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Pineapple Cranberry

Pineapple Cranberry Habanero Hot Sauce

Ingredients

  • 2-40 habaneros (depending on your heat preference)
    • you can also mix in jalapenos, serranos, or any other hot pepper of choice
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 1/2 yellow onion
  • 8 slices of canned pineapple
  • 1/2 cup dried cranberries
  • juice of 2 limes
  • zest of 1 lime (or both if you want it more limey)
  • 1 inch ginger, grated or chopped REALLY small
  • 1.5 cups vinegar (apple or white wine. Distilled white vinegar is nasty)
  • 0.5 cup water
  • 1 tsp salt, + more salt to taste
  • 1/2 cup apple juice (to thin sauce as needed)

Steps

  • De-seed peppers (optional...I can't stand seeds).

  • Grill pineapple enough that you get nice char marks on each side. The pineapple sweetness really concentrates when grilled.

  • Grill peppers and get a good char. Note, be careful here because the smoke/steam coming off the peppers will burn your eyes (it's a right of passage for making hot sauce).

  • Add pineapple, peppers, garlic, onion, ginger, and cranberries to food processor.

  • Chop them up in the food processor until small bits.

  • Another right of passage in the hot sauce world...take a careful sniff and small taste of this mix to get a sense of the overall flavor profile going on here. Adjust if needed.

  • Put pepper mush into pot and add vinegar, salt, lime juice and zest.

  • Bring to simmer and cook for 10 minutes.

  • Turn heat off and let cool a bit.

  • Hit the sauce with an immersion blender and process until smooth. A regular blender also works, but make sure the sauce is cooled and not too hot.

This is the most important step and it sucks. The sauce is at its hottest right now, capsaicin wise. It'll only get more mild with time. But you need to taste the sauce to see if you like it, or if it needs any adjustment. Hopefully it has a good balance of acidity, sweet fruit, char bits, salt. Make any salt or flavor adjustments needed.

If sauce it too thick add some apple juice or water to thin, 1/4 cup at a time. Blend sauce after each flavor or liquid adjustment. If you added anything other than water, Bring sauce to simmer again and cool for another 5 minutes. Taste and repeat as necessary.

Bottling Sauce

I use mason jars and don't mess with hot sauce (woozy) bottles. This sauce is pretty acidic so should last in clean jars for a couple years in your fridge. If you want to store it on the shelf, process the jars in a canning pot per your altitude.