Leff's Hot Sauce

Leff's Green Hot

 Of course I was going to get around to making my own hot sauce. You know this. This is me we're talking about.

There are tons of recipes out there like this and this. I didn't worry about them too much, but I did use them as rough guides. I made two kinds and I kinda made them up as I went.

Leff's Red Hot

Leff's Green Hot is simpler, so we'll start there. Here's what you do. Chunk about 12 jalapeños in to a pot with a half an onion and some oil. After they soften bung in some water and keep 'em boiling for about 20 minutes. A pinch of salt goes in somewhere.

jalapeños and onions

Let 'em cool down for a bit. Put the fine blade in the food mill and go to town on your mixture. Pour a cup of plain white vinegar through the mill. Now you've got hot sauce, but it's not any good yet.

Greene Green Sauce

Put sauce in a jar and that in the fridge. Wait two weeks.

While you wait, bake a potato (set the oven to just above room temperature or it will be done early) and sour some cream (I do this just by looking at regular cream. Cream would normally like this, but I give it the evil eye).

Put them all together.

Hot Potato

You'll find that the vinegar has mellowed and so has the spiciness. The sauce has become well behaved. Some might say civilized.

Now for the Leff's Red Hot. Same deal but replace 3 of the jalapeños with rehydrated New Mexico chilies. Use the rehydration water to boil everything in. Use red wine vinegar instead of plain white. Same deal with the waiting. Decant into a scrupulously clean frank's red hot bottle, but still keep it in the fridge.

For some reason all of my red sauce photos kinda sucked, so you might get the impression that I like the green better. The truth is, I do. The red wine vinegar is too dominant in the final sauce. It's a good note to have in there, but it can be too strong. Next time I'll go halvies on it.