one day and made and bottled it up over a month ago now (and posted it to another site) -- but now that it's had time to mature/blend in the bottle, the flavour is so good (if I do say so myself) with a nice burn, but just such a nice depth of flavour.
I apologise for not providing exact measurements on some of them - as I was doing it to taste...and balance, but for most of the spices. I'd say start at 1 teaspoon a piece and blend them in, and adjust the blend to your own liking. All of these were sourced at a local Asian grocery store (I'm lucky it has so many herbs/spices and all so cheap).
As follows:
Indian Hot Sauce Ingredients:
Notes:
Photo # 1 = before vinegar/water is added in step 10.
Hot sauce being made & bottled - sauce on the right in the larger bottle is slightly thicker, but I also added some water for additional volume (didn't water it down to the point where it made it bland, I think it's nearly impossible with this sauce)
So I'm new here, I decided I'd share a recipe that I thought up one day and made and bottled it up over a month ago now (and posted it to another site) -- but now that it's had time to mature/blend in the bottle, the flavour is so good (if I do say so myself) with a nice burn, but just such a nice depth of flavour.
I apologise for not providing exact measurements on some of them - as I was doing it to taste...and balance, but for most of the spices. I'd say start at 1 teaspoon a piece and blend them in, and adjust the blend to your own liking. All of these were sourced at a local Asian grocery store (I'm lucky it has so many herbs/spices and all so cheap).
As follows:
Indian Hot Sauce Ingredients:
- Cumin, seeds, toasted then ground
- Cardamom, pods, toasted then ground
- Cloves, ground
- Garam masala, powder
- Turmeric, powder
- Ginger, fresh grated & powder
- 1 x brown onion, chopped
- 1 x carrot, chopped
- Garlic, half a head, crushed
- Coriander, powder & fresh chopped
- Nutmeg, powder
- Fenugreek, powder
- Saffron (optional, a tiny amount for flavour + colour)
- 3 x blend of chillies (Carolina Reapers, Jalapenos, Dried Kashmiri), chopped (dried can be chopped if you wish, but doesn't make too much difference)
- Vegetable oil
- Ghee (or clarified butter, or just vegetable oil if you don't have these)
- 1 cup distilled white vinegar
- ½ cup apple cider vinegar
- 3/4 to 1 & 1/3 cup(s) of water
- Hydrate the Kashmiris by submerging in water for 5-10 minutes
- Toast cumin seeds along with cardamom pods until fragrant and colour has darkened a little (remove from heat/pan as it starts to smoke)
- Crush cumin, cardamom and cloves with a mortar and pestle
- Mix all the dried ingredients together, mix vegetable oil in with these to form a paste
- Add a tablespoon of ghee to a saucepan/fry pan over low-medium heat
- Add chopped onion and carrot to the pan when the ghee is melted and hot, cook 10+ mins until they are softened, but the onion isn’t quite translucent
- Add crushed garlic, cook for a further minute
- Add the spice paste mix and stir around to coat everything uniformly
- Add the Kashmiris + Reapers (note: I chopped and blended the jalapenos fresh)
- Add the vinegar + water and cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for as long as it takes to thicken slightly (mine took around 30 minutes), sauce should be extremely fragrant
- Allow the sauce to cool a little bit before blending it
- Once blended, strain it through a wire mesh sieve (feel free to keep the residual paste for the purpose of making a curry/spicy flavour bomb into a meal)
- Bottle it
- Enjoy!
Notes:
- First off, I think the flavours are really good - and the combination of these three peppers both has the up front 'smack' of heat, but also a heat that gradually builds and lingers around for a good 10-15 minutes after. Thanks reapers! The taste of ginger and garlic add fiery freshness and additional potency. I think perhaps I'll tinker with changing the ratios of the vinegar to water, but I'm pretty happy with the vinegar tang against the rest of the flavours.
- So I just made this up on the spot, a blend of the ground spices was really just me pouring in what I thought was the right balance for the spice blend (before it becoming a paste), also adding a carrot may not be necessary...it was mostly the spices that I wanted to get right, to evoke common Indian flavours.
- If you want to simmer it longer, adjust the amount of vinegar and water you're adding in a similar ratio.
- I did add some additional water into the blender after my initial strain, just to get a bit extra
- I don't add sugar because I do like a vinegary tang, brown sugar might make a nice balance though
- I usually fill 1 Frank's hot sauce small size bottle with the strained hot sauce liquid (first time I make the sauce, a sample size before I decide to make it again), and then keep all the chunkier stuff in a bigger bottle, to use as sauce bases for curries/chillies (adding either coconut cream, or heavy cream in curries, and beef stock in the case of chillies).
- I'm still a newbie, so if you think there are any of the steps/processes that are flat out 'wrong' or could be improved, please let me know.
- Now I have a nice sauce to cook something to put it on and enjoy it with a beer (or three). Cheers all!
Photo # 1 = before vinegar/water is added in step 10.
Hot sauce being made & bottled - sauce on the right in the larger bottle is slightly thicker, but I also added some water for additional volume (didn't water it down to the point where it made it bland, I think it's nearly impossible with this sauce)
