One of the projects that inspired me to start this blog is my desire to make my own hot sauce. It started with some research into homemade versions of Tabasco Sauce, and has developed into a pretty elaborate plan to develop the perfect hot sauce, that should be a lot of fun.
I embarked on the first leg of the journey towards my hot sauce dream last night. It seemed like the first step in any recipe was selecting the hot peppers. In a quest for the perfect sauce you can’t just pick any old hot pepper, right? So I went to the store and got a selection of the four different types of hot peppers they had: Jalepeno, Cayenne, de Arbol, and Habanero. Armed with a glass of milk and a tasty ginger and molasses cookie, I sat down to taste test them raw. Here are the results:
Cayenne: Tastes at first like a sweet red pepper, has a little bit of late kick to it.
Jalepeno: Very fresh bell pepper taste, but spicy very quickly, with a tangy spice to it.
De Arbol: Very mild initial taste, slow developing spiciness, much hotter than Cayenne or Jalepeno.
Habanero: Hot. Oh @#%&$@$#! Hot!
Seriously, it’s really hard to describe the flavor of a Habanero, due to the intense pain, and the fact that you are busy chugging milk, waving your arms about, and shouting profanities. Fortunately, my lovely girlfriend was on hand to snap some pictures, which I think get the idea across quite clearly.
The final verdict is that I liked the flavor of the de Arbol and Jalepeno best, and will be very careful with the Habanero in the future.
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