Spice

While bro jargon was recently dismayed by the tame-ness of his South Indian cuisine, I have found myself awash in capsaicin. The heat of the summer sun has produced a surfeit of pequin, jalapeno, and thai chilis. While I've been incorporating them in my various cooking endeavors, the harvest was beginning to overwhelm me. Enter hot sauce.

In addition to my own production, I purchased a handful of hot cherry peppers and a satchel of habaneros from the local grocery.

Chilis are interesting. They are all hot, no doubt, but they definitely have distinct characteristics. Habaneros take a bit to hit you, but then build furiously. Hot cherry peppers hit you right away. Jalapenos aren't too bad. The pequins and thai chilis are somewhere in between.

Anyways, the first steps of making the sauce involved chopping onions, garlic, and chilis. I made two sauces: a watermelon-habanero variety and an all chili kick-in-the-glass variety. Below is the early stages of the latter

The process of cooking these babies was deadly toxic. My tear ducts operated at full flow and my napping room mate was coughing non-stop in his sleep. Sorry dude. Anyways, once this mixture seemed soft, into the blender it all went, along with some vinegar, salt, and lemon/lime. The sauce below is the habanero-watermelon variety, so pureed watermelon makes a brief appearance, mainly to add a bit of volume and a hint of sweetness to the fiery mixture.

It was all a dream...

Anyways, this mixture and the other, all chili one, have served well. The habanero-watermelon gives you an initial acid blast followed by a fiery punch in the nuts. The all chili bottle is straight deadly. Added to some simmering greens, these sauces have really kicked up my life. Endorphin rush or not, I'm feeling the spicy life. Shall we dance?