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Root Beer Syrup | Make Ahead Mondays

June 25, 2012 by 12 Comments

I am a fizzy drinks gal. My usual preference is for plain or flavoured (but not sweetened seltzer) but I have a deep and abiding love for two kinds of soda: ginger ale and root beer. I love the warm, spicy flavours of both of those. What I don’t adore, however, is the insane amount of sugar in most commercially available sodas.

My dad taught me to make my own ginger ale a few years back and that took care of the need for ginger ale, but until the last couple of weeks, I didn’t have a way to satisfy my root beer cravings without getting a sugar bomb in the process. With the exception of a few boutique brands of root beer (that are very tasty indeed but also pretty pricey), the sugar bomb in those sodas came in the form of high fructose corn syrup. I’m not going to wade into a debate here. Intelligent people disagree (vociferously) on the subject, but in our family we avoid consuming HFCS as much as possible.

I’ve tried making my own root beers from extract kits, but I was always a little disappointed because I like making things from the ground up. Buying a little bottle of some liquid and adding water and sugar just kind of felt like cheating. Yes, I realize I’m a little nuts. But I discovered something. I’m clearly not alone in thinking this way. I discovered Hank Shaw a.k.a. Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. Hank Shaw is, in a nutshell, awesome. I’ve always had a DIY bent, but Hank Shaw? I’m in an analogy frame of mind,  since I just finished up standardized testing with my kids, and I’m thinking that might be the best way to describe him. I am to Hank Shaw as Sandra Lee is to Martha Stewart. Sure, Sandra Lee decorates a table and whips up a cocktail, but Martha felled the tree, built the table, hand-wove the cloth for the decorations, smelted the metal for the silverware, designed and threw her own pottery, raised the animals and vegetables, slaughtered and prepared everything herself AND was a supermodel in the process.  In short, I have MAD respect for Hank Shaw. I have no idea whether his hair is perfectly coifed, but I rather suspect it is.

The point is this; Hank Shaw posted a recipe for homemade root beer syrup that looked like what I’d been seeking for ages. I had some dried burdock root (it grows EVERYWHERE around here, so I’m not sure this gets me my foraging badge), I ordered dried sassafras (because that DOESN’T grow around here), and raided my spice cabinet for the other bits and pieces*, and set to infusing.

*That spell of detective work just might get me the foraging badge after all!

The key to the recipe is a slow infusion (decoction, tisane, what-have-you) of water with the roots and spices. After it simmers a bit, some molasses is added (for both colour and flavour) then you simmer again. Then comes the WHAT?!? portion of the programme: wintergreen. I’m not kidding you. Go pop open a bottle of root beer and sniff. What are you getting? You’re getting the smell of sassafras and wintergreen (although of the two, wintergreen is probably the only one that is actually in commercial root beers any more.) Don’t skip this! And please, you might be tempted, but don’t sub in peppermint. The wintergreen is truly important. If you can’t lay your hands on fresh wintergreen leaves, you can always use wintergreen flavour or extract.*

*This is an affiliate link to Amazon.com.

As soon as the roots and spices started simmering my brain was panting, “Root beer. Root beer. Root beer.” It smells so good while it simmers. It smelled so good, in fact, that I dunked a spoon in to lick it. Um, it was not a great at that point. ‘Twas bitter but I carried on and continued the project. I started it late at night, so I let the cool down/infusion process go overnight. In the morning, I strained, measured, added to the pot with sugar and then simmered again. I dipped my spoon in again, cautiously licked it and holy man. It was good. It was great!

While I like to pour it over ice and top with my beloved plain seltzer for a spicy, rootsy-tootsy root beer beverage, you can also use the syrup to drizzle over your vanilla ice cream for a root beer sundae. On the other hand, you can sweeten your iced tea for a deliciously different sweet tea. Root beer sweet tea. Can I get a heck-yeah from the sweet tea lovers out there?

I’m going to tell you, this is NOT the root beer you get at the store. It just isn’t. It’s real. It has oomph. It has character. It’s not cloyingly sweet (although, if sweet is your thing you can always up the sugar content in the syrup.) When you smell it and taste it there is no doubt in your mind that this is root beer, but this is root beer as it’s meant to be. I’d take a tall glass of this root beer any day over the stuff on the shelves. My husband, who despises soda in general but likes seltzer, loved this root beer. Three of my five kids think this the best root beer they’ve ever had. (One of the remaining two just doesn’t like root beer, so he’s consistent. The other decided to be contrary.)

 

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Root Beer Syrup | Make Ahead Mondays

Root Beer Syrup | Make Ahead Mondays

For the rootin-est, tootin-est root beer you'll ever drink, whip up a batch of this all-natural root beer syrup. It makes grocery store root beers pale in comparison.

This recipe was very gently adapted and used with permission from and grateful thanks to Hank Shaw

Ingredients

  • 6 cups water
  • 3 ounces dried sassafras roots
  • 1/2 ounce dried burdock root
  • 1 teaspoon dried whole coriander seeds
  • 1 whole star anise
  • 1 whole clove
  • 1/4 cup dark molasses (not blackstrap)
  • 3-4 wintergreen leaves or 2 drops (or 1/8 of a teaspoon) wintergreen flavouring or extract
  • up to 6 cups of sugar (preferably raw, but granulated white sugar can be used.)

Instructions

Put the sassafras and burdock roots, coriander seeds, star anise and clove in a heavy-bottomed 2 quart saucepan that has a tight fitting lid. Pour the water over the top of the roots and spices and bring to a boil over high heat. Drop the heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. If it keeps bubbling up and out, vent the lid just a bit.

Add the molasses, stir, replace the lid, and return to a simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, add the wintergreen flavouring or extract, replace the lid and let the mixture cool to room temperature. (I let mine cool on a cold burner on the stove overnight because I prepared my sassafras infusion late at night.)

Line a fine mesh strainer with cheesecloth, place over a large measuring cup with a pouring spout or a pitcher, and pour the cooled infusion into it to strain. Do not press on the contents, but let the roots rest in the strainer for about 30 minutes before proceeding. While that strains, rinse the pot in which you infused it to get any lingering bits of root or spice out of it.

Measure your sassafras infusion, return it to the rinsed pot and add an equal amount of sugar -by volume- to the pot. For instance, if you have 4 1/2 cups of infusion, add 4 1/2 cups of sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil, drop the heat to low and let simmer for 5 minutes. Pour the syrup into canning jars, fix clean, new, two-piece lids on top and store in the refrigerator up to a year.

