Poypoy's Growlog - First Big Harvest and Salsa!

poypoyking · Sep 2, 2013

I threw this in the Hot Sauce Making thread as well, so if you already saw it there no need to read it again

Yesterday I whipped up a couple trial sauces before I made some for bottling in the next week or two. Both of them turned out great, but I would definitely tweak the Mango Scotch Bonnet sauce. It made about 18 ounces, so I would at least double it. But it only called for 1/3 cup of vinegar, and I had to keep adding water to keep everything from scorching to the sauce pan. I would double the recipe and use two cups of vinegar instead, and might use apple cider vinegar instead of plain white.

The sriracha was incredible. Very mild but the best tasting sriracha I have tried to date. I bought them from the farmer's market in Minneapolis here, and the vendor said they were Cherry Bomb peppers. The heat level seemed about right, but they were much bigger than I thought Cherry Bombs typically were. I will try and snap a picture of the remaining peppers later.

This is the Mango Scotch Bonnet sauce, and I would puree it a lot more if I were to bottle it. The flavor was very good. I ended up eating a ton of Ikea oatmeal cookie crisps with some of the hot sauce slathered on the top. Unfortunately my phone was not available to snap a picture in the pot.

The Sriracha cooking outside on the camp stove. This one was mild enough I could have gotten away with cooking it inside.

The finished product.

All together now.

And for supper we had Nueske's smoked brats slathered in Sriracha. It was fantastic.

Editing to add the Mango Scotch Bonnet sauce was adapted from Shandley's recipe and were just put in jars to go in the fridge, they were not safely processed/canned.

stickman · Sep 2, 2013

Hi Ben,
Glad to see you're getting enough harvest to begin seriously processing... Great looking salsa and hot sauces... will you be making any powders or experimenting with any fermented sauces?

poypoyking · Sep 3, 2013

stickman said:
Hi Ben,
Glad to see you're getting enough harvest to begin seriously processing... Great looking salsa and hot sauces... will you be making any powders or experimenting with any fermented sauces?

Thanks Rick, me too. We had family in town this weekend and had BLT's on Friday night. We ate most of the fresh tomatoes I had and I made a comment that I was disappointed in how little fruit I had gotten so far. Saturday morning we popped over to the other garden and I came back with a grocery bag full of tomatoes and peppers. And then Sunday afternoon found another 20 or so sizable tomatoes in the main garden at the house. I guess that is what I get for complaining

Once I get a few more peppers stocked up I will be making some powders. I am not sure if I will be doing a fermented sauce this season or not, I still haven't decided. I have a batch of Kimchi that I will be starting this week some time and would need to find something else to ferment in if I do.

stickman · Sep 3, 2013

poypoyking said:
Once I get a few more peppers stocked up I will be making some powders. I am not sure if I will be doing a fermented sauce this season or not, I still haven't decided. I have a batch of Kimchi that I will be starting this week some time and would need to find something else to ferment in if I do.

Try checking in at the Deli counters in supermarkets... they often throw out half-gallon jars that pickled vegetables come in. Pay particular attention to the lids on the jars... you don't want any that are damaged.