DIY Hot Sauce-Tabasco

This recipe has been a long time in coming. I mean a long time. I have been planning to make this since the beginning of time. Not really, but sometimes it feels like that. It started quite a few years ago, when Saveur Magazine had it's Saveur 100. This is a list of 100 cooking gadgets/tools, recipes, restaurants, people, methods...you name it, it's there. Anything remotely linked to food can be found on this list. So, anyway, they had a hot sauce recipe. I took one look at that and knew I needed to make it. My husband LOVES hot sauce. I am not even joking. When we were first married he poured Frank's Red Hot on EVERYTHING-pizza, eggs, tacos from Jack in the Box, spaghetti, whatever. It was gross. He has since been reformed by a long and tedious process that has been painful at times, but he has been clean now for over a year,
with only the occasional indulgence. Tabasco, however, is still a staple in our fridge. I am fine with that. He uses it on his eggs, on pasta, pizza, etc, to give it some extra heat and flavor. I don't cook very spicy food because right now we are living with my parents and my dad can't eat anything the even registers on the Scoville scale. Plus, I have small children, so I really try to keep the heat to a minimum, or at least only on certain people's plates.
Back to the recipe. I found this recipe and determined to make it. Unfortunately, it called for Fresno chilis, which I have still been unable to locate. I asked at the Farmer's market, grocery store, looked for seeds or plants to grow my own-no luck. And I live like two hours from Fresno-what's up with that? You would think they would be available around here. My produce guy said they can't even order them.
About a year later, I saw another hot sauce recipe. Again, calling for Fresno chilis. I checked the grocery store again. No dice.
Finally, what I decided to do was develop my own recipe. Fresno chilis have a similar heat to jalapeno, so I figured if I used some bell peppers and some habanero peppers I should reach a happy medium in the heat department. (Well, actually, a happy hot) I loved the beautiful orange color that the sauce had, so I used orange bells and habaneros. I had the habaneros growing in my garden, along with the Thai red chilis. You don't have to use them, but you could use another tiny red chili, or whatever. I am also very curious as to what it would be like if I sauteed onions and garlic with the peppers. I would think it would just be even more delicious!


Here you go and have fun. We finished off the first bottle in about a week. It has a sweet and hot flavor, just perfect on tacos and anything else you want to put it on. I put it on my turkey sandwich one day, just for kicks and giggles.



Hot Sauce Recipe:
4 orange bell peppers
7 habaneros
5 Thai red chilis (or more habaneros)
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 cups white vinegar
2 teaspoons salt



Trim the stems off of the chiles and seed the bell peppers. Cut them into large chunks. Place the olive oil and chilis in a large pot on the stove.



Turn the heat to medium and cover. Cook for about 20 minutes, tossing occasionally, but allowing the peppers to brown a bit on the bottom. If you need to you can turn up the heat a bit.

 Once the peppers are soft, turn off the heat and allow them to cool a bit. Put them in the food processor with the salt and about 1/2 cup of the vinegar, using more if needed to keep it moving around in there. Add the rest of the vinegar and blend until smooth.






Add the water, salt and the rest of the vinegar and puree until blended. Place in a jar. The flavor will improve with time, but it is pretty good as is.
Store in the refrigerator.