To Make a Root Beer Drink from the Syrup:

Use 1 tablespoon of syrup over ice to 1 cup of plain seltzer water. Stir gently. Enjoy!

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/06/25/root-beer-syrup-make-ahead-mondays/

If you want to make a batch or twelve of this but don’t know where to find the ingredients, Amazon.com, as always, can hook you up:

Filed Under: Beverages, Comfort Food, Component Foods, Condiments, Food Preservation, Happy Healthy and Wise, Healthy Foods, kid food, Make Ahead Mondays, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Vegetarian

Roasted Red Pepper Spread | Gardener’s Delight Eggs

September 22, 2011 by 10 Comments

And POOF! Just like that, summer was gone. I am fully aware that it is still technically summer but the tell tale signs are all around us: breath is foggy in the morning, cozy socks are back at the front of the sock drawer, scarves and jackets are shaken out of storage, and the produce at the farmers’ markets is taking a definite pumpkin-y turn. This, my friends, is fall.

That giant cosmic yawp you just heard came from my ever-optimistic beloved husband who views the turning of the leaves as a personal metaphor for mortality. This is the same man who spends the first official day of summer in mourning because it means that the days will grow shorter until the year ends. Poor guy. Don’t feel too badly for him, though. He lives with a compulsive baker and we all know that bread makes everything better.

Some of us, though, are not-so-secretly rejoicing. I’ve rustled up my fingerless gloves and my woolen caps for my morning strolls. I’m thrilled that I’m no longer sweating buckets near (not over, perish the uncouth thought) my canning pots. In fact, I’m upping the canning program in order to help keep warm until my husband finally acknowledges that summer has flown the coop and fires up the wood stove*.

*Firing up the wood stove is like my husband throwing the white flag of surrender and admitting that one more summer is behind him.

In the meantime, I will keep filling jars with little tastes of summer for my soon-to-be hibernating husband to put on his fresh bread. Jams and jellies are wonderful, but nothing beats cracking open a vibrant, ruby-hued jar of savoury garden goodness when the brisk wind is blowing and the sky is gun-metal grey.

Roasted Red Pepper Spread is just the thing to banish chills to the body or soul. You can’t help but smile when you see the bright red jars with flecks of basil peeking out at you. And when you open it? It’s everything wonderful about summer encapsulated in one little jar. The silky smooth, thick red pepper spread with the full taste -courtesy of tomatoes, garlic, onion, and red wine vinegar- is at home dolloped on fried eggs, spread on toast, as a pizza sauce, or as a dip (either alone or stirred into mayonnaise or softened cream cheese.)

While my poor husband may never recover from the suggestion that winter is soon to follow, I would be remiss if I didn’t offer the following tip; if you tie a simple gold, silver or raffia ribbon and gift tag around the top of the jar, it makes a beautiful and tasty (and perfectly colored) Christmas gift. Red and green and good taste. What could possibly be better?

The recipe yields around five eight-ounce jars, but can easily be doubled or tripled. I recommend an automatic doubling of this recipe if you intend to give it as gifts, because once you taste it you won’t want to part with it. That is as incontrovertible a fact as the passing of the seasons.

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Roasted Red Pepper Spread

Rating: 51

Yield: About 5 eight-ounce jars

Roasted Red Pepper Spread is just the thing to banish chills to the body or soul. It’s everything wonderful about summer encapsulated in one little jar. The silky smooth, thick red pepper spread with the full taste -courtesy of tomatoes, garlic, onion, and red wine vinegar- is at home dolloped on fried eggs, spread on toast, as a pizza sauce, or as a dip (either alone or stirred into mayonnaise or softened cream cheese.)

Adapted from The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

Ingredients

  • 5 ¾ pounds sweet red bell peppers
  • ¼ pound fresh cayenne peppers (or other red-hued hot peppers) (If you don’t like heat, use an additional ½ pound of sweet red bell peppers.)
  • 1 pound plum tomatoes
  • 1 small onion, unpeeled and uncut
  • 3 large cloves garlic, unpeeled and uncut
  • ½ cup red wine vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons, packed, thinly sliced (chiffonade) of fresh basil
  • 2 teaspoons sugar (I prefer raw)
  • 1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

Preheat the broiler in your oven. Spread the peppers, tomatoes, onion, and garlic cloves in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast under the broiler, turning frequently, until the peppers are softened and blackened all the way around, and the tomatoes, onion and garlic have some black spots on them. The more thoroughly blackened the peppers are, the easier they are to peel. Transfer the peppers and tomatoes to a paper bag, fold the top down three or four times to seal it, then let cool about 15 minutes, or until the produce is cool enough to handle. Set the onion and garlic on a cutting board to cool as well.

When the peppers and tomatoes have cooled, use your hands to rub the skins off as well as you can. Don’t panic if a bit of the skin remains. Cut the peppers open in order to remove their stems and seeds. Rip the peppers into strips and put into a blender or food processor (in batches if necessary) and process until smooth. Pour into a stainless steel stockpot and repeat the process with the tomatoes.

Peel the onions and garlic then finely chop both. Add this and the remaining ingredients to the purees in the stockpot and stir to combine. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, stirring frequently to prevent scorching. Lower the heat to medium low and continue a gentle boil, stirring often, for about 20 minutes, or until the spread can be mounded on a spoon.

You may either refrigerate the red pepper spread at this point, or freeze it in single serving sizes, or can it to make it shelf stable.

To can the spread for long-term storage:

Ladle the hot spread into prepared 8-ounce jars leaving ½-inch of headspace. (For information on how to do this, click here ) Use a stainless steel chopstick or butterknife to remove any air bubbles. If the level of the spread lowers after air bubbles are removed, you can add more hot spread.

Wipe the rims of the jars with a damp cloth, put the lid in place, and screw on the rings until fingertip tight. Place on a rack in a canner, cover with hot water, and bring to a boil with the lid on the canner. Once the water reaches a full rolling boil, begin a 10-minute timer (15 minutes for pints). When the timer is done, remove the lid from the canner, turn off the heat and let it stand for 5 minutes before carefully transferring the jars to a towel or rack on the counter to cool, undisturbed.

When the jars are completely cool, remove the rings for storage, wipe the jars clean and label. Store in a cool, dry place for up to a year.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/09/22/roasted-red-pepper-spread-gardeners-delight-eggs/

Would you like another good reason to have this on your shelves? I gotcha covered! This is my current favourite breakfast.

