Mixed Hatch Tequila Lime

Fermented Ingredients (110 days):
• Raw Hatch 78g
• Roasted Hatch 46g
• Yellow Onions 114g
• Chesnok Red Garlic 50g
• Brine 1 Cups

Fresh Ingredients:
• Green Bell Peppers 145g
• Yellow Onions 357g
• Garlic 36g
• Cilantro 23g
• Limes 1.5 Juiced
• Salt 1 tsp
• Jose Cuervo Gold 1.5oz
• Water 1 Cups
• White Vinegar 1.5 Cups
• Xanthan Gum 1/8 tsp

Saute the green bells and onions until they start to close color and char. After which add the garlic and cook until it browns. Remove and add everything except the xanthan to the blender. Blend on high for five minutes, then simmer for twenty minutes to cook out the alcohol, skimming the solids and form on the top. Reblend on low for sixty seconds with the xanthan gum, bottle and refrigerate. 

Notes:
• Mix of raw and roasted hatch. Not very notable from jalapeno blends
• A lot of garlic but not super noticeable. Same with the onions, close to 500g and they still take back seat to the peppers
• I'm also thinking about 2.5 to 3 limes to really bring out that flavor a bit more
• Pretty standard batch. I think the full roasted hatch batch is still the best one I've made so far. I thought making a mix would come close to that, and while this is fine by all measures, nothing really stood out too strongly
• A bit watery, some separation. A full 1/4 of xanthan would work better
• I'm already almost through all this sauce so the next batch will be up soon enough. Let's push more lime and maybe a bit more tequila

Pineapple Scorpion Salsa

Ingredients:
• Roma Tomatoes 705g (seven medium)
• Garlic 47g (one head)
• Red Onions 259g (one medium)
• Red Scorpions 25g (five small)
• Pineapples 202g
• Pineapple Juice 1 tbs
• Salt 1 tbs
• Brown Sugar 1 tsp
• Water 2 cups

Cut the tops and halve all the tomatoes. Place face up on parchment paper and bake at 410*F for forty minutes. While that cooks, saute the onion and peppers, adding the garlic when they start to char. Cook until that browns, then caramelize the pineapple. Blend on low for 90 seconds or until desired consistency. Refrigerate. Yields ~55 oz

Notes:
• First thing to point out here is I used three of four less tomatoes than I usually do but kept everything else the same
• I'm skeptical of the peppers in the recipe. They should be all scorpions but some were shaped a bit flat, kind of like a bonnet or a ufo 
• All the peppers were tiny too. The last of all my frozen 2022 stuff
• Pretty hot regardless, if my reaper salsa is a 10 this is maybe a 7
• Onions and garlic are usually roasted with the tomatoes but I was running low on time so I peeled garlic while the tomatoes cooked and sauteed instead
• This was blended in my vitamix instead of my food processor. I blended low and the tomatoes made a thick creamy texture compared to the more grainy stuff I get in the food processor
• The result is the tomatoes being fully blended with the oil and making a thick creamy texture
• There are chunks of everything else. Big ribbons of peppers, pieces of garlic, strings of pineapple, globs of onion. Only issue here is the tomato skin splinters
• First time using sugar in a salsa. I like it with the fruit, it really takes the sweetness to a level that matches the salt
• Everything is balanced here. Only real issues I have here are the tomato skins and the garlic chunks being a bit too big and over powering on some bites. Maybe throw those in to blend with some of the water first, then add everything else

 

Pineapple Habanero

Fermented Ingredients (372 days):
• Habaneros 91g
• Carrots 104g
• Garlic 37g
• Yellow Onions 70g
• Brine 1.5 Cups

Fresh Ingredients:
• Yellow Onions 204g
• Orange Bell Peppers 162g
• Garlic 34g
• Pineapples 196g
• Salt 1 tsp
• Brown Sugar 1 tbs
• White Vinegar 3/4 Cups
• Apple Cider Vinegar 1/4 Cups
• Water 1/2 Cups
• Xanthan Gum 1/4 tsp

