Hey y'all, been a while since I made a sauce. Can't make the stuff when mrs. blues is around but it so happens that she's out of town. Lucky me.
One of my favorite hot sauces ever is The Cheech Mango Mojo. Loads of fruity flavor and is excellent on everything. I'm not a fan of hab sauces that have that overwhelming chalky/milky after taste that so many hab sauces have and thats one of the reasons I like it but that can be attributed to the fact that there is hardly any hab in it and thusly has almost no heat whatsoever. The other downside is that I have a mild allergic reaction sometimes to mangos. Turns out mangos have a particular enzyme, most notably in the skin, that is closely related to some of the same enzymes found in poison ivy and poison oak that cause irritation. Plah!
When you gotta' have it you gotta' have it. So the trick is to make a Cheech style hot sauce that actually can be called hot but without too much mango. I reckoned I could still use habs but would also cut down on some of the milky/chalky factor by bringing in some dry tasting chiles like pequins and arbols. I think I might have a winner!
Most here know me well enough to know that I seldom measure anything unless I'm baking. I just started tossing stuff into a pot and adjusted to taste as I went. Here's what I used.
2 ripe mangos
shredded carrots
fresh orange habanero
dried chile del arbol
dried pequin
yellow onion
kosher salt
apple cider vinegar
white sugar
First I steeped the dried chiles in the vinegar to rehydrate them and then tossed all the kids in the pool together with just enough water to cover and brought everything to a boil, then reduced the heat to a simmer.
Purty ain't it?
Simmered for about an hour and then brought out the boat motor.
At this point the sauce is still rather thin. Thickening agents are all cool and the gang but opted to simply reduce the sauce and let the fruit and carrot hold everything together. I reckoned I reduced it in total by half.
Just look at that color! LOOK AT IT!!!
So how does it taste? Surprisingly the heat is about a 5 on a 1-10 scale. Fruity but only slightly sweet. I can taste just a hint of the milky/chalky taste of the hab and just a hint of smoke from the pequins. The arbols didn't really add anything other than color so might opt to leave them out next time. Overall this is a sauce that I reckon I can put on everything and taste good. I especially like to be liking it on mac & cheese, eggs and potatos, and tacos.
I had some store bought pre-breaded little shrimps in the freezer I keep around for "emergency purposes". I also had some Central Market fresh flour tortillas I was just looking for an excuse to use. These babies are made with butter not lard, and I gotta say when you open the package some pretty awesome buttery aromas fill the kitchen. They taste very buttery, savory, and succulent.
Baked the shrimps, cut some cabbage, splooged it with the hot sauce and a little baja creme sauce.
Boom! Bam! Pow!
This stuff was without a doubt hot blue & righteous!
One of my favorite hot sauces ever is The Cheech Mango Mojo. Loads of fruity flavor and is excellent on everything. I'm not a fan of hab sauces that have that overwhelming chalky/milky after taste that so many hab sauces have and thats one of the reasons I like it but that can be attributed to the fact that there is hardly any hab in it and thusly has almost no heat whatsoever. The other downside is that I have a mild allergic reaction sometimes to mangos. Turns out mangos have a particular enzyme, most notably in the skin, that is closely related to some of the same enzymes found in poison ivy and poison oak that cause irritation. Plah!
When you gotta' have it you gotta' have it. So the trick is to make a Cheech style hot sauce that actually can be called hot but without too much mango. I reckoned I could still use habs but would also cut down on some of the milky/chalky factor by bringing in some dry tasting chiles like pequins and arbols. I think I might have a winner!
Most here know me well enough to know that I seldom measure anything unless I'm baking. I just started tossing stuff into a pot and adjusted to taste as I went. Here's what I used.
2 ripe mangos
shredded carrots
fresh orange habanero
dried chile del arbol
dried pequin
yellow onion
kosher salt
apple cider vinegar
white sugar
First I steeped the dried chiles in the vinegar to rehydrate them and then tossed all the kids in the pool together with just enough water to cover and brought everything to a boil, then reduced the heat to a simmer.
Purty ain't it?
Simmered for about an hour and then brought out the boat motor.
At this point the sauce is still rather thin. Thickening agents are all cool and the gang but opted to simply reduce the sauce and let the fruit and carrot hold everything together. I reckoned I reduced it in total by half.
Just look at that color! LOOK AT IT!!!
So how does it taste? Surprisingly the heat is about a 5 on a 1-10 scale. Fruity but only slightly sweet. I can taste just a hint of the milky/chalky taste of the hab and just a hint of smoke from the pequins. The arbols didn't really add anything other than color so might opt to leave them out next time. Overall this is a sauce that I reckon I can put on everything and taste good. I especially like to be liking it on mac & cheese, eggs and potatos, and tacos.
I had some store bought pre-breaded little shrimps in the freezer I keep around for "emergency purposes". I also had some Central Market fresh flour tortillas I was just looking for an excuse to use. These babies are made with butter not lard, and I gotta say when you open the package some pretty awesome buttery aromas fill the kitchen. They taste very buttery, savory, and succulent.
Baked the shrimps, cut some cabbage, splooged it with the hot sauce and a little baja creme sauce.
Boom! Bam! Pow!
This stuff was without a doubt hot blue & righteous!
