I realize that hot sauce may not be a big part of most people's budgets, but growing your own peppers and making your own hot-sauce can give you really good sauce. You can buy Tabasco plants or seed. One good plant will yield enough for about a pint of sauce. Put them in salted vinegar in the refrigerator, or use them fresh. I mash one into the juice of one lime to marinate fish. A few drops of the vinegar in a scrambled egg will work wonders. A Tabasco pepper is about 50,000 Scoville units of heat and have an intensely savory flavor. My son has a couple of datil pepper plants. Datils run about 300,000 Scoville units (one Jalapeno is about 5,000), but have an intense fruity, citrusy flavor. Make a glaze using lime juice and honey. Make a puree of the datil less seeds and pith unless you want an intensely hot product. Wear gloves and be careful as this is a very hot pepper. Use one in about a gallon of Minorcan clam chowder for the world's best clam chowder.
I never thought about making hot sauce because several kinds cost a little over a dollar. But your description makes homemade hot sauce sound really delicious and now I'm tempted to try it at least once. What is Minorcan clam chowder? I've only had the New England and Manhattan clam chowder.
Sounds like it might be something stored on U-977 Tom. Kidding. I have made my own hot sauce. I owned a restaurant in N. Idaho a few years back and decided I was going to put my own recipe hot sauce on the tables. I was literally selling it by the gallon after it hit the tables. One night a gentleman tried it out and told me he worked as a buyer for Food Service America out of Spokane Washington. He needed 50 samples in souffle' cups so he could give the sales guys. They said it would hit the market with great reviews. I was within a month of the first bottling date and the buyer keeled over and died at work. He was 74 when that happened. I talked to the new buyer and he told me it would be at least a year before he could examine a new product like mine because he had to get a grip on the products already being sold. A few months later I looked out the door and saw 6 feet of snow and felt the cold again so I closed the doors and we moved to Alabama. I've thought about building a small bottle plant next to my retirement wood shop and try to distribute to the local places here. Kind of sub out a little extra retirement money. Oh yeah, by the by...your recipe does sound great. Someday I'll send ya mine.
This is good to know because some "gourmet" hot sauces cost more than a couple of dollars. Haven't tried these but I like making sauces with different types of peppers. Once, I made my own flavored oil using chipotle and jalapeno peppers.
I don't eat it myself enough to grow my own, but my parents grow their own from seed and jar it. I'm not good with extremely hot sauces, but one of their milder ones is absolutely delicious! I cannot remember the names of the chillis that are in it. I have found shop bought ones to not always have a nice after taste, almost meaty, which I don't appreciate in a sauce.
Wow that's great. I love hot sauce and the fact that you mentioned a lot of types would have different Scoville units, I would love the most! If it was like one million spread over a hot sauce, that would be great. I think it's also very healthy, of course if you don't have too much of it. It would save a lot of money because it costs much less to do it at home than to buy it ready made.
