Sicilian Scorpion

 Ingredients:
• Scorpion Peppers 5 pods (23g)
• Red Bell Peppers 128g
• Yellow Onions 181g
• Garlic 38g (14 cloves)
• Smoked Sun Dried Tomatoes 3oz
• Italian Parsley 1tbsp
• Salt 1 tbsp
• Black Pepper 1tbsp
• Olive Oil 2tbsp
• Sweet Vermouth 2 tbsp
• Apple Cider Vinegar 3 cups
• White Vinegar 1/3 cups
• Water 1/2 cups

First thing to mention is that this is a hot ones recipe I wanted to try out. There were a few things I did differently here. My store didn't have sweet onions so I got yellow ones instead and threw some brown sugar on them to caramelize a bit on the stove. I also sauteed the bells and garlic, the recipe had them blended raw. Also I chose smoked tomatoes over the regular ones because I thought it could add a layer of complexity. I don't know if that was a mistake or not but it's not something I'd do again

I also broke from the recipe by adding the water and white vinegar. It was like 10:30pm making this and I didn't want to wake up my building, so I did a lighter blend than normal. I don't think more time would have helped much, but this stuff pours like Ragu. All the solid ingredients clump up together a bit and the oil separates and runs through them. I filled a woozy and it solidified on the top, but became a lot more fluid after a few good shakes. The woman who made the sauce mentions she likes thicker products but my god this stuff is like spicy pizza sauce. The yield was insane since I added so much extra liquid to dilute the ACV, like 60 oz of a sauce that frankly I'm not crazy about. The ACV is absolutely dominant on the nose and is a huge turn off. It tastes fine on chicken but everything else I've tried it on is just weird. I also feel dumb for buying a huge bunch of parsley and only using a small pinch

Ideas:
• Fermented ingredients. This is the first raw sauce I've made besides those wing sauces
• Replace a lot of the acv with white vinegar. Not 100% maybe but enough to stop making me gag
• Cut down a bit on the solid ingredients. The recipe calls for 1.5c red bell and 1 cup of onions. I couldn't be bothered to measure so I guessed and maybe over shot? This thing would still be stupid thick regardless
• Add some more water
• Keep a close eye on this. I've never used oil in a sauce and don't know how it keeps
• Throw in everything raw, no cooking anything
• Use packaged pepper instead of the mill cause 3 mins of grinding sucks
• Trying to add your own spin on things and making tweaks to something already established leaves more room for error than improvement. I should have stuck closer to the original recipe 

I'll check on this in a week or two but I don't think there will be a batch two. Ideal if you're feeding a lot of people and not just yourself. Most of this will probably be given away instead of sold