Some Like It Hot Sauce

for the remix contest i chose to remix an instructable on how to make hot sauce by lemonie, an author that i can totally recommend, for reasons like the cheese buttons , an instructable on how to eat catfood and many, many more awesome and funny projects.

i used his instructable as a basis for my hot sauce, but added some spices and lime, since that fits so well with the fruity taste of the habanero chillies.

caution: this sauce is very hot, a few drops will be enough for most persons!

for 200 ml of hot sauce you will need:

6 habanero chillies
4 limes
3 big cloves of garlic
100-150 ml of vinegar
salt & brown sugar
some coriander, allspice and cloves and a pinch of cinnamon

and you need:

a blender, a pan, a sieve, a measuring cup, something to zest the limes and a bottle that holds 200 ml, it's best to use an old, cleaned condiment bottle that has a little that lets only some drops at a time come out of the bottle since the sauce is going to be very hot. i used an old fish-sauce bottle.

since habenero chillies are incredibly hot i recommend that you use some kind of gloves. i didn't have any at home so i stuck my hand in a freezer bag - it worked like a charm.
when i had my first encounter with habaneros back in the day while backpacking through mexico i didn't know just how hot those chillis where that i just bought, the end result was an inedible meal because of too hot and my fingers burnt for what felt like a week!

cut the chillies in half and remove the seeds - the sauce will still be hot enough afterwards, belive me.

peel the garlic.

wash the limes and zest two of them. then squeeze all of them and put the juice into the measuring cup. add vinegar so that it makes 200 ml in total.

put the vinegar and lime mixture, the garlic, the lime zest and the chillies into the blender and blend until smooth.

transfer to the pan, add the spices and sugar and salt. i uses 3 teaspoons each, but you could also use more or less.

put the pan on medium heat and cook the sauce for about 10 minutes.

strain your sauce through a fine mesh sieve into the measuring cup. if the obtained sauce is less then 200 ml, add some more vinegar. at this point it is good to tase the sauce and add a bit more sugar or salt if necessary.

reheat the sauce and then put it in the bottle, using a funnel or a measuring cup.

when you clean the used equipment, be carefull, because even small amounts of chilli will burn a lot, especially if you get it on your hands an then touch your eyes or so.

if you feel like it make a nice label for your sauce and enjoy (with moderation).

the sauce will be very hot, so if you like a milder sauce, you could use a different kind of chilli, since habaneros are really towards the upper end of the scoville scale. or you could use less chilli and add half a regular bell pepper instead.

about storing the sauce: you could put it in teh fridge, but i think that won't be necessary since it is so hot that it will defeat all possible bacteria. my experience with chilli stuff in general is that even if you use raw ingredients it will stay good outside the fridge for a long while whitout going bad.

i hope you liked my instructable, and since it feels like i've got pro memberships to last a lifetime, as a little special, i'm giving away a free three months pro membership to the first three people to comment on this instructable!