Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce

Over the years, we've drawn on a lot of different inspirations for our chilis (Korean food trucks, St. Louis greasy spoons, Nashville) and used a wide variety of ingredients (homemade sausage, ramen, queso, pork rinds).

The one constant, however, has been this homemade ghost pepper hot sauce. With chili--especially chili served in teeny sample-sized cups like at the Takedowns--a major key is striking that difficult balance of intense spice, but still edible (aka, not burning ones' tastebuds off). With a deceptively sweet taste at first, followed by a creeping burn like no other, this ghost pepper hot sauce has been instrumental in achieving that goal with our chilis.

Its origins are not actually chili-related. Jesse spotted a jar of ghost pepper flakes (think crushed red pepper on steroids) at a local sandwich spot and picked it up for his spice-loving girlfriend. These suckers proved to be too much heat for even my palate--so I took to the interwebs to find a hot sauce recipe to help mellow them out (or at least deceive my tongue!). Thus, the hot sauce was born!

INGREDIENTS: 3 tablespoons olive oil 1/4 cup onion minced 2 tablespoons minced fresh garlic 2 tablespoons ghost pepper flakes

1/3 cup fresh tomato finely minced (we used high-quality crushed tomatoes) 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons sugar 2 teaspoons molasses

STEPS:

1. In a small frying pan or pot, heat the oil and stir-fry the onions and garlic. After a minute or so, add the hot pepper flakes.

2. Reduce heat and stir constantly so peppers don't burn. As soon as the flakes darken a little, add rest of ingredients, and cook until most of the moisture evaporates (stirring occasionally).

3. Wait until, as they say, "the oil returns"--about 15-20 minutes. The final product should be so well cooked you can't really detect the tomatoes.

Optional: run through the blender/immersion blender for a smoother hot sauce.

NOTES:

-Though common sense tells you to wear gloves and worry about burning yourself while handling the pepper flakes/cooking the sauce, we've found that cleaning the pot is actually the dangerous part: Jesse and I have both basically tear-gassed ourselves by running hot water into the emptied hot sauce pot. To avoid this, use cold water, soak...and be prepared to run out of the room once that vapor hits!

-The sauce keeps in the fridge for several months. But if you're making a big batch, divide and freeze for maximum usage!

-This is very hot--we use a couple tablespoons in our 2 gallon competition batches. BE CAREFUL!

#chili #accessories