(Extremely) Hot Sauce

Hot sauce is one of those things that everyone should keep in their pantry or refrigerator. It goes great with so many things and given my love for Mexican food, homemade hot sauce is the perfect thing to make and keep around all the time. Summer has yielded many a pepper at the farmers markets so I decided to take advantage and picked up some fresh jalapenos and serranos to finally make my own hot sauce. You can easily adjust the amounts of peppers or types in the following, but be aware that changing the types will affect flavor (which isn't a bad thing).

1.5-2 lbs of peppers (I used 1 pound jalapenos and 1/2 pound serranos)
2 1/4 - 2 3/4 cups white vinegar (I found like it more on the vinegary side after making it again...experiment to your taste)
4 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons salt
2-3 garlic cloves

Makes 2 pints

Roast all the peppers either under the broil, over a BBQ, or on top of the stove. Let them cool until you are able to handle them and cut off the stem. Add all of the ingredients to a blender or food processor. Puree until it reaches a desired consistency (or do what I did and just walk away for a few minutes). Pour into a jar and keep refrigerated. It will probably last a few months if not a year, but will lose heat over time.

This makes very hot sauce so feel free to play with the amounts of serranos or replace a few with poblanos.

Quick Salt Cucumber Pickles

I visited New York City a few weeks ago and landed around 9 PM arriving at Jessica's at about 9:30 PM. We thought it would be no problem finding a restaurant open that late: it's NYC of course! However, by the time we got downtown and wandered around trying to find a place it was 12 AM and none of our choices were open (fail Lombardi's). Wait! Momofuku Noodle Bar is open to 2 AM! Score! Having only their late night menu available was no problem and we settled into a meal that included chicken wings, kimchi-pork tamale, and ginger scallion noodles. I had heard that the noodles were one of the best recipes in Momofuku's cookbook so I was excited to try them. I wasn't let down. They were delicious and came topped with vinegar-pickled mushrooms, which were FANTASTIC (likely from left over ramen broth makings), toasted nori, bamboo shoots, and quick salt cucumber pickles. Ever since trying it I have wanted to make it at home and accompany it with quick salt pickles. Tonight was the night and it was great. Here are Momofuku's quick cucumber salt pickles:

2 large cucumbers (I used one huge hot house because it was the only one I could find)

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Simply thinly slice the cucumber and toss with sugar salt letting it sit for 5-10 minutes. The cookbook says they last up to 4 hours in the fridge, but I'm going to see if they last until tomorrow night. Serve! You could also do this with radishes or daikon.

Orecchiette and broccolini with garlic and preserved lemon

Tonight was essentially left overs night, which usually is boring...until I remembered that my preserved meyer lemons were ready! Jess and I went to Jone's on Third the other day since we were in the area and picked up some really nice dried orecchiette, which we made with a garlic, maresh pepper, and sardine sauce. Some of the cooked orecchiette was left over so I decided to fry some garlic, maresh pepper, and preserved lemon until nice and tasty and then just served that over the pasta. We also picked up some broccolini, which I just pan seared then steamed with garlic and then finished on the plate with some of the preserved meyer lemon. Worked out really well, I think!

Update

Well, I started pickling a bunch of stuff all around the same time so stuff is piling up. My kosher dills are ready and tested. Apparently I've never had a kosher dill before and was quite surprised at how they taste...a lot different from vinegared pickles....and ferment-y. The beets and bread & butters should be ready within the next few days. Preserved lemons are also ready, but I need to find recipes to use those in and that's not happening right now with finals around the corner. Also, my beer is now ready to drink! Perfect for finals ending soon! Looking to start my next brew, I picked up "Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew". It's supposedly full of all homebrew award winning recipes. I think I might take a class from the local homebrew shop and, maybe, join the local homebrew club so I can actually talk to someone about this. I'm a visual learner and there is only so much I can read.

I'll let you know how everything else turns out!

Kosher Dill Pickles

Been awhile since I posted, but that might have something to do with the slow build up of pickles within my fridge. I chose to do these because they were quick and required no vinegar and only a brine of water and salt. There are two ways of doing these pickles: in spears and whole. I did both just to experiment, but the spears should develop their flavor and be ready quicker. All you do is leave them out for a couple of days allows for a bit for fermentation to occur.

