The Hot Sauce Cookbook (11 page)

Use the mash to make
Homemade Sriracha Sauce
,
Homemade Pepper Sauce
, or put it on the table in a jar and use it straight. Because the mash is fermented, it will keep for several months in the refrigerator.

Mash in a Fermentation Crock:
Increase the amount of chiles as desired to fit the capacity of your crock and use 2 tablespoons pickling salt per pound. Add spring water to cover the chiles, then put your weights on top and proceed as directed.

Fermented Pepper Mash with Seeds (sambal oelek):
Don’t remove the seeds from the fermented chiles. Just put the chiles and seeds in a blender with the brine and process them into a paste.

Huy Fong–Style Garlic Chile Paste:
Combine 1 cup of the Fermented Pepper Mash with Seeds (sambal oelek) with 1 tablespoon minced garlic, 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar, 1 teaspoon sugar, and a pinch of salt. Taste and adjust the seasonings as needed. This will last for several months in the refrigerator.

HOMEMADE PEPPER SAUCE

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Makes about 1 cup
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Louisiana-style pepper sauces are made with the same basic ingredients—fermented chiles, salt, and vinegar. The salt is already there from the fermenting brine, so all you have to add is vinegar. If you want your sauce to taste just like the commercial stuff, use distilled white vinegar. But if you try rice vinegar, white wine vinegar, or cane vinegar, I am willing to bet you will be amazed by the flavor. You will probably want to make your homemade, private label pepper sauce a little less vinegary than the commercial varieties as well.   
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The strainer method yields a pepper sauce that is a little thinner than some commercial sauces. To make thicker sauces, like Crystal or Sriracha, use a seedless mash.   
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You can serve your pepper sauce at the table in any sort of bottle or jar, but to impress your friends and family, I suggest you buy a set of glass vinegar and oil cruets with metal shaker tops and fill them with your hot sauces. You can make several versions and label the bottles with stickers to keep them straight.

½ cup
Fermented Pepper Mash

⅓ to ½ cup cane vinegar, sherry vinegar, rice wine vinegar, seasoned rice wine vinegar, or other vinegar

Combine the mash and the vinegar in a blender and purée together. Pour the mixture through a strainer, pushing against the mesh with a wooden spoon to extract as much pepper flesh as possible. Scrape the bottom of the strainer to get all the pepper solids. Discard the skins and any residue left in the strainer.

Put the sauce in a glass cruet with a metal dispenser top and label it with a date. The finished sauce will keep for several months in the refrigerator.

You can use your fermented pepper mash to make homemade versions of popular pepper sauces, or you can concoct your own proprietary blend. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Frank’s RedHot–Style Pepper Sauce:
Purée a half clove of garlic (or more to taste) with ⅓ to ½ cup pepper mash and ½ cup vinegar in a blender.

Texas Pete–Style Pepper Sauce:
To make a vinegary pepper sauce like Texas Pete, use ⅔ cup vinegar to ½ cup pepper mash.

Crystal-Style Pepper Sauce:
To make a thicker pepper sauce like Crystal, use ⅓ cup vinegar to ½ cup pepper mash.

Asian-Flavored Pepper Sauce:
Add ⅓ cup to ½ cup seasoned rice wine vinegar with garlic to ½ cup pepper mash.

Sriracha Sauce:
See
recipe
.

Homemade Buffalo Chicken Wings

HOMEMADE BUFFALO CHICKEN WINGS

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Serves 6; makes about 30 whole wings
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Legend has it that on a Friday night in 1964, bartender Dominic “The Rooster” Bellissimo at The Anchor Bar Restaurant in Buffalo asked his mom, Teressa Bellissimo, if she could make a snack for him and his friends at closing time. There were a bunch of chicken wings on the counter waiting to be used for the chicken stock. But instead of using the wings for soup, Teressa threw them in the deep-fryer and then covered them with a spicy sauce. She served the wings with celery stalks and blue cheese dressing.   
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The Anchor Bar’s sauce recipe is a secret, but we know that it included Frank’s RedHot Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce. Margarine was probably the other main ingredient. Frank’s Redhot and many other hot sauce producers now sell wing sauces that are made to be dumped directly on the cooked wings. These are fine, but none taste quite as good as a homemade wing sauce made with butter.   
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Since I don’t have a deep fryer, my favorite recipe for homemade Buffalo chicken wings calls for baking the wings on a cookie sheet in the oven. In the last step, you crisp the wings under the broiler—but you can also do it on a grill if you are already cooking outside.

5 pounds chicken wings (about 30 whole wings or 60 wing pieces)

1 cup Frank’s RedHot Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce or
Frank’s RedHot–Style Pepper Sauce

½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted

1 cup blue cheese dressing, for serving

12 celery stalks, for serving

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line two baking sheets with foil and lightly grease with cooking spray.

