Sriracha: A Thai extravaganza in red

I’ve been making my own hot sauce for several years now and it’s been such an unqualified success, I don’t anticipate stopping any time soon.

There have been various iterations of the nippy condiment over the years but what I like best about making my own is that it’s very adaptable and you can tailor the sauce to personal preferences.

Once you get the basic recipe process down, you can adjust the ingredients for max enjoyment. Extra spicy? Extra vinegary tang? Extra sweet? Extra salty?

Personally, I go for a balance of all of the above, although the last version of my sauce which included chipotle flakes, was probably my best so far.

It was also the hottest sauce I’ve ever tasted (that would be the Scotch Bonnets), so a little went a long way. I think one bottle took me about two months to kill off.

Fresher, tastier and of course, hotter than anything available on the supermarket shelves, hot sauce has been a real revelation since I first dipped a pinkie into the proverbial hot waters.

However, one sauce which I had avoided making but which I continued to buy, was that Thai extravaganza in red, sriracha.

The fermentation element, I assumed, was most likely the niggly stage of the process which had been putting me off.

Then I remembered that I had conquered fermentation at length with both my home-brewing operations (beer, cider, mead – and counting) and my sourdough phase.

Surely a bottle of sriracha wouldn’t be a step too far. As things turned out, it wasn’t.

HIPSTER

Once referred to as ‘hipster Tabasco,’ sriracha is basically a mixture of garlic, sugar, chillies, vinegar and salt.

If you’ve never tasted it before, it’s like tomato ketchup with a kick – exactly my kind of ketchup.

Once upon a while ago, I even considered buying a key-ring-friendly sriracha bottle so that I could carry it around all day and wouldn’t be without my beloved sauce for any meal, home or abroad. Then I wised up.

Prior to delving into the recipe, I should also point out that there are great many different varieties of sriracha on the market.

So if you haven’t tasted it before and you don’t fancy this whole fermenting-at-home palaver, give a shop version a try. You won’t be disappointed.

INGREDIENTS

500g of red chillies (I used a mixture of Scotch Bonnets, Birds Eye and bog standard red chillies from Asda)

8 garlic cloves, peeled and halved

1 tbsp of sugar

1 tbsp of salt

2 tbsps of brown sugar or raw honey

dash of water

90ml of white vinegar

THE PLAN

Start off by getting your gear sorted. You need a mason jar with a lid which has been washed, well rinsed and sterilised (stick it in a pre-heated oven at 160 for 15 minutes).

As that’s happening, or better still, after you’ve sterilised the jar and it has cooled, cut the green ends off all of the chillies and cut each chilli into a few pieces.

Dump these into a blender. Peel and halve each garlic clove and retire these to the blender also. Dump into the blender, the sugars and salt and a dash of water (about 100ml) and blitz until smooth – or near enough smooth. That done, scrape and pour your young sriracha mixture into the cooled mason jar, close the lid and set it somewhere out of direct sunlight.

It’ll take between three to five days to ferment, so all you have to do each day is give it a quick stir.

After the second day, as you’re stirring you may notice some small bubbles, which is exactly what you want.

The bubbles show that the fermentation is happening. After you notice plenty of bubbles (it was day four for me), it’s ready for the next stage.

Tip the mixture back into the blender and add the vinegar. Blitz again until super smooth – or near enough super smooth. Then tip the mixture into a fine sieve over a sauce pan and press through with a wooden spoon or spatula. You want to get rid of the seeds etc.

Once sieved, discard the seeds and then bring the smooth sauce in the pan up to a simmer.

Let it bubble for a few minutes until reduced slightly, stirring from to time so that it doesn’t stick. It will thicken more as it cools so you just want it slightly reduced in the pan and not too thick.

Once happy with consistency, check to see if it needs another pinch of salt or drip of vinegar and adjust accordingly.

All that’s left to do is decant your sriracha into a sterilised bottle and enjoy. This goes on pretty much everything, from scrambled eggs on toast to fajitas to any kind of sandwich imaginable.