How much do you love that book quote in the title? It could not be more true for me. Have you ever heard of the term “hangry?” It’s when you’re so hungry that you get angry/frustrated. It’s a real thing! It’s in Urban Dictionary and everything! And yes, I did just legitimize a term by arguing that it’s in Urban Dictionary.
I can turn from mild mannered lawyer (Is a mild mannered lawyer a thing? I doubt it, it’s not in the UD) to hangry wildebeest in mere seconds and it. Is. Not. Pretty. My poor husband. I say that a lot. I think that’s just how I’m going to refer to him from now on, it is quite accurate. But that’s why when I saw this quote I knew I had to post about it. Also, I’ll take any excuse to write about food. I thought I’d share about my #1 pantry staple because I love looking into other people’s kitchens. Do you remember that tv show MTV Cribs? Is that still on air? I loved looking at rich people’s houses. I just Googled it, the show ended in 2011. Moving on.
I’ve mentioned before that I have family in the West Indies. In fact, most of my father’s side of the family lives there. Fun fact, I’m the first generation American on his side. One of the most important condiments on all of the islands is pepper sauce and it is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most utilized condiment in my house. In fact, almost the only condiment on my refrigerator door is pepper sauce. Like, at least 30 bottles of pepper sauce. My poor husband has demanded that I start using some up before I buy more. As a work around, I can still accept gifts of pepper sauce from friends and random strangers who read this blog post. Hint, hint. However, despite all that pepper sauce, I still use basically the same three sauces every day: (1) Tabasco (which I didn’t used to eat but my poor husband is from Louisiana which is where Tabasco is made and he got me hooked); (2) Uncle Bruthu’s ALLSAUCE No. 9 (which I used to buy by the gallon until they stopped selling that size); and (3) my homemade pepper sauce.
Making pepper sauce in Trinidad (where my father was raised) is, I think, a lot like making matzo ball soup. Every household has their own recipe. I’m happy to share my recipe with you, and I encourage you to add your own ingredients. A friend recently made this recipe and added pineapple. I would be lying if I said I didn’t dunk chicken wings into his pepper sauce as part of a wild Saturday night. However, I have a few precautions before getting started:
- Depending on the heat level of your peppers, choking while cooking the sauce is a real possibility. So keep the vent on your stove going full blast from the very beginning and open all the windows you can.
- Wear gloves. The capsaicin, which is the compound that makes the peppers hot, is sticky stuff and no matter how many times you wash your hands it’ll be on you for hours and it will mess up your eyes if you rub them. Trust me on that one.
- Don’t taste your sauce. I know many of us like to do a little QC (quality control) while we’re cooking and there have been plenty of times that I’ve done my own QC without thinking about what I was QCing. That was a bad life choice. Don’t do it.
- If you do accidentally QC, drink milk, not water. Capsaicin is an oil, so in order to stop the burn you need to drink something that will bind with oil and wash it away.
[yumprint-recipe id=’1′]This recipe makes a lot of pepper sauce so I transfer some of the sauce into a glass jar that lives in my fridge and the rest I transfer into multiple glass mason jars and I preserve it to save for later use. It’s actually not necessary to preserve it because the peppers create such a hostile environment that really no bacteria can live in it. But I often give the sauce as gifts so I think it’s a nice presentation. The opened jar will stay fresh in your fridge for years. I’m pretty sure my parents have a jar from the 80’s in their refrigerator.
As far as using the sauce, I literally put it on everything. In fact, I often bring it with me when I’m eating at friend’s houses because I couldn’t possibly have a meal without it. Pepper sauce also makes a phenomenal marinade. I like to buy whole (cleaned) white fish and dump it in a bag with pepper sauce, black pepper essential oil, lemon/lime/lemongrass essential oil, salt, and olive oil and let that sit for an hour or two before either baking it or grilling it. I find essential oils impart more flavor than the whole ingredients, which is why I choose to use the essential oils for most of my marinades.
Have you ever made your own pepper sauce? If not, give this pepper sauce recipe a shot and let me know what you think!
Want to learn more about how you can use essential oils in your daily routine? Contact Blair now!