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Gardener's Delight Eggs

This almost instant breakfast delivers a hugely satisfying punch of flavour courtesy of big, bold, smooth, garden-fresh Roasted Red Pepper Spread dolloped on fried eggs with pan-fried tortilla rounds. This breakfast will keep you going for hours.

Ingredients

  • 1 egg
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 flour tortilla, cut into quarters or rounds (with a biscuit or cookie cutter)
  • 2 tablespoons Roasted Red Pepper Spread (see recipe above)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • Optional: Fresh basil, thinly sliced (chiffonaded)

Instructions

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed skillet. Crack the egg and slide it onto the skillet near one edge. Place the tortilla rounds or wedges along the other side of the skillet. Flip the tortilla rounds when they begin to lightly brown. Toast the other side and transfer to a serving plate.

Cook the egg, flipping once if desired, to your preferred doneness. Use a spatula to place the fried egg on top of the toasted tortillas. Top the egg with the Roasted Red Pepper Spread. Sprinkle with fresh basil, if desired.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/09/22/roasted-red-pepper-spread-gardeners-delight-eggs/

Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Breakfast Foods, Canning, Condiments, Food Preservation, Gifts, Happy Healthy and Wise, Healthy Foods, Instructional, Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Rebecca, Recipes, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Homemade Claussen Knock-Off Pickles

July 22, 2011 by 94 Comments

It’s common knowledge that I have a salty tooth rather than a sweet tooth. When the weather does what it has been doing lately (making us all do our best Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego impersonations) I can’t think of a single thing I find more refreshing than an icy-cold, salty, crunchy pickle. Oh yes. You can keep your popsicles* and those icy squeezy pop things whose name currently escapes me. I’m on deck with the pickles.

*I will, however, fight you for fudgesicles. That’s just the way it is.

It’s not just me, it’s my whole family: mother, sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts, grandparents, kids, husband…  I married a man who loves pickles so much he eats the pickles and then drinks the juice from the jar. In fact, in an attempt to show my husband just how much she loved him, my mom made a special pickle juice drink for him at our wedding. And he drank it*. Happily.

*He drinks pickle juice regularly in hot weather. He claims it is “Gatorade for people who don’t like sweets.” I love him.

I grew up eating my Grandma’s homemade dill pickles like the supply was endless and moved on to canning my own pickles as soon as I had a kitchen of my own. My little sister, Jessamine, and I compare our homemade pickles from year to year the way some people compare wine vintages. But there is one pickle that stands head-and-shoulders (were pickles to *have* heads and shoulders) above all others. I’m talking about the pickles you see here.

These are homemade refrigerated deli pickles, also known as Lithuanian half-sours, also known (in the commercial equivalent) as Claussen dill kosher pickles, also known as the best pickles ever known to mankind.

Here’s the thing. While I do love my other homemade pickles dearly (otherwise why would I continue canning ninety-something quarts year after year after year), these are by far my all-time favourites. CRUNCH. That’s what you hear when you bite these. There is no flop, no squish, no slime. These things almost bite back.

Claussens were long the benchmark for which I aimed in pickle making. No matter what, a canned pickle is not going to end up like that lovely Claussen: crunchy to the point of making noise when you bite it, cold, and seriously garlicky. Canned, shelf-stable pickles can be chilled, maintain some crunch and be as garlicky as you want them to be, but they are never, ever going to be the same thing because of science. When you heat process a jar of pickles you are, in actuality, cooking it and a cooked pickle just plain can’t be as crunchy as an un-cooked one.

Here’s where we get into bonus happy territory. You don’t have to cook anything to make these pickles; not one single thing. The brine is stirred together, the cucumbers are rinsed, trimmed and stuffed into a jar with garlic cloves and spices. Please, please, please give these a go even if you have never made a pickle before.  There is nothing scary or intimidating here. (Do you hear me Saint Tigerlily? No spectre of THE BOTCH!) Wash, slice, stuff, stir, pour, sit, wait. Okay wait. Yes. That last bit is hard. The waiting is hard. On the plus side, the wait is only two to four days which is significantly less than the six week wait of the canned pickles. Besides, as I said, there is the crunch factor.

Get on the homemade pickle train, my friends, there’s plenty of room for all of us and if you don’t know what to do with the leftover brine, just pass it to my husband. He’ll “dispose” of it for you. Crrrrrrrrrrunch!

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Homemade Claussen Knock-Off Pickles

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Yield: 2 gallons of pickles

Always crunchy and garlicky, this perfect homemade pickle requires no special equipment, no canning experience and tastes just like Claussen's refrigerated kosher dill pickles.

Ingredients

  • 35 to 40 small to medium pickling cucumbers
  • 1 gallon cold water
  • 1 cup cider vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons mixed pickling spices
  • 2/3 c. canning or kosher salt (Do NOT use iodized salt!)
  • 4 cloves garlic or more, to taste
  • 4 fresh dill heads ~or~ 4 tablespoons dried dill seed (not weed!)

Instructions

Wash cucumbers but do not scrub them.

Trim 1/8-inch from the blossom end of each cucumber and slice in half lengthwise or into quarters, depending on how large your cucumbers are and how big you want them to be when they're done.

In a gallon jar (or large, wide-mouth, food-safe container) layer the dill heads or seed, garlic cloves and sliced cucumbers.

In a separate pitcher or bowl, stir together the remaining ingredients until the salt is dissolved.

Pour the brine over the cucumbers, taking care to make sure all of them are fully submerged. If needed, place a plate or mug or other non-reactive heavy item on the cucumbers to weigh them down and keep them under the brine!

Cover lightly with a lid just perched on top or secure a piece of cheesecloth over the jar with a rubber band to keep fruit flies away.

Leave out of direct sunlight on the counter for two to four days*, or until the cucumbers taste like pickles throughout.

Fix your lid onto your jar or container and chill. These can be stored in the refrigerator for up to six months provided you keep them covered with brine.

*If at any point in the proceedings "fuzz" or "foam" develops on top of the brine, use a spoon to remove it. If there is "fuzz" attached to any of the cucumbers, remove the ones affected and be sure the others are still fully submerged.
http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/07/22/homemade-claussen-knock-off-pickles/

 

 

Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Canning, Component Foods, Condiments, Food Preservation, Healthy Foods, Rebecca, Recipes, Vegetarian

Strawberry Balsamic Thyme Freezer Jam

June 29, 2011 by 11 Comments

When I was small, my mom made strawberry freezer jam every year during Michigan’s brief and glorious strawberry season.

