The SEasOning
Every Trinidadian I know has this condiment on hand at all times. This goes on everything from curry, to doubles, to scrambled eggs. The recipe below is fairly basic, but it’s very easily adaptable. Most versions of these pepper sauce share a few things in common:
- Hot peppers
- Fruit
- Acid
- Seasoning
Popular fruits to use are limes, pineapple, and papaya. Acid will generally come from vinegar or mustard. The seasonings will often be garlic, green onions, or culantro. This can give you a lot of flexibility to adjust this to your tastes.
I’d encourage you to play around with this. Try dry roasting the pepper and garlic, or using unripe papaya. This isn’t a fermented hot sauce, so you’re going to relay on cooking this and the salt and acid to preserve this.
I’ve never seen my mother refrigerate this hot sauce. It’s stored in glass bottles in the cupboard for months on end without going bad.
The Ingredients
- 1 lbs hot peppers – stems removed(I used a combination of wiri wiri and scotch bonnet)
- 2 limes peeled and cut into chunks
- 5-6 cloves of garlic peeled
- 1/2 cup white vinegar
- 2 tbsp sugar
- Salt to taste
The Method
- Add everything to the blender except the sugar and salt. Blend till smooth
- Transfer to a pot and place over medium heat. Add some of the salt and sugar. Bring everything up to a simmer
- Simmer and scrape off any of the scum that floats to the top. Keep simmering till most of the scum is gone
- Adjust your seasoning with salt/sugar/vinegar
- Cool your sauce and bottle in clean airtight glass bottles
