Caribbean Hot Pepper Sauce
Source : Cynthia Nelson, A Contributing Writer to the Latin Caribbean
Food Site at About.com
Pepper Sauce is a condiment made and used widely throughout the Caribbean. Each country and household has its own recipe. You can always find a bottle of Pepper Sauce in most homes. Or, when being served your meal, your host or hostess would ask if you would like to have some Pepper Sauce with your meal.
Pepper Sauce can be made with one variety of pepper or with a combination of peppers. Most of the times however, Pepper Sauce is made with Scotch Bonnet peppers.
Making Pepper Sauce
If you are allergic to peppers, wear gloves when handling the peppers. When making a large batch of Pepper Sauce, you must wear gloves.
Yield: 2 1/2 cups
Ingredients:
1 lb scotch bonnet peppers (washed and stems removed)
1 Tbsp salt
White distilled vinegar or vegetable oil ( See Note )
Preparation:
• Add all the ingredients to a food processor.
• Pulse until the peppers are minced finely.
• Scrape down the sides of the bowl intermittently.
• Let the processor keep whirling and pour just enough of the vinegar through the chute to moisten the peppers and give it the consistency of a thick sauce.
• Pour into sterilized glass bottles, cover with air tight lids and store in a cool place or in your refrigerator.
• Alternately, you can place your bottles of pepper sauce in the sun for 2 - 3 days to ripen quickly and then store in a cool place.
• If there's no sun where you are, let the pepper sauce cure for at least 5 days before use so that the flavors can develop.
Note: You can substitute the vinegar with oil when making the pepper sauce. I find that the oil tends to make the pepper sauce even hotter.
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