It was my mom’s thing: her annual food preservation pièce de résistance. She scattered packets and boxes of pectin thither and yon, she mashed berries with the bottoms of drinking glasses, her potato masher, and anything else she could fit into her bowl.  Her blonde hair had strawberry streaks, her hands were fuchsia , and she smelled like a strawberry patch for days on end. True to her style, she never measured (measuring was a creativity killer and the man’s way of keeping her down*) but somehow it always turned out to be the best thing we had eaten all year.

*Power to the people! Or Up with the People! Oh, geez. I can never get that right. I’m sorry, Mom.

I played around with cooked jam over the years, but it never drew close to the juicy, soft-set, fresh-from-the-field taste of strawberry freezer jam. Is it because of my formative years and my mom’s painting the kitchen with strawberries? Oh, probably…

I want my kids to have that same memory when they’re adults. The full sensory memory of watching their mom make jam: smelling, tasting, feeling the ripe strawberries… The anticipation of the flavour when a jar is fetched from the freezer and twisted open… I want them to have a vision of me with strawberry streaks on my cheeks (since my hair is not light enough to show it), fuchsia hands and smelling like a strawberry patch. Of course, their Mama measures obsessively, but every childhood is a little different, isn’t it? At least I got the important stuff in there.

…And my jam, well, now it has two crucial ingredients that my Mom didn’t put in hers. Balsamic vinegar and fresh thyme.

I know it might sound bizarre, but this is the most strawberry-y jam ever. If you can imagine the most fresh, juicy, flavour-packed strawberry you’ve ever had that is multiplied by about fifteen, you have an idea of what this tastes like.

You may already know that adding balsamic vinegar to strawberries boosts the flavour, but did you know that infusing it with thyme has a similar effect? And when you add balsamic AND thyme, you get knock-you-flat strawberryness. Whizz-bang, ka-pow, shammalammadingdong strawberry power is what Strawberry Balsamic Thyme Freezer Jam is.

I was already a big fan of the strawberry/thyme combination thanks to my good buddy, Krysta over at Evil Chef Mom and the strawberry/balsamic combination thanks to, um, I don’t know what. I first read about combining all of them in jam form, though, over on Serious Eats when Lucy Baker made a batch that sounded tantalizing.

When I read Lucy’s post, I knew that was going to happen as soon as the sleepy New York strawberries finally burst onto the scene.

A friend brought a whole flat of strawberries my way two days ago and thankfully, I remembered my previous plans. Mercifully. Appreciatively. I am so grateful that I remembered those plans because this is the best strawberry jam I’ve ever shoveled shamelessly into my mouth by the spoonful.

Best. Strawberry. Jam. Ever.

(…except for my Mom’s…)

A Note About the Pectin I Use:

Pomona’s Universal Pectin is well worth any trouble you have finding it. You can double, triple or quadruple recipes (or more if you have appropriately sized vessels for preparing massive batches of jam) with no ill-effects, unlike most “normal” pectins. It has no funky preservatives, additives, and allows you to make the best jam you’ve ever eaten with much less sugar than your average pectin (even the low-sugar varieties) or no sugar at all.  I’m getting nothing out of this, the Pomona’s people don’t even know I exist *sniffsniff*. I seriously believe their product is the best and have years worth of experience to back up my claims.

Yes, it looks expensive. I mean honestly, $4-$6 per box? Yipes! But if you break it down, you’ll realize that each box has enough pectin powder to make 2-4 batches of jam. That works out to about $3.00 per batch (calculating for liberal use) which is equal to or  better than the most common commercial pectins. When you add the convenience of larger batches to the equal or better price per batch, I think the comparative value makes Pomona’s the much better bet.

You can use a standard commercial pectin to make Strawberry Balsamic Thyme Freezer Jam (see recipe notes) if necessary, but I stand by Pomona’s!

5.0 from 1 reviews

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Strawberry Balsamic Thyme Freezer Jam
Author: 
Recipe type: Condiment
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 

Serves: 48
 

Don’t let the complicated name fool you. This freezer jam is pure strawberry. While the balsamic vinegar and thyme may sound wacky, they both simply enhance the explosive natural freshness of strawberries.
Ingredients
  • 4 cups mashed, hulled strawberries
  • 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • ¾-2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 tablespoon Pomona’s Universal Pectin Powder(*See notes) + ¼ cup Pomona’s Calcium Water (or more, if necessary.)
  • 1 cup water
  • 3 sprigs fresh thyme

Instructions
  1. Prepare freezer-safe jars or containers with airtight lids that can hold up to 6 cups of jam. (**See Notes)
  2. Stir together sugar, crushed berries, balsamic vinegar and lemon juice in a large mixing bowl.
  3. Add sprigs of thyme to water and bring to a boil.
  4. Strain and measure ¾ cup into a blender carafe.
  5. Sprinkle the pectin powder over the boiling water in the blender and add the lid.
  6. Open the vent on the blender lid, cover with a doubled dish towel or wash cloth, and blend on high for 1-2 minutes or until the pectin powder is completely dissolved.
  7. Scrape into the berry mixture and stir well.
  8. Pour the pectin water into the berry mixture and stir very well to combine. It should start to gel visibly. If it does not gel (although the gel will be much more soft-set than cooked jam), add 1 teaspoon of calcium water and blend well, repeating if necessary.
  9. Ladle into prepared containers to within ½” of the rims, fix the lids on tightly and freeze immediately.

Notes
*If you can’t or don’t want to find Pomona’s Pectin, you can make your normal freezer jam (following the directions for the pectin you use) but adding 1 tablespoon each of balsamic vinegar and lemon juice per 2 cups of crushed berries along with the amount of sugar specified in the pectin’s recipe.. To infuse the jam with thyme flavour, simmer the fresh thyme sprigs with the water and pectin. **You can use Gladware or Rubbermaid containers or canning jars. I prefer to use canning jars with two piece lids.

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Filed Under: Canning, Condiments, Food Preservation, Freezer Pleaser, kid food, Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Recipes, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Pickled Ginger (Gari)

June 24, 2011 by 9 Comments

I love sushi. I love it so much. I love everything about it. The fish, the rice, the nori, the little wad of wasabi, but as much as I love all of that, I love the pickled ginger, or gari, even more.

Oh, pickled ginger, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. You’re sweet and sour, spicy, fresh, snappy and PINK!* You pack so much punch into such a little package.

*Pink. Sigh. I love pink.

On those rare occasions when my husband and I can actually go. out. of. the. house. without. children, we almost invariably head for sushi joints. Being creatures of habit and fond of our ruts, we’ve established a little routine. (If you’re a sushi purist you may want to look away.)