Saute the onion and orange bells until they start to char, then add the garlic and cook until that starts to brown. Remove, and then caramelize the pineapple. Blend everything expect the xanthan on high for five minutes. Lightly simmer, skimming the solids off the top for 20 minutes. Reblend on low with the xanthan gum for sixty seconds, bottle and refrigerate

Notes:
• Year long ferment! Maybe my longest?
• Second-ish shot at a pineapple habanero sauce. All habanero pepper bill, the first batch was later renamed and became something different, so this will take that name 
• More brine than usual, I used a different glass jar that was a lot bigger, and this was made before I really started utilizing as much space as I could in the ferment
• Recipe would have had more habaneros but I used half for another sauce. Heat's fine where it is though
• Less pineapple than I wanted to use because I split the fruit I bought between this and a salsa. It's a little more submissive than I was shooting for
• A little bit too salty. Not enough to ruin this by any means, but I have no idea what kind of brine I was mixing and I didn't think about how half a cup of extra brine would mean more salt. A half or maybe quarter teaspoon would have worked a lot better
• This makes me glad I added the sugar because it helps balance out the salt a bit
• Pretty typical habanero heat, maybe a bit higher than I imagined
• Good color, I'm glad I went with the orange bell over the red
• Good smell. Heavy pineapple, garlic, and onion
• Good consistency. I did a quarter instead of the normal 1/8 of xanthan gum and it's oozy, but comes out of the bottle quickly
• Definitely more funk than a lot of my sauces. But I guess that happens when you let a ferment sit for over a year

Serrano Tequila Lime b2

Fermented Ingredients (151 days):
• Serrano 222g
• Garlic 28g
• Yellow Onion 162g
• Brine 1 Cups

Fresh Ingredients:
• Yellow Onion 312g
• Green Bell Pepper 124g
• Garlic 33g
• Cilantro 25g
• Lime 2 Juiced
• Jose Cuervo Gold 1.5oz
• White Vinegar 1.5 Cups
• 1/2 Cups Water
• Salt 1 tsp
• Xanthan Gum 1/8 tsp

Cut up the fresh onion and bell pepper and saute with olive oil until it starts to brown and char. Add the garlic and cook until that browns also. Add everything to your blender except the xanthan and blend on high for five minutes. Afterwards simmer for 20 minutes skimming solids off the top, then let cool and reblend on low with the xanthan for sixty seconds. Bottle, refrigerate.

Notes:
• First all Serrano sauce so I'm rebranding the name
• More fermented products using a 24oz jar instead of a 16oz mason
• Still kept the 16oz fresh bill so sauce is a bit thicker which I like, smaller yield
• Heavy cilantro, it was going to be 33g but I didn't like the look and took out 8g
• Went in heavy with the second lime finally. Good but still not very prominent, maybe 3 limes next time?
• Spicy, which was the point. Fun to see this sauce with a bit of a kick finally
• On the fence, but I decided against adding some fermented tomatillos. It'd also pollute the pepper bill with jalapenos

Avocado White Ghost

Ingredients:
• Tomatillo 420g
• Yellow Onion 282g
• Avocado 212g
• Jalapeno 35g
• Serrano 27g
• White Ghost 22g
• Cilantro 12g
• Water 1 Cups
• Lime 1 Large Juiced
• Salt 3/4 tbsp 

Peel and rinse the tomatillos, then boil until the color changes from light to dark reserving a cup of the water. Slice up the onion and saute with the peppers in olive oil, adding the garlic once they start to char. Once the garlic browns, add everything to the blender and blend on high for 20 seconds. Bottle, refrigerate.

