Habanero Hot Sauce

I received a little over a pint of free baby heritage tomatoes this Sunday, and while I was pureeing them it occurred to me I could use that as part of a base for a habanero hot sauce, inspired somewhat by the Secret Aardvark habanero sauce I really like. Like an exceptionally vicious bit of slander it soon came to take on a life of its own, becoming something very different. And pretty damn hot, too.

Prep time: about 10 mins.
Cooking time: 1½ hours
Est. servings: about 30

Today's Specimen

Ingredients

• 1 cup heritage tomato puree
• 1 cup yellow onion, diced
• ½ cup carrot, diced
• ¼ cup garlic, cloves halved
• 4 med. habanero peppers (about 4 tsp.)
• ½ tsp. fresh ginger, peeled
• 1 tsp. basil
• ½ tsp. oregano
• ½ tsp. paprika
• ¹/₁₆ tsp. coriander (¼ of ¼ tsp.)
• ¹/₃₂ tsp. nutmeg (1 dash)
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. corn starch
• ½ cup white vinegar
• 1 cup water

Directions

1. Puree the onion, carrot, garlic, habanero, and ginger in a food processor in two batches, the first with the ½ cup white vinegar and the second with ½ cup of the water. In a small sauce pot combine with the tomato puree, the spices, and the rest of the water (½ cup) with the corn starch mixed in it, and heat at medium heat until the mixture starts to boil, then drop the temperature down to low and cover and let simmer for 1½ hours, You just want it to barely simmer, so check the temperature every 20 mins. or so and adjust as appropriate, also stirring briefly.
2. Let the sauce stand to cool and once it's cold enough to put in the refrigerator store in there overnight before using to ensure the flavors have some time to leech out.

Next Time in the Lab

I really like how this turned out, especially for my first home-made hot sauce. It is a bit spicy, though, so I can probably cut down some of the heat, and maybe increase the paprika to make it a tad less sweet.

• Substitute 2 of the hananeros with 1 red jalapeño, making a total of 2 tsp. habanero and 2 tsp. red jalapeño.
• Increase the paprika to 1 tsp.
• Add ½ tsp. dried cilanro.
• Increase the coriander to ⅛ tsp. and the nutmeg to ¹/₁₆ tsp (¼ of ¼ tsp.).