  1. We look over the menu and order far too much sushi with the justification that we can take leftovers home to the children.
  2. When the sushi arrives, we each take an identical roll.
  3. He pours soy sauce over the bottom of his plate, drops his portion of the roll into it, piles it with wasabi then manoeuvers the whole thing to his mouth adeptly with chopsticks.
  4. I eat a piece of pickled ginger, put a couple dots of wasabi on my roll, dunk a corner in soy sauce, and dive in.
  5. We then repeat until we have to call for more pickled ginger and wasabi and the waitress gives us the stink eye.
  6. We call for a small box to house the one lonely California roll we managed to save for the children and waddle out of the restaurant clutching our overfilled bellies.
  7. We take a nap in the car then drive home.

I know. The glamour and high-living we exhibit is stunning. It’s okay if you need a moment to process that.

The pickled ginger, though. Mmmm. During each of my pregnancies, I craved it like other people crave ice cream. I ate it on everything from rice bowls to sandwiches. I sent my husband over to the Asian foods market across the street from his office to grab a new jar for me almost weekly. Then one day I looked at the ingredient list and saw two things I didn’t like; aspartame and food dye.

I sent him back the next day to get me a different brand. He came home with a white pickled ginger. Still with the aspartame. Blech.

It curbed my enthusiasm for pickled ginger a little bit until I got to thinking about making my own. It was a duh-and-a-half moment. Me. The Kitchen DIY Queen. I hadn’t even considered making my own. *headsmacksdesk

A little searching on the internet yielded a plethora of pickled ginger recipes for experimentation and an interesting tidbit of information about the pink connection for pickled ginger. I learned that young ginger, the variety that yields the best pickled ginger, naturally turns a soft pink when pickled. Old ginger, on the other hand, may not. So I ask you, what gives on the food dye?

After playing around with several recipes, I realized that the best of the lot was also the simplest. I also learned a few helpful tips:

  • While young ginger yielded the best texture and flavour, old ginger that was pickled also had a certain charm to it.
  • Slice the ginger as thinly as is humanly possible. A mandolin or extra sharp knife and a dose of patience is your best bet.
  • Slice across the ginger instead of slicing lengthwise. This yields an easier-to-chew result.
  • To easily peel ginger, scrape the edge of a regular spoon over knobs of ginger. The skin should easily peel away. If it doesn’t, and you have to dig the skin away with the spoon, you have older ginger.

Don’t be alarmed by the quantity yielded by this recipe. It keeps nearly forever in the refrigerator and -if you have friends that are like me- it makes a thoughtful and unique food gift.

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Pickled Ginger (Gari)
Author: 
Recipe type: Condiment, Side Dish
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 

Serves: 16
 

Snappy, spicy, sweet and sour, pickled ginger is not just for sushi. Serve with rice bowls or as a palate cleanser with seafood dishes. You’ll be thrilled at how easy it is to make this classic Japanese condiment.
Ingredients
  • 1½ pounds young, fresh ginger (*see notes)
  • 2½ teaspoons sea salt or kosher salt
  • 3 cups unseasoned rice vinegar
  • 2 cups granulated sugar (**see notes)

Instructions
  1. Wash the ginger and use the edge of a spoon to gently scrape away the skin.
  2. Slice the ginger as thinly as you possibly can across the knob (not lengthwise!)
  3. Toss ginger slices with salt in a colander and leave over a bowl or the sink for one hour, tossing again occasionally.
  4. Lay the ginger slices out on a clean tea towel or paper towels to blot some of the excess moisture from them before putting them in a heat-proof jar or container that has a tight fitting lid.
  5. Bring the rice vinegar and sugar to a boil and pour immediately over the ginger.
  6. Put the lid on tightly and allow to cool completely at room temperature.
  7. Refrigerate for at least one week before serving.
  8. Stores indefinitely in the refrigerator.

Notes
*You can test the age of the ginger in your store several ways. In young ginger, the skin should look smooth and tight. It should feel heavy for its size when lifted. If you scrape your thumbnail over the skin gently, it should peel away with little effort. You can pickled older ginger, but it may be a little chewier. **Use granulated white sugar for the best looking pickled ginger. You can use raw sugar, but the pink colour will not be as pronounced and it may add a slight caramel flavour.

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Filed Under: Condiments, Food Preservation, Instructional, Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Rebecca, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , ,

How to Render Duck Fat and Make Duck Cracklins

January 12, 2011 by 10 Comments

“Duck fat!  Hoo ha ha!…*”

*Like Shark Bait, Hoo Ha ha! from ‘Finding Nemo’.

“crackLINS! crackLINS! crackLINS! crackLINS! Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck. NO GOOSE!”  went the chant from my children who  -just two hours before- were making wet gaggy noises while watching me break down a duck into breasts, leg and thigh portions and a hearty pile of duck fat and skin trimmings.

Boy did I change their tune. Just look at those cracklins.  Can you blame them?

It’s now duck town around here, people. I’ve signed on for Charcutepalooza (the brainchild of Mrs. Wheelbarrow and The Yummy Mummy).  At current count, there are about one hundred bloggers participating in this group organized by our illustrious leaders.

Charcutepah-whah you say? It’s a mashup of Charcuterie (The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing Meat and the title of the Michael Ruhlman book of the same name.) and Lollapalooza (an annual music festival involving a great many tattoos and alternative rock acts and questionable behavior.)  There will be one project per month (all projects from recipes gleaned from Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie.  Meat is mandatory. Questionable behavior and tattoos* are optional.

 

*There are tattoo rumors.  Just how devoted are we to meat?  We’ll see!

 

It’s common knowledge that I live in. the. middle. of. nowhere.  This is by choice. I like living way out here.  But I do occasionally miss the easy access to some of the finer things I crave; artisan meats, cheeses, etc…  So what’s a gal to do?

  1. Nothing.
  2. Become independently wealthy and have Armandino Batali open up a satellite store in my barn.
  3. Learn to make it myself.

With the organization of Charcutepalooza, option 3 seemed the most sensible choice.

This month’s project is Duck Prosciutto.  The recipe calls for two duck breast halves (or one whole duck breast, boned and separated.) Our local meat market had whole, all-natural ducks for $3.89/pound ~or~ boneless, skin-on breasts for $12.89/pound.  Holy moly.  Whole duck it was.  After removing and trimming the duck breasts and beginning the process of curing them, I had most of a duck left to turn into food.