Notes:
• I used 13 mixed sizes on the tomatillos
• For the avocado it was 3 small ones, I got lucky with small pits
• I usually add a bit more water but the consistency on this worked out perfect
• Maybe a tablespoon of olive oil added into the blend left over from the frying pan
• I initially had a 1/2 tbs of salt but added another half of that
• The white ghosts seemed to be a good move, there's a bit more citrus and less of an earthy taste compared to the red ghosts
• The heat however is a bit lower than the reds
• In the future some ideas might be a teaspoon of cumin and a small pinch or two of mexican oregano, being very mindful of the batch I ruined by adding too much 
• Really solid batch, will make a good sauce for the breakfast burritos I'm prepping tomorrow

Fermented Jalapeno Verde Salsa b1

Fermented Ingredients (147 days):
• Tomatillos 205g
• Garlic 18g
• Jalapenos 50g
• Yellow Onion 20g
• Brine 1 Cups (~3%)

Fresh Ingredients:
• Cilantro 4g
• Lime 1/2 Juiced
• Water 1 Cups

Combine all ingredients, blend on low for 30 seconds

Notes:
• A lot to unpack here but it comes down to three things: water, salt, sour
• Way too watery. In the blender adding the cup of water seemed like a good idea and looked fine but even when cold this is way too runny. My biggest issue with the salsa for sure
• Salty as fuck. I didn't add any additional salt because I was using the brine and it's still over seasoned
• Sour. I was wondering what using this many fermented ingredients would be like and it's for sure crossed a line
• To follow up a bit, the proportions were a bit out of whack. Normally for salsa (or hot sauce) I'd amp up the onions and peppers a bit. Onions would be half the weight of the tomatillos, peppers would have an extra 25g added. More cilantro also
• Cilantro wasn't super fresh, in my fridge for over a week. Not at all spoiled though
• I've got two other similar jars fermented, different ratios 
• It's such a weird flavor but it's addictive and I've killed a half bag of tortilla chips in 30 hours since making it
• I didn't measure out the yield but maybe 2 or 3 cups
• I'm at the point where I've scooped most the good stuff at the bottom and it's all just water now. Maybe 80% of the total yield now being water I'm about to dump into the sink. I judged the liquid to solid ratio bad here. Let's learn from that
• This wasn't a total failure but not something I'm about to share outside of the blog

Ideas:
• Use 1/2 to one cup of liquid. To reduce the salt do half fresh water and half brine
• Add half a fresh onion and some peppers, sauteed. Between half to equal the weight of the fermented stuff
• Full bunch of fresh cilantro, maybe 3/4 bunch. Two or three times more than 4g at least 
• Maybe the whole lime. It's already sour so the extra acid is a drop in the bucket compared to the extra flavor
• Missing a kick. Next jar add some habs or serranos
• Xanthan to lock up some of the water content

Roasted Hatch Tequila Lime

Fermented Ingredients (40 days):
• Roasted Hatch 216g
• Yellow Onions 110g
• Music Garlic 45g

Fresh Ingredients:
• Yellow Onions 187g
• Green Bell Peppers 152g
• Killarney Garlic 26g
• Cilantro 22g
• Limes 1.5 Juiced
• Salt 1/2 tbs
• White Vinegar 1.5 Cups
• Water 1 Cups
• Tequila 1.5 oz
• Xanthan Gum 1/8 tsp

Cut up the fresh onion and the bell peppers and saute lightly. Once they start to pick up some color and char add the fresh garlic and cook until golden brown. Once finished add everything into the blender except the xanthan and blend on high for five minutes. Simmer on low for 20 minutes to cook out the alcohol, skimming the gunk off the top. Then reblend on low with the xanthan gum for 90 seconds. Bottle, refrigerate. Yield of ~ 45 oz

Notes:
• Hatch was bought pre-roasted from Raleys
• Because of how soft the chilies were I was able to over stuff the jar, making it harder for the brine to get everywhere. I should have used a second jar
• Fermentation was really slow because of this, kinda a pain to burp
• There wasn't much brine in the jar because of this, which is why I added extra salt and extra water to the final blend. If I had a cup of brine I'd use .25 tbs salt and a 1/2 cup of water, but the brine that was left in the jar was very negligible. I didn't even add it to the recipe, but it was maybe 1/4 to 1/8th of a cup
• I left the charred skin on the chilies and included the seeds
• No heat, despite that but it's really good
• Fun play on the tequila lime series. I have some other unique jars fermenting which should make for some complex flavors