Since I have nothing better to do with my Sunday evenings (I jest), last night I decided to make the pepper sauce recipe that was featured earlier this week. The idea came on sort of spur of the moment as I was in the grocery store and saw all the lovely rich reds and greens of the peppers. At first I assumed I would use bell peppers, but when I realized the recipe called for a dozen red and a dozen green, I realized that would be too much volume. I went with red and green jalapenos, which may or may not be the right ones, but that’s what I used, so there it is.

It took about 30 minutes to clean and deseed two dozen peppers – and let me tell you, my sinuses were clear at the end of that process! I used a mini food processor to chop them up finely, and then again with the onion. If you decide to take this on, let me warn you now. DO NOT TOUCH YOUR FACE while working with these peppers. The juice can be very uncomfortable and the seeds are used in the making of pepper spray. I touched my upper lip and the juice worked its way into the base of my nose. Yeah.

So, I there I was with three bowls of chopped up produce making my eyes water and my nose run…

…and at this point I could not imagine Gram making or ever eating this sauce. I imagined it to be like Tapatillo or Tobasco. Throwing caution to the wind, I put it into my big pot, added the vinegar and sugar (two pounds plus 8 ounces!), and set it on to cook.

After it came to a rolling boil, I reduced the heat to medium and stirred it occasionally. As it boiled it produced almost a bubble on top which would burst open and flood over the rest of the vegetables. We had dinner in the middle of this process so it might have actually cooked for 30 minutes, and then I let it stand a good 10 minutes afterwards as I did dishes.  :-)

The resulting sauce is pretty liquidy with the small pieces of pepper and onion suspended within. Remember it’s got over two pounds of sugar in it! The sauce is sweet with a spicy finish and reminds me of the dipping sauces you get with your spring rolls and egg rolls at a Chinese or Thai restaurant. It’s very good, yield is 2 quarts. I don’t know how I’m going to use it, frankly. I can’t imagine what to make with it!

Any locals want some?