-Brine: a ratio of 4 quarts of water to 6 tablespoons Kosher salt

-Kirby or pickling cucumbers

-Fresh dill

-Whole garlic cloves crushed, still in their skin

-Pickling spice

Basically you just heat 1 quart of water with the salt to dissolve it and then combine it with the rest of the 3 quarts. Pass your jars through a dishwasher or some boiling water before packing them. I did cut up spears in one jar and whole in the other (though I did score the bottoms of the cucumbers). I think these jars were around 1 quart and I added about 2 branch thingies of dill (descriptive, right?) to each along with 2 cloves of garlic and 2 teaspoons of pickling spice. Pour the brine over and loosely seal if using lids or cover with cheese cloth (I used a paper towel) and let sit out for 2 days for spears and 3-4 for whole cucumbers. Refrigerate when they are ready!

Pickled Beets

After failing my first attempt at pickling and canning beets I decided to tackle them, again, and headed out to the farmer's market. After picking up the beets I decided on a simple recipe to begin with (a pickled beet recipe with red wine next!) involving the following:

-Beets

-Cinnamon sticks

-Allspice berries

-Whole cloves

-Regular and brown sugar

-Salt

-Cider vinegar

-Water

I begun by cooking the beets for various amounts of time since I had some oddly shaped ones in this batch. Afterwards, they were cooled in water, peeled, and sliced into 1/4" slices. After sterilizing the 3 one pint mason jars in a boiling water bath I brought the spices, water, sugar, salt, and vinegar to a boil and simmered for ten minutes. Oh man, can simmering vinegar burn your eyes. Not good for a small space...like my kitchen...or entire apartment for that matter. Meanwhile (with burning eyes), I packed the beets into the jars and poured the spiced vinegar mixture over the beets through a strainer.

Now, this time I was very careful to tighten the two-piece caps more this time so I wouldn't get any leakage during the 30 minute boiling water bath process. I'm still paranoid it leaked because some red water drip off two of the cans, but this was most likely residual since the entire bath was not beet red like last time. They now have to age for 3 weeks. Bah, I want to try them now!

Pink Pickled Cauliflower and Cabbage

Wanting a pickle that was ready faster than 3-4 weeks I decided upon this recipe for Pink Pickled Cauliflower and Cabbage. It gets the name "pink" from the red cabbage that is included in the recipe, which turns the pickling liquid a pleasant, light pink hue. The advantage of this recipe is that it requires only 10 days to mature and no canning is involved! I found some nice (and cheap) cauliflower at the Pasadena Farmers' Market this Saturday (though no Kirby cucumbers!!!) so I decided upon this recipe adapted from "The Joy of Pickling".

Recipe:

-1/2 cauliflower head divided into small pieces

-1/4 small red cabbage head sliced into long pieces (or whatever shape you choose)

-2 dried chile de arbol sliced in half

-1 teaspoon fennel seeds (or caraway...I used fennel)

-1 bay leaf

Pickling liquid:

-2 1/4 cups white wine vinegar

-2 1/4 cups water

-2 tablespoons pickling salt (I used 3 tablespoons kosher salt)

This liquid makes enough for 2 quarts, while the recipe only is for 2 pints so beware you'll have left over pickling liquid (I used a 2 pint jar for this particular recipe)!

Sterilize a 2 pint jar either by immersing it in a boiling water bath (lifted off the bottom by a canning or steaming rack) for 10 minutes or you can put it in an over for 10 minutes at 200 degrees. After the jar (or jars) have been sterilized, pack the vegetables and spices equally into the jar.

Combine the pickling liquid ingredients and stir until all salt is dissolved (may require heating if using kosher salt...I just put my measuring jar into the microwave for 15 seconds). Pour over the vegetables in the jar and cap. Let stand for 10 days at room temperature in a cool, dark place. Pickles will be ready after the 10 days so make sure to refrigerate even if you don't eat them right away. They should keep 4-6 weeks.

I don't quite have the knack of scaling down the pickling liquid yet from recipes, which is why I always end up with left overs so if you follow this recipe you will, too. But, you can always use the leftovers to make more of this recipe since the only thing that really matters is the proportions of vinegar, water, and salt. Otherwise, you should feel free to play around with spices and vegetables. You may also make refrigerator pickles by just combining the liquid with vegetables and experimenting with varied amounts of time (such as 1 day, 3 days, and 1 week).