The leg and thigh quarters were a no brainer; salt, herbs, garlic and spices and into the fridge to become duck confit (post forthcoming).  This left a biggish carcass, a duck neck, a bunch of fat and skin, and some offal.  The offal became the teensiest and cutest little old pâté you ever did see.  The carcass and neck jumped into a roasting pan to brown up then become stock.  And the duck skin and fat… Well, that’s where the magic happened.

Slowly rendering the fat away from the skin and little bits of meat clinging to it left us the ultimate culinary two-fer; golden duck fat and crispy duck cracklins.

Duck fat gives you French fries that are good enough to make you religious. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, “Duck fat is proof that God loves man and wants him to be happy.” Cracklins are like refined bacon. Are you hungry yet?  You ought to be.

Let’s get cracklin.

For a photo-free, printer-friendly version of this recipe, click here!

How to Render Duck Fat and Duck Cracklins

Ingredients:

  • 1 pound of duck fat and skin trimmings (You should be able to get this from one duck after you have removed the breast, leg and thigh meat. Alternately, you can hit up your friendly local butcher for duck fat and skin trimmings.)
  • 1/4 cup fresh water

Cut the skin and fat into pieces that are roughly 1-inch in size.  Put in the bottom of a heavy-bottomed pan with a capacity of at least 3 quarts.  A wider bottomed pan is more efficient for this application.

Pour the water over the trimmings and place the pan, partially covered, over the lowest heat possible.  As the trimmings and water warm up in the pan, fat will begin rendering (being made liquid) and water will start evaporating.  This will sound a bit like a gently sputtering boil.

The white fatty bits will slowly transform into lightly golden brown, crispy goodies.  As soon as they reach this stage, use a slotted spoon to remove the cracklins to a paper towel lined plate. The process can take anywhere from an hour to three hours, so I don’t recommend leaving the pan unattended for long. When the cracklins are on the lined plate, sprinkle with salt, to taste, and set aside. These can be eaten as a snack, baked into cornbread, sprinkled over salads or hearty soups like croutons, or used just about anywhere else you would use crisped bacon.

Turn your attention to the duck fat.  For the clearest duck fat, line a fine mesh strainer with a piece of cheesecloth.  If you’re in a hurry, a stainless-steel fine mesh strainer alone will suffice. Carefully pour the hot liquid fat through the strainer (lined if you so choose) into a jar or other clean, food-safe receptacle with a tight fitting lid.  Fit the lid in place and store your liquid gold in the refrigerator for up to a year.  It will become semi-solid and opaque in its chilled state, this is to be expected. Use duck fat to roast potatoes, make the ultimate French fries, sear or confit meats, or whatever sinful tasks you devise for it.

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Filed Under: Charcuterie, Component Foods, Food Preservation, Instructional, Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Meat, Rebecca, Recipes, Snacks, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , ,

Thai Sweet and Hot Garlic Dipping Sauce

August 24, 2010 by 14 Comments

…Does writing two posts in a row with a sweet and spicy theme say something about me?

In actuality, I do believe I can blame this one on you all, you sweet and spicy wildcats.  I did, after all, put it up for a vote on the Foodie With Family Facebook fan phage. (Yes, I know it should be page, but I got carried away with alliterative abandon.) The voting results were narrowly skewed in favor of this addictive Thai Sweet and Hot Garlic Dipping Sauce.  Never fear, my salsa fanatics! We’ll be back on the salsa train tomorrow.  In the meantime, if you’re looking for my first salsa recipe in my week long salsa recipe series, you’ll want to click on over to my Record-Eagle column. While you’re at it, have a gander at my Peaches and Cream Time Saver Muffin recipe.  You’ll be so glad you did!

I have a confession to make.  My husband and I have allowed all of our children to learn and adopt our own long-standing addiction.  We didn’t just let it happen, we encouraged it.  In fact, we bought the strong stuff for them.  I mean heavy-duty.  The dangerous stuff that reduces strong men to weeping babies.  The truth is that growing up in our family it was all but inevitable.

All five of our sons are hot sauce addicts.

I do mean they are fully addicted to hot sauce.  For Christmas last year, my ten-year-old and eight-year-old chucked aside their main gifts in order to crack open the miniature bottles of Frank’s Extra-Hot Sauce that we had tucked into their stockings.  Did they shake it on their eggs?  Drizzle it over their breakfast sausage?  Eat it straight on chips?  No.  Any of those would’ve been reasonable, but no.  My children shook the bottles straight into their mouths.  On purpose.  And then repeated it until each of them had consumed about two tablespoons of it straight from the bottle.  Then -and then, only- they ate a couple pieces of candy.  And then went back to the hot sauce.

My baby.  My little, sweet, cuddly four-year-old baby likes copious amounts of Sriracha on his turkey sandwiches, in his congee and on his tacos.  My twelve- and six-year olds profess not to like hot sauce as much as their brothers, but that’s only because they’re choosy.  They don’t like Frank’s, Tabasco or Sriracha, but they both like -nay, adore!- Melinda’s Original Habanero XXXXtra Reserve Sauce.  Dare I confess that we buy it by the gallon?

Considering that I do often share ‘spicy’ recipes here on Foodie With Family, and that I often get questions regarding just how hot a recipe I just offered actually is, I thought it was about time for me to create a heat-rating system; one that gives you a good idea of just how hot something actually is.  A system that was more specific and universally understandable than my usual, “Well, my four-year-old eats it…” because the truth is, my four-year-old stuffs his face full of wasabi peas, cries, knocks his head against my thigh waiting for the wasabi burn to die down then begs me for more.  And so, I present to you…

The Foodie With Family “Spicy Foods” Equivalency Rating System

  1. Eh, at least it has flavor.
  2. Not bad.  This would be good for small children and it’s pretty tasty stuff.
  3. I like it. It’s a good all-purpose kind of heat without being at all overwhelming.
  4. Tingly, definitely packs a little punch.
  5. Hot, but full of great flavor.
  6. Oooh, the roof of my mouth is sweating.  More please.
  7. My tongue is on fire and I like it.
  8. I’m sorry.  Did you ask me something?  I can’t hear you over the freight train running through my ears and I’m pretty sure my face has melted off of my head.
  9. Where did everyone go?  I think I’ve gone blind.

