Recipes for Chilli Sauces Please!!!

[Syzygies]

Glad to see all this hot sauce fermenting!

To be clear, I never claimed that Kahm yeast is dangerous. No one should be afraid of Kahm yeast, nor should they discard a batch where it appears. I claimed that I can taste the difference, and I prefer ferments where there is no visible Kahm yeast.

This could be a coincidence: No Kahm yeast could be a side effect of the technique that lead to my best ferments, not a determining cause. Still, I've tossed too many ferments of cabbage and such, recognizing I can do better buying at the farmers market, to shake this association.

[tekobo]

So...here is the result of my latest chilli experiment.  We visited my cousin in NYC earlier in the year.  He introduced me to a beautiful chilli oil called Akabanga from Rwanda.  I fell in love instantly.  It comes in a 20ml bottle with a dropper and  you apply 4-5 drops to your food.  No more.  It's hot but not too hot.  Delicious.  Given I was growing a lot of chillis myself I figured I really ought to figure out how to make it.  

The only clue that I could find to how it was made was on this website: https://www.afrolink.co.uk/product-page/akabanga-chilli-oil-product-of-rwanda.  It says   The recipe consists of 80 percent yellow chilli pepper (scotch bonnet) extract and 20 percent olive oil. Hmm, how do you get an extract of chilli peppers?  I found this site that explained how to extract pure capsaicin from chillis: https://italianchilli.com/en/content/22-how-to-extract-pure-capsaicin-from-chillies

Yes, I know that capsaicin is murderously potent and has to be treated with respect but I could not resist the challenge.  

Started with some 95 proof alcohol that we bought in Italy in order to make limoncello.  (Drop all your preconceptions, home made limoncello using Amalfi lemons is a revelation.)

Per the recipe, I whizzed a load of chillies, mixed them in with the alcohol and let stand for three days.  I then strained through a 250 micron and then 50 micron bag.

 

They said to wait for the alcohol to evaporate.  I soon realised that was going to take too long.  I consulted some websites and found one that explained how to evaporate alcohol from tinctures of cannabis.  Simple solution.  I put the bowl in my water bath and heated the water up to 81C, just above the boiling temperature for alcohol. Here it is, starting to coagulate as the temperature rose. 

I now have this sticky residue. It is hard to believe that this is the fearsome capsaicin.  It smells lovely and sweet, not hot at all.  That said, I stuck a toothpick in and tasted the liquid off the end of the toothpick.  It was very hot.  Not to be messed with.  I am planning to dissolve this extract in oil (1:15 is the only measure I have been able to find online so far) and then dispense it from little 15 ml bottles with a pipette.  To build the flavour profile I'll use extra virgin olive oil flavoured by slow cooking onions, garlic and peppers in it this morning.  

All of that said, there is no way that a factory in a village in Rwanda went to these lengths to make chilli oil!  This lady from Cameroon has a much more down to earth method which I will try with my next harvest of chillis.

 

 

[tony b]

My first thought watching this video was why in the heck is she taking all that time to poke holes in the peppers, just cut them in half and expose more surface area? It gets strained out at the end anyway, so any loose seeds will be captured, and you'll get more extraction. 

@tekobo I'd stick with your alcohol extraction method. If you have the sous vide machine, it's not that much actual work, just a bit more time consuming. I'm guessing that you're getting a much stronger oil than the lady in the video.

[tekobo]

23 hours ago, tony b said:

I'm guessing that you're getting a much stronger oil than the lady in the video.

I suspect capsaicin is way hotter than anything that I need in my life under normal circs.  It was fun to try this but I found it difficult to mix with the oil - had to reheat in the water bath and found that it fell out of suspension afterwards.  The oil I put in has a nice gentle heat, with the goo of the majority of the capsaicin sitting at the bottom of the bottle.  Will keep playing...

[tony b]

I use Xanthan gum in my hot sauces to prevent separation. You could try that with your extract version. I don't know if it will have the same effect in an oil-based sauce? 

[tony b]

Finally bottled this year's batch of aji yellow hot sauce. The color is natural. Just the homegrown peppers, some garlic, a dash of seasoning salt and Xanthan gum. 

[MacKenzie]

Looks awesome, Tony. 

[tekobo]

Looking good @tony b.  I have many more chillis to harvest from the polytunnel.  A nice bottled sauce like yours would fit the bill nicely.  

[tekobo]

On 11/20/2022 at 4:15 PM, tony b said:

Just the homegrown peppers, some garlic, a dash of seasoning salt and Xanthan gum. 

