Ingredients

• lots of chilis
• 1 carrot
• 1 red onion
• 1 whole garlic bulb
• salt
• water
• white wine and/or apple cider vinegar
• (optional) corn starch

Basic Idea

We want to get our vegetable matter to ferment, which means some nice bacteria start to break them down, softening and giving a nice flavour. To do this we just suspend them in salt water for a few weeks - A little salt will kill off harmful bacteria, too much salt will kill off our good bacteria. We’re basically trying to let things rot in a controlled way. Sounds gross? Trust me it’s bloody great. Blue cheese and bread are some of the best things and they come from similar processes.

Steps (Clean hands please)

Chop vegetation

Make it chunky. Weigh it all.

Weigh salt

3-5% of your vegetable weights. e.g. 100g veg -> ~4g salt.

Mix in jar

Veg in. Salt in.

Water in

Pour over veg. Make sure all chilis can be covered (some will float, it’s okay).

Push down floaters

I like to slightly fill a sandwich/freezer bag with water and tie it off. Plop it on the top of the jar and it should push the tops of all the chilis and veg bits under the brine. You can fine tune the amout of water in the bag until you get it just right. Just don’t put it down on a surface at any point as it should remain clean.

Keep it secret - keep it safe

Ideally in the dark, not by a window. A cupboard is fine. Don’t poke it. Don’t let animals near it. You can smell a bit after the first week and see if you like it. If you do, consider leaving it a touch longer for enhanced fermento tastes. I think 2.5 - 3 weeks is the sweet spot for me. It will develop some cloudy bits as it ferments, this is normal!

Harvest

Use a colander or sieve over a big bowl to filter off the chunkys from the brine. KEEP THE BRINE. It’s so good. Set it aside.

Blend

Food processor for chunkier or blender for smooth. Wizz up the veg matter. Take out the bay leaves and peppercorns before doing this. Careful cause the vapours can be tingly on the eyes!

Taste

Have a taste of your concoction with a wee spoon. It might be mega hot.

Mix

To your own taste, combine the chili pastey blendy mix with a mixture of the fermented brine, your choice of vinegars and water if things get too intense.

The liquid dilutes the spice and makes up the backbone of your sauce flavour. More liquid will make a runnier sauce (duh).

I tend to do this on the fly with a comination of cider vinegar and white wine vinegar, adding a little bit of each and tasting. The taste will become more complex over time, but very vinegar can overpower a nice sauce in my opinion. The brine is usually delicious. You can mix by hand but the blender/food processor is great for mixing evenly.

Kill it?

If you put your sauce away now it will continue to gently ferment and develop some incredible flavours. If you want the fermentation to stop simply heat it to boiling for a minute or two on the stove. This will kill the bacteria and stop the process.

Thickening

If you want it thicker then sieve some corn starch gently into the mixture and heat to boiling on the hop.

This does stop further fermentation, so if you can be bothered then age the sauce first and thicken later. This is probably the way to get the best tasting sauce, with a great consistency.

Sieve the corn starch to avoid lumps. Heat gently to boiling (not too bubbly) and stir. This takes a bit but when it goes, it goes. Remove from the heat.

Bottle

Stick it in a bottle / jar. I like to use old chili sauce bottles. If it’s really thick then make sure the vessel has a nice open top so it doesn’t get stuck. Bottle your brine too.

Store

It can sit in the cupboard for ages but once opened best put in the fridge. Brine goes straight in the fridge. Cook with your brine!

Age

2 months is ideal for great flavour. I did 6 month once and it was still great! But I am impatient. It’s probably still pretty good after just a week.

Ingredient Details

Chilis

If you’re wanting to produce industrial quantities of chili sauce then dried chilis are pretty easy to get, and super cheap from the local asian supermarket. yeah get those really gnarly looking round ones, not the long thin ones.

If you can’t find dired then just get a bunch of fresh chilis! Obviously these are going to have more fresh tastes going on, but you’d be surprised how good the sauce from dried ones can be for the cost. For fresh though I like to mix up a few chilis. As the great fermenty flavour comes from the skin you want the bulk to be the longer chunky ones with lots of body, then throw in some really spicy ones like scotch bonnets. I find these gnarly ones have a lovely almost lemony taste, and they bring a punchy heat. The spice does get softened quite a bit by the process, but even just a couple of these hotter chilis can make the sauce quite spicy! But You are going to dilute at the end so you have more control than you think.

Veg

Use what you want! Unless you’re a chili purist. I like to throw in a carrot and some red onion for sweetness, and some garlic cloves if you’re feeling extra unpure.

Seasoning

Black peppercorns and bay leaves are always good, but don’t go overboard - let the little yeasties do their work with the flavours.

Water

Drinking is fine if you live somewhere with nice crisp tasting water like Edinburgh. If you don’t (looking at you London), get bottled spring water.

Salt

Table salt is fine. If you can get non-iodized then do. General advice is 3-5% salt by weight for chili sauce. 3% and you’re probably looking at a week fermentation time, and I’ve gone up to a month on 5% salt content. I have eyeballed it in the past and overdone it, and it barely ferments in this case! The alternative to that is even worse so best weight it out.

Vinegar

You can use anything you like, but recommended is apple cider and white wine. I like to use both and tune to my liking depending on how the chili blend tastes. White wine is bitier and sharp, but has an interesting je ne sais quoisdfjasfdhf. You can also use straight white vinegar for extra crispt tang too. The apple cider is sweeter but I don’t like to overdo this, just enough to support the flavours.