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Comment by ASalazarMX | Hacker News Reader

Habanero chili is extremely hot but has a sweet, fruity flavor. I haven't tasted piri piri chili, but I'm sure this sauce is delicious. I'm kinda upset the chilis are deseeded, though.

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I make craft hot sauces, and I stand by deseeding and depithing. If I want heat, I'll use a hotter pepper. Thai birds in particular carry most of the heat in the flesh, for example. The flavor difference from using flesh only is huge.

I make hot sauce using fatalii[0] chillies (similar heat to habaneros but IMO superior flavor). I de-seed them, pressure steam them in an Instant Pot electric pressure cooker, then blend them with cider vinegar, lime juice, salt, and a little xantham gum to stop it separating in storage. I pour it into glass jars, pasteurize it by steaming it with the lids resting on the jars but not sealed (ambient pressure, not increased pressure, because when I tried pressure steaming the sauce bubbled out from the jars and made a mess), close the lids while still hot, and keep refrigerated.

This makes a delicious sauce that, even without the seeds, is still much too hot for those who aren't chilli aficionados.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatalii

Might have thought that you were me if not for the cider vinegar. I find that it overpowers the flavor of the peppers. I mostly use white vinegar and citric acid, with the occasional lime juice.

I'll try white vinegar for the next batch, thanks.

Can you explain this ? Do seeds produce a bad flavour ?

It’s commonly thought that the seeds are the spiciest part of a chili, which is the impression Matticus_Rex seems to be under. In fact, the heat comes from the white pith (which they mentioned) and ridges around the seeds.

The seeds are definitely coated in a sticky juice that is spicy (I've seperated them out and eaten them individually. It's the bitterness that really sucks, though.

There's some heat, but the reason I deseed is mostly flavor. Seeds make up a non-negligible portion of the mass, and have no pepper flavor and a slight bitterness. You get better flavor without them.

Seeds make up a non-negligible portion of the mass, and have no pepper flavor and a slight bitterness. You get better flavor without them.

do you have any suggestions for hot sauces with serranos and hananeros that have been fermenting for ~one year? Read that some sauces ferment peppers for multiple years and decided to ferment for a while but they are pretty funky now...

If they don't have any off flavors but are too funky, I would cook some additional peppers to blend in and then add acid (probably white vinegar) to bring the ph down, salt to taste, and (depending on your texture preferences) blend and strain.

I generally eat very spicy food, and I can't even detect spiciness in food that will make other people cough. I ate half a chilli (the body/skin) and found it moderately hot, but the next time I ate the other half (the part containing the seeds) and had to run to the fridge for some milk urgently. Be warned.

(It was great though)

i would only ever remove seeds and pith. They don't really contribute good flavor- just bitterness and extreme heat.

Habanero is delicious! My favorite hot sauce is “Inner Beauty” which is basically an emulsion of habaneros, yellow mustard, brown sugar, mango, orange juice, with some cumin and curry. It’s so good, especially on beef and chicken, but you have to like serious heat.

Habanero and mustard makes a great base flavor for hot sauces. My introduction was via Aji Chombo hot sauce from Panama. The addition of sweet and fruitiness and the cumin and curry sounds amazing.

It's great to get so many hot sauce making ideas. I've still got a batch of Trindad moruga scorpion chillies in the freezer after growing them last summer, but they're so hot that I haven't really figured out what sauce to make from them.

Sounds like something I will like to make at home. What is curry though?

Oh sorry, curry powder 1. It’s a mixed spice like “chilli powder” and it just works for this. Even better, here’s the recipe for this hot sauce!

Use gloves. Do not touch your face. Work fast.

http://www.foodthinkers.com/inner-beauty-hot-sauce/

Try it on meatloaf, a burger, or roasted some chicken marinated in it. Tooooo good!

1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry_powder

I assume in this case he is referring to curry powder which is a variable blend of spices commonly used in Indian curries.

It can however also mean curry leaves which come from a tree and are usually added to a recipe whole.

Edit: nm, it looks like he meant curry powder

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