Gbessay Sabi Kuk! Hot Sauce and Pepe Jam

Post by Lara

2 May 2013

One thing we’ve gotten quite used to in our time here is spicy food.  It’s normal for any recipe you make to have Le 500 worth of pepe (pepper) in it, which amounts to about ¼ cup of small hot chili peppers. These peppers get beaten in a mata odo (mortar and pestle) and added to the sauce after most of it is cooked so the spice stays nice and hot.  In the market, we can buy a “cup” of peppers (equaling 1 ½ to 2 cups) for Le 1000 right now, so we took advantage of the low prices and decided to make some homemade hot sauce and pepper jam.  This pair of recipes can be made in the same day.  Also—this is a great example of the usefulness of vinegar, which we use almost daily in our cooking here. 

Hot Sauce

WARNING #1: Wear rubber gloves or wash your hands frequently with soap while working with peppers. Also don’t touch your face.  This stuff burns!

WARNING #2: U.S. food recommendations would advise that you refrigerate both of these recipes unless you’re going to properly process them for canning. We don’t have a refrigerator or most of the materials to properly process canned foods, so we live on the wild side. Still, if you’re worried about food safety then refrigerate these items.

Ingredients:

At least one bottle or jar for storing hot sauce. Used soy sauce bottles work great.

1+ cups of pepper (the more pepper, the hotter the sauce)

1 cup water

½ cup vinegar

1 Tbsp tomato paste

2 Tbsp sugar or honey

2 Tbsp salt

Optional additions: ground ginger, minced garlic, minced onions, anything you feel like throwing in

Wash and stem the peppers. Beat them in a mata odo or finely chop them.  Mix all ingredients in a cup or bowl and let sit at least 30 minutes.  Stir, and strain into the bottle. Add a spoonful of the pepper mixture to the sauce in the bottle.  This hot sauce tastes pretty good right away but gets better with age.  Keep the rest of the pepper mixture to make jam.

Pepe Jam

[See WARNINGs about working with peppers!]

Ingredients:

1+ jars for storing jam.

Beaten/chopped peppers, onions, garlic, etc. from making hot sauce

Sugar

Measure the pepper mixture (or guess) and add an equal volume of sugar.  I like to add a bit more sugar on top of this to mellow the pepper flavor a bit.  Mix the peppers and sugar in a pot and bring to a boil.  Cook until sugar is all melted and pepper mixture turns darker (20-30 minutes), stirring frequently.  If you want to test for doneness (which we never do), you can take a dollop of jam out with a spoon and set it aside to cool. If it is thick and doesn’t run too quickly when it’s cool, then the jam has set.  Remove the jam from heat and allow it to cool for about 20 minutes before spooning into jars (cool longer if using plastic jars!).  If using glass jars: pack the jam while it’s still hot and put the lid on so the jars will seal.  We eat our pepper jam on crackers with Laughing Cow cheese, on bread, and mixed into cooked dishes to add a kick.