Tabasco-Type
Hot Sauce
This came about for many reasons; my belief of Tabasco as mother's milk, my love of the fruity character of habanero peppers, and I had just read a book which described the process for making Tabasco sauce.
Armed with the knowledge and the burning desire (sorry), I experimented... and found myself to be the proud parent of about 3 cups of elixir with the most radiant orange color. This recipe is pretty much fool-proof as long as you keep your eye on the progress of the fermentation of the peppers.
I highly recommend using habaneros, but I suspect any other ripe hot pepper would work (and my guess is that it would work with green jalapenos as well).
1/2 # orange habaneros (or your choice)
1/3 c kosher salt
2-3 c white vinegar
(DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!: Generally I'm not shy about handling peppers... but these pack a wallop so use rubber kitchen gloves for seeding and chopping them).
Stem and seed peppers, and chop them until they are about 1/4 inch pieces. Combine with enough salt so each piece is mostly coated with flakes of salt. Put a small layer of salt in the bottom of a glass or stoneware jar. Layer the pepper mixture with thin layers of salt and tamp down. Pour enough salt on top to form a medium blanket, cover loosely and let sit in a warmish place for about 2 weeks. Watch closely because you don't want the peppers to age too long and loose their bright color.
At the end of the fermentation, place the "mash" in a blender, add about 1-1/2 cups of vinegar and blend well. At this point start looking for consistency and tasting for flavor. The amount of vinegar you add all depends on personal taste, or how hot the peppers are; you may want a thicker more peppery version that is so hot one drop is all you need, but that seems to defeat the purpose.
Share with friends and neighbors.