pepper sauce: to cook or not to cook

17 years ago

I've seen many recipes for pepper sauce but am confused about the cooked kind.

I was born in Trinidad and my mum had always made hot pepper sauce using vinegar, garlic,and salt all processed smooth then stored indefinately in the refrigerator in a glass bottle.

Sometimes she would make 2 jars, one with mustard, the other with ketchup. But none were ever cooked.

Do cooked recipes have a shelf life?...how long will they keep in the fridge?

Also, a tip I picked up from mum this weekend. She says if your vinegar based pepper sauce has foam on top, or looks frothy, it's gone bad.

I've never had this happen but am wondering if any one else has had this experience. She also says not to add raw onion to the vinegar sauce that the fresh onion makes the sauce go bad quickly.

she can be a tad supersticious so I don't know how much truth there is to the onion or froth thing. I've always gone through the jar before it could go bad, about 1/2 a litre every 4-ish months.

any thoughts or comments?

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Comments (6)

sndk
17 years ago
well, the foam/froth on the top would be from the yeast action fermenting, but, i kinda like it fermented. a good sauce i make is to deseed a mess of peppers, pop them in a blender and puree, adding only enuff water to allow the blender to work. this starts to ferment and tastes divine. (add some bakers yeast if your concerned about the wrong yeasts starting, but i never do)

most pepper mashes are allowed to ferment too. it's just plain tasty.

as to the cooking part, that is to kill yeast and bacteria. if you are concerned about that but dont want to cook your peppers, just poach them and you'll gain the good with a minimum of the bad.
hookilau
Original Author
17 years ago
hmm...I don't think I've ever eaten fermented sauce. I like the taste of peppers fresh from the bush. If there's no froth, is it safe to say it's not fermented?...how long does it take to ferment when you make sauce? do you keep it in the fridge to ferment or on the counter?

How long do you keep your pepper sauce? cooked or otherwise?
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sndk
17 years ago
the mash will start fermenting within a day or so if left out ambient, and after a couple weeks if left in a fridge.

it gives it a new character, it's really nice.
ronalawn82
17 years ago
The froth ting is rather like mushrooms; some are good, some are bad, bad. So, to be safe, the folks in the old country used to throw out any food which showed froth or similar "growths". I am surprised that your mum did not mention the preferred practice of putting the "sweetie" jars (container of widespread choice) of pepper sauce and amchar in the sun to prevent the said frothing.The very best pepper sauce I have ever tasted was made by a great "ole lady" in Freeport and that's no mammaguy.
hookilau
Original Author
17 years ago
wee-papa!...now your'e talkin'!!!

what are "sweetie" jars? I'll ask my mum but I don't think she knows otherwise she'd have said something by now.

Have you a recipe or method to follow you can share?

Hate to admit it but I tossed the foamy sauce because every time I ate it, it (as my mum says) it burn me twice. :0) I made wiri wiri sauce and congo pepper sauce and although it was only the wiri wiri that developed froth, both sauces disagreed with me in the same manner, very unusual.

Normally mum puts the sauce in the fridge right away and so do I. I'm starting to think I should have rinsed the peppers in a light bleach solution before making the sauce because she got them on Liberty Ave. I only rinsed them before making the sauce.

Some of those green markets can be kind of gamey. She wound up tossing her peppers because she took an extra day or two to get around to making her sauce and she said by that time, some of her peppers were soft.

Although mine were firm and bright yellow, the sauce still did'nt sit right with my belly. :o(

Do you know if the same type sauce can be made with seasoning peppers for cooking?....vinegar cooks off so I'm thinking it's possible.

Do you make green seasoning also?
ronalawn82
17 years ago
I am sorry but I prefer to eat pepper raw with my meal. I like the flavour (rather than the heat) of wiri wiri (mari wiri) and the sighting of a dish of devilled eggs each individually topped with a single wiri wiri and a sprig of parsley does good things to my salivary glands.
Going back to Freeport village, this old lady would blanche peppers, cucumbers, korylla, cauliflower; in fact any vegetable that was in season. She would soak the diced up vegetables in vinegar (acetic acid, to which some salt had been added)in sweetie jars and put the jars out in the sun every day! She would not allow anyone to taste from a jar that was not at least one year old . By that time the various flavours would meld and every piece would taste the same. Candy was called "sweetie" and they were displayed in large glass jars in the shops. The jar was rectangular in cross section and the top was formed into a circular opening and was closed with a plastic screw cover. In the home we would store sugar (made in Caroni?) in these jars and in the weeks before Christmas the folks would soak the currants, raisins and prunes in high wine(Guyana) or puncheon rum (T&T) in these jars for the yuletide ritual of making Christmas cake. I am sorry that I do not have recipes to share but writing this has been like going home again. Thanks!

pepper sauce: to cook or not to cook

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pepper sauce: to cook or not to cook

Comments (6)

sndk

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