If I were to put this in terms of widely available and well-known foods, it might look a little like this…

  1. A little freshly ground black pepper.
  2. Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
  3. Tabasco Sauce
  4. A generous shake of crushed red pepper flakes on a piece of pizza.
  5. Melinda’s Original Habanero XXXXtra Reserve Sauce
  6. Sriracha
  7. A bite of a fresh, ripe habanero pepper.  If you eat enough you will most definitely experience the ‘hot sauce hangover’.*
  8. …Crazy off-brand hot sauces that hardly anyone recognizes because they hurt and they’re expensive.  Most people don’t pay for that honest to goodness pain.
  9. Dave’s Insanity Sauce.  There’s a reason some states require you to sign a health-waiver when you purchase this stuff. And for the record, this stuff is off-the-charts for us.  With two notable (and historical) exceptions, we do not eat this.**

*The Hot Sauce Hangover is a phrase coined by The Evil Genius to describe the phenomenon whereby the hot sauce makes its presence known  on you causing your posterior to hang over the toilet for roughly the same amount of time it took you to eat it in the first place.

**These exceptions are stories for another day and another cuppa tea.  I’ll just say the first occasion was a pride-fueled attempt to impress someone by putting  Dave’s Insanity Sauce on my burger like ketchup. The second event was my husband trying to eat it because he didn’t believe I could’ve possibly experienced that much pain from hot sauce when I recounted the story to him. I won that time.

Now that we’re all on the same page, let’s talk Thai Sweet and Hot Garlic Dipping Sauce.  I’m going to say that it falls somewhere between a four and a five in terms of heat and it gets full-marks on flavor.  If your heat-preferences run lower than ours, you can certainly reduce the crushed red pepper flakes called for in the recipe.  In terms of commercial comparisons, it is similar in flavor to Mae Ploy sauce but as with most homemade sauces, it’s just so much better.  There isn’t much that tastes better with lumpia, summer rolls or fried spring rolls, egg rolls or chicken balls.  Use to glaze or brush on grilled meats or whisk a little together with grated fresh ginger, soy sauce, and sesame oil for the best dressing ever to adorn an Asian chicken salad. Just look at how gorgeous it is.  Don’t you want to drink a tall glass of it?

No?  I’m alone on this?  No one else wants a glass?  Alright, but seriously, make this.  It is one of the easiest canning projects you can try because it doesn’t require any exotic ingredients or specialty equipment aside from the canning jars themselves.  And believe me, it is worth the effort. For the sauce to reach its full flavor potential, it has to sit on the shelves at room temperature for at least three weeks.  This isn’t a moment where you can mix up the sauce and shove it in the back of the refrigerator.  It just won’t develop the same roundness and body. Veteran canners can skim through and get the information they need, but I’m going to talk this through step-by-step for the newbie canners out there.  You can do this! Yes, you CAN.  Oh man, I crack me up.

In order to complete the project, you need to be able to lay your hands on the following items:

  • Between nine and twelve half-pint (8 ounce) canning jars with new two-piece lids.  If you’re unfamiliar with two-piece lids, just buy a box of new canning jars from your local hardware store or Walmart.  They come -quite conveniently- with new two-piece lids!
  • A large stockpot or pasta pot with a tight fitting lid.
  • A rack that fits on the bottom of the pan to prevent jars from sitting directly on the pan’s surface. If you don’t have that, rings from ‘regular mouth’ canning jars can be placed facing downward sides touching to create a space between the bottom of the jars and the pan.
  • A waterproof oven mitt or canning tongs.
  • A ladle.
  • Paper towels or clean tea towels.
  • A timer or a clock.

For a printer-friendly, photo-free version of this recipe, click here!

Thai Sweet and Hot Garlic Dipping Sauce

Adapted from The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

Yield: About 9 half- pints as written

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup finely minced fresh garlic (Peel and mince your own garlic, please. Pre-minced garlic in jars just isn’t good enough for this recipe.)
  • 1 Tablespoon Kosher salt
  • 6 cups cider vinegar
  • 6 cups granulated white sugar
  • 3/4 cup (less if your heat tolerance is lower) crushed red pepper flakes

Prepare the jars and rings by washing on the hot cycle of your dishwasher.  Wash the lids in hot soapy water and rinse well.  Place in a bowl covered by two or three inches of very hot tap water.  Set aside.

Prepare your canner (or stockpot) by putting a rack in the bottom to hold the jars away from the base of the pan.  If you do not have a rack, use a fully opened vegetable steamer basket or extra rings from ‘regular-mouth’ or ‘narrow-mouth’ canning jars placed facing down with the sides touching.  Set aside.

Sprinkle salt over the minced garlic in a metal or glass bowl (don’t use plastic here unless you want a perma-garlic bowl!)  Stir together, cover tightly with plastic wrap and let it mellow at room temperature for an hour.  The salt will help pull some of the moisture from the garlic, so don’t skip this step!

In a saucepan, bring the vinegar to a rolling boil.  Add the sugar all at once and stir well until the sugar is dissolved.  Return to a full boil.  Lower heat just slightly so that it boils steadily but not really hard.  Boil steadily, uncovered,  for 10 minutes.  Remove the pan from the hot burner, stir in the garlic mixture and the crushed red pepper flakes.  Take care not to hold your face directly over the pan when adding in the pepper flakes as that can trigger some serious coughing and eye-watering, depending on the strength of the pepper flakes.

Ladle the hot sauce into the hot jars.  You want to leave 1/2″ of space between the top lip of the jar and the top level of the dipping sauce.  Use a ruler outside the jar to check whether you have the right amount of open space.  If you need to, use a spoon to remove some sauce or add sauce to maintain that 1/2″ of headspace.  Use a paper towel (or clean tea towel) dipped in pure cider vinegar to wipe the rims of the jars even if it doesn’t look like anything is on it.

Use your clean hands to grab a lid from the hot tap water.  Position it, rubber seal side down, directly over the center of the jar.  Place the metal ring over the jar and gently screw it into place until you meet resistance. When you meet resistance, tighten the jar until it is finger-tip tight.  (In other words, tighten until it is the tightness that you can achieve with your finger-tips, not with vice-grips.) The jars are going to be hot because you poured nearly boiling liquid into them.  I find it helpful to wear an oven mitt on the hand that is holding the jar steady.

When all of your jars are ready, set the prepared canner on your burner.  Position the jars (using an oven mitt to keep from burning your fingers or palms) over the rack (or steamer basket or upside-down canning lids) so that the jars are steady and in an upright position.  Cover the jars completely by at least one inch with hot tap water. Place a lid on your canner (or stockpot) and turn the heat on your burner to high.  When the water reaches a full, rolling boil (one that could not be stirred down), set your timer for 15 minutes.  When the 15 minutes have elapsed, remove the lid to your canner and shut off the heat.  Leave the jars in the hot water for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, transfer the jars (using a waterproof oven mitt or canning tongs) to a towel lined counter or a cooling rack with a towel under it. You should start to hear the “POP” of the lids as they form vacuums and seal.  This is a very good thing!  Leave your jars to rest, undisturbed, overnight.  In the morning, test the jars by pressing gently on the center of each lid.  If it does not give under gentle pressure or pop back up, your seal is good.  Remove the rings for storage*, wipe gently with a damp cloth or paper towel, label and store in a cool, dark place for 3 weeks prior to using.  Unopened, sealed jars of this sauce can be stored for a year.

