Chilli Sauce
If you like your food hot and spicy, nothing will achieve this more than chilli sauce. The chilli pepper is the fruit of the capsicum plant and is cooked whole, ground into powder or made into a sauce. There are different varieties of peppers, each generating their own degree of heat. You can make your own sauce to your own requirements or buy prepared bottled sauce. Chilli is an essential ingredient of Tex-Mex cooking and is also used in some curry recipes.
Spicy condiments are a matter of personal taste, some people liking a mild accompaniment and others preferring the full blown pepper experience. Sweet Chilli Sauce is very popular and is a blend of chilli pepper, fruit and sugar. The sweetness gives a tasty contrast to the pepper. Another popular preparation is Tabasco Sauce, a hot sauce made from tabasco chillis, vinegar and salt. The flavor is enhanced by its maturation in oak barrels for three years and it's a best seller. The manufacturers are based in Louisiana but the brand name is in homage to the Mexican state. In addition to its use in cooking, it's an essential ingredient of the famous cocktail, Bloody Mary. There are some companies that put warnings on their labels, they are so hot and not for the faint hearted!
Making your own sauce is pretty straightforward and has the advantage of being in control of the strength of the chilli sauce. The general consensus is that green peppers are more suitable for chicken and pork and red peppers are better for beef. Fresh chillis are preferable but it's ok to use frozen. The basic recipe requires chillis, garlic, limejuice, salt, cumin, oil and water. If you want it extra spicy, you can add jalapenos, but take the seeds out. Use a food processor to blend it all together and use straight away or freeze for later.
If you handle raw chilli peppers, it's important to take care. Some of the hotter ones have even caused severe burns. Always wear gloves; you'll pay the price if some chilli rubs into a cut. Never touch your eyes or lips with fingers that have touched the pepper and wash your hands afterwards. If you want your chilli sauce to be fairly mild, there are some tricks to help that. Take out the seeds, the ribs and the fleshy interior. You may have to go through a trial and error period to achieve just the right blend for your own taste.
