“Hi, I’m Tony Singh. Everyone thinks it’s hard to make a hot sauce but it’s dead simple. It’s a fermented hot sauce so you need chilies, garlic, salt (afterwards) vinegar and sugar.”
Pick the chillies
“What you need to start is chilies, garlic and salt – that’s it! Once you have picked the chilies – red chilies, habanero, green finger chilies, Scottish bonnets, mix whatever you want because we want a nice hot sauce fresh explosion of flavour, but we don’t want to mask what we are putting on. Sweet chili sauce is good but it’s sweet and adding the sweetness changes the balance.”
Don’t use table salt
“When you are making hot sauce at home, don’t use table salt because it’s got chemicals and don’t use puree garlic because it’s got preservatives in it. It just makes the fermentation much longer or not at all. When you are coming to mix the ingredients, wear gloves, or wash your hands very well. Or, if you don’t want to wear gloves, rub your hands with olive oil.”
Ferment
“Wash the chili, have the garlic peeled, bit of ginger, then mince them in a food processor. Then cover them with muslin or a tea towel so the air can get it because you want the bacteria on the outside to start fermenting so the good bacteria will change the sugars and alcohol and make carbon dioxide which is part of that complex flavour, the sharpness. It’s good stuff, lactic fermentation, it’s good bacteria in your stomach, good for digestion and everything like that. So, cover it with muslin or a tea towel and leave it for between one to seven days, depending how warm it is.”
Add sea salt depending on taste
“Then you will see it fizzing, you will smell that sweep, sharp fermented smell. Pass it through a sieve and once it’s minced add 5-7% salt, depending on your personal taste (I put 7% in) and you want sea salt which has no anti caking, so it won’t inhibit the bacteria.”
Add vinegar to your taste
“Then after you have mixed it and it’s fermented, pass it through a sieve and add vinegar, whatever you fancy, sherry, white wine, then if you want to put any sugar in it you can. If you want to leave it plain without any vinegar, you can. It depends on what flavour profile you want. I want that bit of sharpness. Lemon juice, too, if you wanted. It just goes back to having a play with it. The one I have here is a couple of months old. We’ve put a bit of cumin in there. It’s sweet, it’s fruity, it’s not burning your face.”