Mrs Bailey’s Fermented Hot Sauce

As hot as you can take it is as hot as it should be…

Mrs B learned this one, as she learns so much, from girls passing through the school, each bringing with them their own cultures and concerns. Every family with any connection to Asian roots, as it seems, has their own variation on this particular theme; and now, so does Mrs Bailey.

She makes two separate batches of this sauce, come harvest time: one for the school, and one for herself and her friend. For the latter, she uses much, much hotter peppers…

One pound ripe red peppers, as hot as you like them

A dozen cloves of garlic, peeled

Two tablespoons of cane sugar

One tablespoon of dark brown sugar (Mrs B uses molasses sugar, or muscovado)

One heaped tablespoon of salt

Half a pint of apple cider vinegar

Put everything but the vinegar into a food processor, and let it run until you have a rough purée.

Set that in a jar on your countertop, where you can’t miss it, and close the lid.

Every day for a week, give it a generous stir. If it fizzes at you, no worries.

After a week, everything goes back into the food processor with the vinegar added. Whizz until you have a smooth purée with seeds in.

This will cheerfully keep in your fridge for a year, though I doubt it will last that long.