*Storing your jars without the rings is a little bit of insurance.  When food spoils in a closed environment, the gasses produced by bacterial growth create upward pressure in the air pocket left by the headspace you so carefully measured in the jar.  If you remove the ring, any gasses produced by spoilage will push upward on the lid loosening the seal.  When you open a jar, if the seal is weak or there is no “schllllllooop” from a vacuum seal being broken, discard the contents immediately.  On the flip side, if you hear that lovely “schllllllllooop” and the lid is difficult to pry from the jar, you’ve done the job right!  You can eat your home-canned goodies, content in your foodstuffs’ safety.

Before opening a jar of Thai Sweet and Hot Garlic Dipping Sauce, be sure to give it a good shake.  There will be a natural settling of the product in storage and shaking is a simple way to distribute all that gorgeous garlic and pepper flake-age.

Filed Under: Canning, Component Foods, Condiments, Food Preservation, Instructional, Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Pique (Puerto Rican Style Hot Sauce)

August 15, 2010 by 3 Comments

Spicy hot is how things are around here.

From the weather to the produce to the activity level, everything packs major heat these days.

My garden is in a bit of a lull at the moment since cucumbers are about done and tomatoes are just gearing up, but the jalapeño plants are ready to go, go, go.  My love of jalapeños is well-documented.  And while I’m thrilled to finally get some homegrown hot peppers* there aren’t quite enough to put together a full batch for Candied Jalapeños. Because tomatoes aren’t really fully ready yet, salsa is out, too.  But I’ll be darned if I’m going to let one of those little green beauties go to waste.

*I have tried, unsuccessfully, year after year after year to grow hot pepper plants of various types.  I’ve ranged from mild disappointment -plants that grew and set fruit that never matured- to abject failure -plants that were eaten down to the ground by nasty, greedy woodland critters, and/or plants that I forgot to water.  And even in years where I did everything right -when I weeded and watered and pruned and trimmed and fed- it was still dismal.  This year we tried something new out of sheer laziness.  When we reached the end of space in the garden after filling it with the necessaries (cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, beans, radishes, lettuce and whatnot) we had no desire to break more ground for the wee pepper plants we had bought.  Instead of breaking out the pick-axe and the tiller, we rummaged around until we came up with several nursery pots, filled them with composted manure and sawdust and nestled the little pepper hopefuls in and walked away…  Whaddya know?  It worked.

Pique to the rescue. We’re talking about the unofficial national hot sauce of Puerto Rico.  I’ve not yet had the privilege of traveling to Puerto Rico* but I’ve heard from reliable sources that most households and restaurants keep a bottle or two of their own version of pique at the dinner table.  It is hot sauce in its simplest form; vinegar, hot peppers, and optional spices to round out the flavors.  Over greens, steamed or roasted vegetables or into soup, or *ahem* on top of freshly deep-fried French fries (not that I’m trying to lead you astray), a little drizzle of Pique is just what the doctor ordered.   And it’s a match made in heaven for frugal food lovers.  Because of the acidity level of pure cidervinegar, Pique is good indefinitely in the refrigerator. Standard practice is to top off the vinegar in your Pique bottle as it gets lower. It’s an almost never-ending bottle of hot sauce.  Rejoice!  The taste and the cheap are like peas and carrots here!

The perpetual advantage of making buyable items at home is that it is always customizable for your individual tastes. You can make it gently spicy or burn-your-face-off-hot with any combination of hot peppers.  Since jalapeños are what I have (victory dance!) that’s what I used. I tossed in a few dried arbol chile peppers for added kick and color.  And I went heavy on the garlic because I could.

If you have an empty glass soy sauce bottle or vinegar bottle that has the little removable plastic shaker top to keep things from plopping out onto your plate en masse, it makes a wonderful vessel for your gorgeous Pique. If that’s not handy, you can always use a canning jar or empty jar of some other sort with a tight fitting lid.  The shaker bottle just makes Pique-to-dinner deployment a more precise operation.

Of course, if you can lay your hands on pretty little bottles with spouts, that would transform your project into one worthy of gift giving.  Tie a tag with instructions on storage, use and refilling around the neck of the bottle and gather up the compliments because they will be heaped upon you. (You creative, tasteful, thoughtful, frugal friend, you!)

For a printer-friendly, photo-free version of this recipe, click here.

Pique (Puerto Rican Style Hot Sauce)

Ingredients:

  • about 1 cup cider vinegar (I like Bragg’s Raw Apple Cider Vinegar)
  • about 12 long hot peppers (You can use any combination of  jalapeno, arbol, scotch bonnet, habanero, cayenne, etc…)
  • 4-6 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut in half lengthwise
  • 12 black peppercorns
  • 1/4 teaspoon Kosher (or other non-iodized) salt
  • 1/2 a bay leaf

Other optional tasty additions:

  • Several stems of fresh cilantro or fresh oregano
  • a squeeze or two of lime juice
  • toasted cumin seed
  • a splash of rum

Also needed:

  • 1 clean, empty glass bottle of about 12-ounce capacity with a tight fitting lid.  If there is a removable plastic shaker top, that is even better! Remove the shaker top prior to filling and set aside. An empty rice wine vinegar bottle works very well.

Drop the garlic cloves,  peppercorns, salt and bay leaf (and any of your optional additions) down into the bottle.

Remove the stems from the hot peppers.  Leave the seeds and membranes intact if you want your Pique spicy! If necessary, slice the peppers lengthwise until they are a size that fits easily into the mouth of the bottle. Insert peppers (or peppers strips) into the bottle.  Use a funnel to pour vinegar into the bottle to cover the peppers and spices.  If your bottle has a shaker top, snap it back into place, add the lid and set out on the counter for two days.  After two days, store your Pique in the refrigerator.  You can top off with vinegar when it starts getting low.  When the peppers start losing their punch, use a chopstick to remove the peppers and start over!

Filed Under: Component Foods, Food Preservation, Happy Healthy and Wise, Healthy Foods, Instructional, Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , , ,
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