Red habanero sauce

[8zeros]

I didn't see a hot sauce recipe here so I thought I'd put one up.
I grow red habs in the garden every year and this is a good way to keep them. Red habs are hotter and tastier than most peppers.

First off, If you are going to try to keep any for a while you have to be clean and sterile in your fixin's.

This is just a general recipe with guidelines to get you started on your own creation.

Ingredients:
About a dozen red habaneros. These are really hot but if you like it hotter you can substitute a couple of scorpion or ghost peppers to heat it up more.
Coarsely chopped carrots 1cup. Less if you want a more peppery sauce.
Garlic about 5-8 cloves
Onion one medium to large, or less if you want a more peppery sauce.
Vinegar enough to cook it down in, your choice of type
Sugar 2 T
Honey 1 T
Salt 1 t
Juice of a couple of lemons, limes, or a combination.
De-stem and halve the chilis and put in a small sauce pot. Chop up and add the other stuff to the pot. Put in enough vinegar to almost the level of the ingredients. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.
At this point I should warn you that the mixture starts to drive everyone out of the area in coughing fits, tell them to buck up and get used to it. (Or make it outside on a grill burner).
Stir the mix a bit for about 15 min. until everything is tender, the carrots take the longest. When it's ready, put it in a blender or food processor and slowly bring it to high speed. Be very careful as it will release steam at first and try to kill you. After it is really smooth transfer it back to the pot. Slow boil it for at least 10 more min. You can add water to thin it out or boil it longer to thicken it at this point. Then blend it again, remember that steam!
It's done now.
Bottling it up:
I use the vinegar bottle. I look for ones with a plastic top and use the vinegar for the recipe, dump the rest out and the boil the bottle and lid. I toss the little plastic insert in the bottle. You can use mason jars or buy bottles online or whatever, just use sterile practices when your cooking this up. You can use a baster or syringe to transfer it to the bottles. Easier than a funnel.
Adjusting the recipe:
You can smoke or grill the peppers, onion, garlic.
You can leave out the carrots and bump up the amount of peppers.
You can use a combination of different peppers.
You can add mango or some other fruit.
You can add spices.

I pretty much stick with the recipe up there.

[8zeros]

This year's first batch I used brown sugar instead of white and added a pinch of ground clove. I put one scorpion pepper in too. Works good.
I had too keep the plastic mouth of the vinegar bottle for sealing it so I cut the inside of it to open it up.
Next batch I'm going to back off on the carrots and increase the peppers cuz I'm getting too tolerant. Only my father can use this sauce in my family. My big macho son-in-law who dumps Tapatillo and Tobasco all over everything won't even try it.
I found out you can just freeze peppers whole right after picking then make sauce any time you want. The peppers are easier too handle that way. I got a lot of peppers this year.

[dijit]

This sounds delicious. Doubt I will try it with a ghost or scorpion yet. But I know once the habaneros are in at Atterbury I will be picking a bag and trying it.