American tabasco sauce will appeal to lovers of spicy dishes, because they make it from hot pepper varieties. The sauce is used very sparingly, since it is unlikely that anyone will be able to eat it in large quantities. It is added to meat, fish, vegetable dishes in their preparation, served to them, used to prepare some cocktails (for example, “Bloody Mary”). Tabasco sauce is also stored for a long time, so it can be prepared for future use.
The traditional technology of making Tabasco sauce is complex and durable. It all begins with the cultivation of special varieties of pepper, which is later crushed, mixed with salt and vinegar. This mass is drawn in oak barrels for three years, then filtered, diluted with additional vinegar, bottled, and it goes on sale.
The producers of the Tabasco sauce keep the exact recipe secret, but the inventive housewives have learned to do the same at home. The sauce, cooked according to one of the recipes, is so tastefully similar to the original one, that this recipe is considered to be classic. Among its variations, you can find those that will appeal to you.
Cooking Features
As already mentioned, the main difficulty in making traditional Tabasco is its long aging in oak barrels. At home, use a simplified recipe, which is nevertheless considered a classic. In accordance with the sauce is kept in glass jars for a week. At the same time, the cans are covered with plastic caps, in which narrow openings are made with a knife to release the gases generated during the fermentation of the product. These caps can be replaced with a water seal intended for making homemade wine, or with a rubber glove with a needle punctured with a finger.
- However, the technology of making Tabasco sauce at home has a number of other features that you also need to know.
- According to traditional technology, pepper for Tabasco sauce is not cleared of seeds. Meanwhile, they are the most acute component. If you do not want the sauce to become excessively hot, the pepper must be removed from the seeds before grinding. If you are cooking pepper with seeds, it will not hurt to be filtered before being placed in jars. By the way, traditional technology does not exclude this manipulation.
- When handling peppers, work with gloves, otherwise you may get burned skin.
- In an adapted recipe for Tabasco sauce, tomatoes can be included. In this case, they must first be removed from the skin. Make it easy if you know how. Experienced housewives make a cross-shaped incision on each vegetable, then dip the tomatoes in boiling water and blanch for literally one or two minutes. Then the tomatoes are shifted to cold water for faster cooling. After that, it takes only a few seconds to remove the skin: just pull it down over the corners in the notch area. Ideally, the tomatoes should be removed and the seeds, but when rubbing the tomato pulp through a sieve, they still do not fall into the sauce, so it’s worth spending time only if you plan to split the tomatoes with a blender.
Although pepper is a preservative, Tabasco sauce, which has not been cooked sufficiently, can only be stored in the refrigerator. If the recipe provides for the possibility of storing the sauce prepared for it at room temperature, the jars and lids for it must be sterilized by any method convenient to you.
Classic Tabasco Recipe
Composition:
- hot peppers (preferably cayenne or chili) - 1 kg;
- rock salt - 20 g;
- boiled water - 0, 25 l;
- table vinegar (9 percent) - 0.5 l.
Method of preparation:
- Wash the pepper, remove the stem. Remove seeds from each pepper if you do not want to get an overly pungent taste.
- Put the pepper in the bowl of the blender, add salt and grind everything until a pureed mass is obtained.
- Dilute vinegar with boiled water, add pepper and mix with a blender or mixer.
- Pour into clean cans, filling each approximately two-thirds, no more. Banks close the plastic caps, cutting a narrow hole in each knife. Leave at room temperature for a week.
- After this time, pour the sauce into clean and dry glass jars or bottles. Before this it is better to sterilize containers or at least pour boiling water over them and let them dry.
- Close containers with sauce tightly and refrigerate.
Tabasco sauce prepared according to the classic recipe can only be stored in the refrigerator, and then no more than three months.
Tabasco spicy sauce for the winter
Composition:
- Tabasco or chilli pepper - 0.5 kg;
- garlic - 2 cloves;
- table vinegar (9 percent) - 0, 25 l;
- salt - 5 g;
- sugar - 5 g.
Method of preparation:
- Pepper wash. Without removing the seeds, but only cutting the stalks, fold them into a saucepan or stew pan.
- Sprinkle with salt and sugar.
- Pour all 150 ml of vinegar and put on a slow fire.
- Stew the pepper and vinegar under the lid until it is soft.
- Rub pepper through a sieve, squeeze garlic into it.
- Dissolve the resulting mass of vinegar to obtain a thick cream consistency.
- Sterilize glass jars of small capacity. Pour the sauce over them.
- Place the jars in the pot of water that reaches the neck of the jars. Sterilize the sauce 10 minutes after boiling water.
- Hermetically close the lids, boiling them beforehand.
- Turn and wrap the jars. When they cool down, put them in the closet.
Once opened, the jars should be stored in the refrigerator. If you do not have cans of the right size with sealed lids, you can use baby food jars. But in this case it is safer to keep the sauce in the refrigerator. Sterilizing it in banks in this case is not necessary.
Adapted Tabasco Sauce Recipe
Composition:
- hot peppers - 0, 25 kg;
- tomatoes - 0.5 kg;
- onions - 100 g;
- garlic - 2 cloves;
- olive oil - 40 ml;
- wine vinegar (3 percent) - 40 ml;
- salt - 10 g;
- sugar - 20 g.
Method of preparation:
- Pepper seeds are cleaned, cut as small as possible and pour boiling water on it. Leave for half an hour. Then drain the water, squeeze the pepper.
- Peel tomatoes, cut into small cubes.
- Peel and finely chop the onion.
- Pass garlic through a press.
- Mix tomatoes, onions and peppers. Pour in oil, mix. Put on a slow fire. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent the vegetables from burning.
- Cool, wipe through a sieve. Add vinegar, garlic, salt, sugar.
- Bring to a boil again and boil for 5 minutes.
- Pour into clean cans and seal them.
If the jars are sterilized and sealed, the Tabasco sauce prepared according to this recipe can be stored at room temperature for six months. Otherwise, it will not spoil only in the refrigerator. Shelf life will be the same.
Tabasco sauce is quite realistic to prepare at home, and even a novice cook can do it. Spicy food lovers will appreciate the sauce. Children and people with diseases of the gastrointestinal tract offer it not worth it.