Yipppee!  I made started three batches of Scotch bonnet ferments in early April and tried the first batch last week.  At first I was worried that the heat would knock my head off but with the judicious addition of some sushi vinegar it mellowed out and is joyously addictive.  I want to try different additives and wondered what others have tried with success.  When you add garlic @tony b  is it just whizzed in raw with the ferment?  Any other interesting flavours?  I tried balsamic vinegar but that wasn't as good as the sushi vinegar.  Thinking I might riff on the latter with some straight mirin.  I also tried with soy tonight but I think I put a bit too much in.  

[tony b]

Woo, hoo, way to go,  @tekobo!

I've only experimented with various vinegars myself.  I typically stick with rice vinegar, as it doesn't have a strong flavor on its own, like apple cider vinegar does. White balsamic is a nice one. 

Fruits can work well in sauce, like mango, pineapple or raspberries. Tomatoes or carrots can work, too.

Spices can push the sauce in many directions. Southwest/Mexican (chili powder and cumin). Middle Eastern (ras El hanout, berebere) Indian  with all the different curries. Asian with ginger , fish sauce (?), miso.

You have a base sauce that you can experiment with, so have some fun with it and find what you like. 

[tekobo]

Thanks @tony b.  I will set some time aside this weekend to try a few variants.  In the past I thought that keeping the mash going for longer was the way to go but now realise that 6-8 weeks is long enough for a mighty fine tasting sauce.  I am looking forward to this year's crop of chillis. It will be interesting to explore the different flavours that different chillis deliver in a sauce. 

[Syzygies]

On 10/14/2018 at 10:57 AM, tony b said:

I do fermented style sauces, ala Tabasco.

It's been a few years, but I've made many batches of fermented Tabasco-style hot sauce over the years.

Like many of us, I have a chamber vacuum machine. The signature uses of sous vide and freezer preservation easily justify a machine. Nevertheless, we should all take inspiration from those "what goes in a blender?" YouTube videos.

What goes in a chamber vacuum machine?

• A couple of sixty second sessions will hydrate any dough better than a long rest. This has an extraordinary effect on pasta dough.
• A quick refrigerator pickle such as a Mexican Cauliflower and Jalapeño Escabeche (Asada: The Art of Mexican-Style Grilling by Bricia Lopez and Javier Cabral has the best recipe I've seen) benefits from vacuum packing and a rest.
• Some people ferment chiles for hot sauce by vacuum packing the peppers with a starter, in a large pouch with room for the gases.

The challenge in fermenting chiles is getting white cloudy Kahm Yeast. While it isn't harmful, it's gross, and in my opinion it affects the flavor. The fermenting world is full of people who've never figured out how to avoid Kahm yeast, who consider worrying about it a silly concern. I usually don't get Kahm yeast, but I consider myself an abject failure of a human being when I do.

The hope is that removing oxygen by chamber vacuum sealing the chiles will prevent Kahm Yeast.

I also have an argon tank, for saving part bottles of wine, and I intend to experiment with displacing the air in a carboy, as an alternate approach.

I adjust pH to below the botulism threshold whatever I do, measuring with a professional pH meter. You can get banned from a fermentation forum by suggesting such a thing, but it brings me peace of mind.

Many botulism deaths are the result of ill-advised experiments that break with long understood tradition, such as Alaskan natives fermenting meats in a plastic pail rather than in the traditional sealskin. One should recognize that any novel approach to fermenting hot sauce poses similar questions.

[MacKenzie]

I know what I'm going to do with my next batch of pasta dough, thanks, Syzygies. 

[tekobo]

Yippee.  Vaccuum sealing and fermenting chillis do go together, radically reducing the risk of taste tainting yeasts.  

So, there is a West African restaurant in London called Ikoyi and they have this recipe for fermenting chillis:

Lacto-fermented scotch bonnet chillies (makes 400g)

500g scotch bonnet chillies, halved and deseeded

10g fine salt

Mix the chillies and salt in a large vacuum-seal bag and toss well to distribute the salt. Make sure the chillies are evenly spaced out in a single layer. Seal the bag on full and leave to ferment for seven days at 24-28°C (75-82°F). If the bag has expanded too far, “burp” out the air by making a small incision and then reseal.

Once the chillies have reached a sour, fragrant and meaty flavour profile, store them in an airtight container in the fridge and use within two months.

I have tried it out and got these:

They are tasty fermented scotch bonnet chillis that you can eat, sparingly, with your food.  Their book also has a recipe for a hot sauce which will use these fermented scotch bonnets as an ingredient but you first have to ferment some blended chillis (I used longer, less hot chillis for this) for a couple of weeks.  Watch this space.  I am hoping for a delicious fermented sauce at the end of all of this.