Hot Sauce Piri Piri Pinapple

This chili sauce (hot sauce) is a bit of an experiment as I wanted a reasonably hot chili sauce that could also be used as a marinade. The idea immediately fell on pineapple and the combination with piri piri I really like. Picking out the kernels from piri piri can be a bit cumbersome as they are quite small, but it all depends on how hot you want the sauce to be. In my case, I spent some time doing this and thus got a not so spicy sauce while the sweetness in the pineapple also helps to soften. It is also not necessary to grill the pineapple before it is mixed, but I think the slightly burnt surface gives a little extra nuance to the sauce. In this recipe and in the video, I use sliced pineapple from a tin, which is OK, but a fresh, perfectly ripe pineapple is even better.

Making your own chili sauce is not particularly difficult and it will also be quite good. You can vary flavors and heat until you have created the ultimate sauce that you can proudly put your name on. So far I have made some sauces that I think have become really good, but at the time of writing I have not managed to get to that 100% perfect combination of spicy powerful flavor that I look for in the ultimate sauce. Although I think a chili sauce should have a real kick, I do not like many of the sauces you can buy where the strength largely consists of added chili extract - to just add strength and ignore the taste does not work for me. But with that said, I have a ghost pepper (bhut jolokia) plant on the way and it will be exciting to see what I can cook together for madness around it. Because even though its easy to just throw in more chili and make a sauce very spicy, I also want a good and powerful taste of other ingredients that should also take up some space.

I will continue to experiment and have lots of exciting chili varieties on the way home for next season. I have also invested a little in hydroponic cultivation, which works really well for chilis, so look forward to some new recipes in the summer of 2022. I hope to be completely self-sufficient in chili and based on how much harvest this years cultivation gave, I suspect it will not be difficult. But even if you do not grow chili yourself, I think you should try making your own chili sauce. In Swedish grocery stores, fresh "dutch chili", jalapeño, piri piri and habanero are common all year round. If my cultivation would be good, I also plan to document this and post more information on the website. My recipes for chili sauces will then also be updated so they contain links to this cultivation diary. I have high expectations for next season and I hope you who read this are also curious to see what I can conjure up for crazy combinations. I might try to make a little more specialized sauces that go well with a certain type of side dish or ingredient as well.

You can of course adjust the strength by adding or removing chili to taste. However, there can be a very big difference between different fruits and sometimes a piri piri can go far up on the scoville scale. Just remember that if you handle really strong chilies, feel free to wear gloves and goggles and stand in a well-ventilated environment to avoid injuries. A good substitute for piri piri could be fresh Cayenne in terms of heat, but for a mild sauce, you could use Jalapeño instead. If you grow chili yourself, there are of course an infinite number of good alternatives and I have used Vampire with good results.

The sauce lasts about 3-6 months in the fridge and unopened packaging, but still check before use and if you are unsure, rather throw it away and make a new batch of sauce. I have also written a bit about fermentation in general in this article.

In this recipe I use "white vinegar" which is difficult to find in Sweden. However, it is perfectly possible to mix ättikssprit 12% (vinegar essence) with the same amount of water (50% ättikssprit and 50% water) to produce almost the same thing yourself.