If desired, leave the wings whole. To split the wings into smaller pieces, first cut off the wing tips and save them for stock. Rinse the wings, split into two parts at the joint and pat dry. Place the wings (or wing pieces) on the pans in a single layer. Bake the wings, uncovered, for 20 minutes, or until cooked through and slightly crispy. Remove from the oven and place in a large mixing bowl.

Combine the hot sauce and melted butter. Set aside ½ cup of the mixture. Pour the rest over the cooked chicken wings. (If your bowl isn’t large enough, mix the wings and sauce in several batches.) The wings can be held at this stage in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve them.

To serve, preheat your broiler on high and broil the wings for 5 minutes on each side, brushing with the reserved sauce. Serve with blue cheese dressing and celery stalks.

KEVIN ROBERTS’S BEER WINGS

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Serves 6; makes about 30 whole wings
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Chef, restaurateur, and BBQ Pitmasters host, Kevin Roberts served as a judge at the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival in 2012. Roberts is also a spokesman for Frank’s RedHot Pepper Sauce. This is his signature barbecued hot wing recipe.   
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“The trick to my tasty and healthy wings is I boil them first in beer,” he wrote. “They absorb that great flavor, and it makes them nice and tender. Then you can throw them on the grill and get ’em nice and crispy or bake them if you’re stuck indoors. It’s three easy steps: Boil, Grill, Sauce!”

5 pounds chicken wings (about 30 whole wings or 60 wing pieces)

2 (12-ounce) bottles your favorite beer

½ cup Frank’s RedHot Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce or
Frank’s RedHot–Style Pepper Sauce

½ cup barbecue sauce, such as Cattlemen’s or
Trey’s Ancho BBQ Sauce

Prepare a medium hot fire in a grill or preheat the oven to 450°F.

If desired, leave the wings whole. To split the wings into smaller pieces, first cut off the wing tips and save them for stock. Rinse the wings, split into two parts at the joint and pat dry. In a large pot over medium heat, bring the beer to a boil and add the wings (or wing pieces). Cook for 10 minutes, or until tender. Remove the wings and discard the cooking liquid.

Grill the wings or bake until golden brown and crispy, about 5 to 10 minutes per side.

When the wings are cooked, combine the hot sauce and barbecue sauce in a large bowl, add the wings, and toss until the wings are well coated. Serve on a heated plate.

TREY MORAN’S ANCHO BBQ SAUCE

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Makes about 3 cups
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Trey Moran is a food blogger. His site,
Texas food done my way
, is a favorite source for new recipe ideas. Moran entered this recipe in the Hot Sauce Cookbook Recipe Contest, a competition I publicized on several food blogs. His combination of ancho chiles, ketchup, and rice wine vinegar made an awesome barbecue sauce. The recipe won him a second-place prize.

6 dried ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded

Water

1 cup ketchup

¼ cup rice wine vinegar

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons agave nectar

2 tablespoons Louisiana-style pepper sauce or
Homemade Pepper Sauce

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon chili powder

2 teaspoons dry mustard powder

Put the ancho chiles in a medium saucepan and cover with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 12 to 15 minutes, or until very soft. Transfer the chiles and ½ cup of the cooking water to a blender and purée until smooth. Add more liquid, if necessary, to get the blades moving. Discard the rest of the cooking liquid.

Combine the ancho purée with the ketchup, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, agave nectar, pepper sauce, garlic powder, paprika, chile powder, and mustard powder in the saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and let simmer for 15 minutes until thick. Use immediately as a barbecue sauce or for
Kevin Roberts’s Beer Wings
. Store leftover sauce in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Bloody Mary

BLOODY MARY

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Serves 6
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An American bartender named Fernand Petiot is said to have invented the Bloody Mary at the New York Bar in Paris in the 1920s. The original was just vodka and tomato juice. Petiot added the Tabasco sauce and other spices to the recipe after he relocated to the King Cole Bar in New York’s St. Regis Hotel. Tabasco sauce is so closely associated with this tomato juice and vodka cocktail that the McIlhenny Company introduced a Tabasco Bloody Mary Mix in 1976.

1 quart tomato juice

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice

1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce or
Homemade Pepper Sauce

1 teaspoon prepared horseradish

1 teaspoon celery salt

Ice

6 jiggers vodka, or to taste

6 celery stalks

Combine the tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, lime juice, Tabasco, and horseradish in a 2-quart pitcher and stir well. Cover the top of the pitcher with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 1 day.

When you are ready to serve the cocktails, put the celery salt on a saucer. Wet the lips of six tall glasses and dip in the celery salt. Fill the glasses with ice. Add a jigger of vodka to each glass. Carefully fill each glass with the tomato juice mixture, stir, and garnish with a stalk of celery.

TEXAS PETE BBQ PORK