Cayenne Peppers: I have no idea what I’m doing Post No.1.
We were recently gifted with a bag of cayenne peppers. My father in law has a fabulous farm down in Cottondale. When he visits he almost always comes bearing gifts of the best tasting organic eggs and an abundance of whatever his garden is producing at the time. This time he brought us 72 eggs, a bucket of squash, 3 cucumbers, 2 jars of cowboy candy (so good, by the way), and an assortment of HOT peppers. The most being cayenne peppers.
After a good visit, I’m left with trying to figure out how to preserve all these peppers. I have no idea what I’m doing. My father in law suggested that I persevere them in a variety of ways. He said I could string them up to dry them out or put them in the freezer. That’s all good, but I don’t even know what you do with cayenne peppers. I mean I’ve used cayenne powder before in some recipes but there goes my knowledge on cayenne.
After a bit of googling I find out that hot sauce is also made of cayenne. I’m not a huge fan of hot sauce, but I do love buffalo sauce. So I wonder if I can use my cayenne peppers to make buffalo sauce. Turns out you can! But first you need to make the hot sauce. So I get a game plan together.
My eldest daughter is bored and wants to help. So I show her how to thread the needle through the stems of the peppers. It was quite fun and I kinda didn’t want to relinquish this project to her, but she also enjoyed it and did a great job. I think she was proud of herself once she had filled the entire string with little red peppers. Even my 3 year old got in on the fun, picking out the peppers that had gone bad to throw them away.
I figure once these were completely dried out I could grind them into a powder. Once I had about a third of the peppers strung and hung up, I started on the pepper sauce.
After reading several different recipes online, I decided I wouldn’t follow any particular one. I would just wing it the best I could. A few recipes mentioned using about 10oz of cayenne peppers. I’m not sure how much that was suppose to make because I didn’t really read that far. But 10oz sounded good to me.
That’s when I realized I had already packed up my kitchen scale. Instead of going over to the box ( that was literally sitting in the kitchen counter) and getting the scale out, I figured I could just Google how many cups 10oz of cayenne peppers were. The Google Ai said 2 1/2 cups. Easy enough. I grab my measuring cup. Fill it to the top twice, then once more only half full. I grabbed a new plastic disposable glove from a pack that I purchased 10 years ago after learning the hard way not to cut hot peppers with your bare hands. Then I begin to cut tops off all the little red peppers and roughly dice each one.
I was about half way through cutting the 520 peppers when I realized I could have thrown these in the food processor. But at this point I was dedicated to doing it by hand. Onward I persisted. I had to take a quick detour to break up a fight, then back to the kitchen to finish chopping.
Once I had finally cut all 750 peppers I realized that the measuring cup I had used was actually a 2-cup measuring cup, not a 1-cup. So I had gotten 5 cups of peppers…. But the chopped peppers didn’t look like 5 cups. You know, I didn’t really read the google ai either…. I saw 2 1/2 cups and bolted. Maybe 10oz was 2 1/2 cups chopped. Forget it, I pop open the box on my counter and rummage around to find the scale. I place my 4-cup measuring cup on the scale, zero it out and fill it with the chopped peppers. I’m not sure how many cups it was, but it was only 6oz. So I start adding peppers until I get to 10oz.
I stare at the new pile of peppers I still have to cut up. It’s awfully close to the same size at the 800 I’ve already diced. I think about the food processor again. But no, I’m in too deep, and I refuse to dirty another dish (because it’ll totally take longer to clean the food processor than it will to chop all 900 peppers in that pile).
I sing “Lucy goosey had a farm” to keep the baby from crying while I finish cutting the 12 hundredth cayenne pepper. Finally, I move on to the garlic. I think several of the recipes mentioned garlic, some mentioned onion, but I’m just sticking with 6 cloves of garlic this time. Now I need vinegar. This is where all the recipes differed. One said white vinegar, another white wine vinegar, this one said apple cider vinegar. And the measurements were all over the place. I decided I would just cover the peppers in white vinegar, about 2 cups.
I bring to a boil cover and reduce the heat. Then I let it simmer. I’m not quite sure how long. I needed to nurse the baby and make some crackers. So however long that takes. Next it was time to puree the sauce. I got my immersion blender, popped it into my pot, pressed the button and out slings very hot (in more ways than one) sauce. That won’t work. So I carefully pour the peppers and vinegar back onto my 4 cup measuring cup, to blend again, this time with better results.
It’s a bit thick, so I decide to add a few tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. I put it back on the stove for a couple minutes then turn the heat off. The kids and I snack on a few crackers and clean up some of the mess in the kitchen. And now it’s time for dinner so I pause my pepper prep to make dinner. (It was a good one, I will definitely will share the recipe!).
The last step is to strain the pulp and seeds from the sauce. I use a fine mesh strainer to start the process. It’s still so thick… Is it supposed to be this thick? I add more white vinegar, maybe another tablespoon or two. And I strain. This part takes longer than I expected. I make myself my nightly glass of chocolate milk while the mixture slowly strains. The baby wakes up during this process and crawls around the kitchen floor prowling for something to put in her mouth while I stir and mash the mixture trying to get every last drop of liquid from the pulp.
As I’m pressing the pulp with my spatula I think back on the recipes I read. I’m pretty sure I was supposed to add salt. I wonder how important salt it. Google. Apparently it’s decently important. I add a large pinch of salt then another. Taste test, it’s HOT. After a good cough and a sip of my chocolate milk I add an additional large pinch of salt. Second taste test, it’s good, very spicy, but good. I pour into a recycled glass container and pop in the fridge. Google tells me it should last about 3 months. I can use this to make my own buffalo sauce. Which is another recipe I’ll share!
Now what am I supposed to do with all the pulp? It seems wasteful to throw it away. I pull out my friend Google again. Some man on Facebook said he dehydrates his in the oven and mixes it with peppercorn and some other spices and puts it in a grinder. I completely trust this guy that I do not know and put the pulp in the oven. It only took a few hours at 170 degrees before it was completely dry.
I still had about half of my cayenne peppers sitting on the counter. I decide to throw them in a freezer bag and deal with them another day. Tired of peppers I close down the kitchen. From someone who grew up eating from packages, I love learning to make things from scratch. I am very glad to have had the opportunity to preserve so many peppers.