For hot sauce, Belize is one of the meccas. Belizean hot sauce gets its well-known heat from habañero peppers, which are also well known for the pain and/or pleasure they can cause. If you don't like it hot, this sauce is not for you, but if you think you can handle the heat that is so casually applied to foods in Belize and sold in shops all around the world, then this is the recipe for you. But be careful, Belizean hot sauce has been given heat rankings of eight out of 10 on the spicy scale.
Ingredients
If making hot sauce is not a new endeavor, some of these ingredients may be readily available. If not, most can be purchased in any market or grocery store. Make sure to have:
2 chopped garlic cloves
1 small onion
4 seeded and finely diced Scotch bonnet habañero peppers
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 cup chopped carrots
3 tbsp. lime juice, fresh ideally
3 tbsp. white vinegar
2 cups water
1 tsp. salt
The Right Peppers for You
Most of the ingredients necessary for this Belizean hot pepper sauce are pretty standard. Buying habañeros, however, can be a bit tricky, and the heat of the sauce you finally produce will depend largely on the peppers purchased. The majority of habañeros rate between 200,000 and 300,000 Scoville units, the unit of measure used for rating the spiciness of peppers. Habañeros can be found that measure as low as 100,000 Scoville units. For the most serious hot sauce lovers, the Naga Jolokia, often confused for a habañero although it is its own pepper, is a chili that has been given ratings over 1,000,000 Scoville units. The best way to find out about a pepper's heat is to ask a grower of them. A supermarket will not be of much help to you, but if purchasing from farmer's markets and the like, the farmer should be able to tell you just how hot your sauce is going to be.
Equipment
To make a fine hot sauce, use a sharp knife and a large block cutting board. Slicing and dicing are of utmost importance. The next more important thing, of course, aside from the fresh ingredients mentioned above, is a quality blender or food processor. Make sure your 'liquefy' setting does just that. Ending up with a bite size chunk of habañeros in your mouth might not be a good idea, depending on your tolerance, of course. The sauce itself should be hot enough.
Recipe Time
For helpful advice on make this recipe and others using habañeros peppers, pick up a book titled The Habañero Cookbook by Dave Dewitt. The book is chock-full of history, bright pictures and a long list of recipes from A to Z. As can be inferred from the long list of (and diversity of) recipes, hot sauce lovers will put it on just about anything, but Belizean hot pepper sauce is most commonly used to spice up soups, a variety sauces, stir-fry and added to boiling water when making rice and pasta, giving it a bit of kick.
In Case of Emergency
It is a complete fallacy that drinking water will help cool you down if you have overdone it with the hot sauce. Capsaicin is the chemical component of chili peppers that makes them hot, and water will do nothing to combat this. Should you find yourself in extreme pain, there are three options you can try: continuous chewing, dairy and rice. The mechanical act of chewing will help to lessen a persistent burning sensation. However, it might not be a good idea to continue eating the same spicy dish that is causing the pain. Dairy foods such as milk and yogurt contain a protein called casein that binds itself with capsaicin, therefore limiting its ability to continue burning the mouth. And, lastly, eat rice. A mouthful of rice is known to help lessen the burning caused by hot chili peppers, which might be why so many cultures that eat these peppers, also include rice in a great many of their dishes.
Tags: haba eros, Scoville units, been given, Belizean pepper, Belizean sauce, chili peppers, good idea
