Audio By Carbonatix
Essential Hot Sauce
1 jar or bottle (re-use store-bought sauce bottles)
1 jarful water
1/2 jarful distilled white vinegar
A bunch of fresh hot peppers (any variety, as long as they’re hot)
Boil water and pour into jar. Let it sit there while you boil vinegar, and mince, chop, and grind those peppers into mush. Empty the jar, which is now sterile, and cram in the pepper mush. Fill the jar with boiling vinegar. Put the cap on, and put it somewhere out of the way for a while. Refrigerate after opening. This stuff keeps forever. Can also be placed in a spray bottle, for self-defense — or aphid defense — purposes.
(Note: When using habaneros, most sissies dilute this sauce with finely diced carrots. Salt may also be added, but why?)
Killer Habanero Seafood Soup
It gets all Halloween orange and chimney hot. Yet you can taste every subtle contour; no recipe so well spotlights the hab.
Water (a few quarts)
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 large red potato, diced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
12 fresh whole clams (any type, I use cherrystone)
3/4 lb. snapper, grouper, or other white fish, filleted (avoid oily species)
1 lb. small fresh shrimp (bigger shrimp can be cut into pieces), peeled and deveined
Garlic powder
Old Bay seasoning
Black pepper (not really a pepper at all but piper nigrum, the rotted seed of a tree)
Fresh parsley, chopped
Whatever else you have in your herb garden (a bit of basil, oregano, savory, etc.)
Salt
5 (or 4 if you’re short one) fresh whole habanero peppers
8 oz. tomato paste (or several fresh tomatoes boiled, peeled, and blended to mushiness)
Boil water in a big old pot. Rinse the clams, then place them in the water until they open. As they open, remove them with tongs and allow to cool. Strain the broth, using cheesecloth, into a pitcher or bowl.
Heat to medium the same big old pot; add the oil to it. Toss in the potato, wait a minute, add the carrot, wait a minute, same with the celery and onion. After about ten minutes, lay the fish fillet in the pot atop the vegetables, cover, and allow to cook a couple of minutes. Meanwhile, remove the clams from their shells, which should be saved, smashed with hammers, and used as a collar for young plants. Placing the shards of the clamshells jagged-side up around a rootling will razor-wire caterpillars, cutworms, and any other fool bug that crosses them.
Now add the clam broth, tomato paste, or pureed tomatoes, all the seasonings, and the habaneros. (Poke a slice in the sides of the habs with a sharp knife, or, to blister your lips, cut the pods in half.) Stir this mess for 30-45 minutes over that medium heat. Then bring to a boil and add raw shrimp and cooked clams. Allow to cook for five minutes.
Serve each bowl with a mix of ingredients and broth, including one habanero as a crown. (Mashing said hab with your soup spoon will increase hotness many thousands of Scoville units.)
Beast & Baker Gorilla Chutney No. 11
Plastics isn’t the future — chutney is the future. Mango, papaya, raisin, any sweet thing can be used, as can any combination of peppers. That’s why this is number eleven. The combinations are limitless.
1 jar or bottle
Boiling water and boiling vinegar (see first recipe)
1 small box raisins (the kind that fits in your lunchbox)
1 habanero
3 Cubanelles
3 jalapenos
1 Hungarian cherry pepper
6 black olives
6 green olives with pimiento
Mince everything but the raisins. Sterilize the jar. Alternate pinches of each item until jar is full and ingredients are well distributed. Fill with boiling vinegar. Store at least a week before tasting.
Stir Brain Fry
Hard to go wrong with a stir-fry that contains a red hot chili pepper. Then again, you can’t make a legitimate stir-fry without capsicum. This is a standard recipe; any ingredient can be deleted or substituted for. But do try to get a habanero. I’ve made this with only two thin slices and still got the tingle-tongue.
2 tbsp. oil
1/4 head bok choy or other cabbage, chopped
1 carrot, sliced
1 stalk celery, sliced
1/2 c. bean sprouts
1 can sliced water chestnuts
1 small onion cut in half, then sliced
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1 tsp. fresh ginger, grated
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 c. boneless, skinless chicken, chopped
1 habanero, sliced into thin rings, seeds removed (other peppers may be substituted, use more than one of any other variety for equal heat)
1/3 c. soy sauce
Soak the habanero rings, garlic, onion, and ginger in the soy sauce. Heat oil in wok or large skillet. Add chicken and cook until A well, until it’s cooked. Pour soy mix over the chicken. Add carrot, cabbage, and celery and cook for a minute or two. Add water chestnuts. Once everything’s sizzling, add the red pepper and bean sprouts. Serve with all the juice in the pan.
(We’re still working on the recipe for hot pepper ice cream.)
