#Chilehead Heaven: Hot Sauces & Other Yummy Recipes From The Garden!

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This year’s garden wasn’t perfect, by any means, but the hot peppers- all of them in pots on the front patio of the Elkhorn Inn this year- did great! When October arrived, and frost was imminent, with the pepper plants still covered in peppers, as they always are, Dan did what he does every year for me: shlepped them all inside, and set up a “winter garden” in our foyer, with grow-lights, so I can keep harvesting peppers and herbs, and try to keep the plants alive until we can put them outside again in May! Hot peppers are more my “thing” than Chef Dan’s, and I’ve been busy making lots of delicious condiments and sauces; presented in cute, little Mason Jars, they make Excellent holiday gifts for the “chileheads” and “foodies” in your life! Because we had a bumper crop this year, I also froze bags of peppers so I can keep making more! Hot peppers and pepper sauces and condiments freeze great: I freeze them in ZipLoc bags, with as much of the air squeezed out as possible. My recipes are below- but first a bit on how I came to be the Hot Pepper Lady of Landgraff!

To paraphrase The Chile Woman: “It was a hobby that kinda got out of control”… I have always loved all things hot and spicy, going back to the age of 5, ca. 1964, when my dad started taking me to Dumpling House in Chinatown, NYC for lunches. We’d stuff ourselves silly with delicious, hot-and-spicy Sichuan dishes, and dip our pan-fried dumplings and scallion pancakes into a hot sauce he would make at our table from Chinese chili oil, vinegar, and soy sauce! We even took a little bottle of Progresso Gardeniera (Italian pickled vegetables) or Tuscan Peppers with us when we went to the Horn & Hardart Automat, on 42nd Street in Manhattan, so we could jazz up their bland food! I was an FFA Aggie in High School (John Bowne High School, the ONLY Ag school in NYC!), and volunteered on Kibbutzim (communal farms) in Israel; I have always been interested in botany and agriculture (Gregor Mendel was my childhood hero…), and desperately wanted to have a “real” vegetable garden, even though I lived in apartments most of my life… So when Dan and I bought, and then restored, our historic “Coal Heritage Trail” building here in Landgraff, West Virginia (which we opened as The Elkhorn Inn in 2003: www.elkhorninnwv.com), Dan made me a garden next to the Inn, literally trucking in 1000s of pounds of topsoil, and creating raised beds from old railroad ties… I then HAD to start growing hot peppers, and I (Very happily) discovered “The Chile Woman”: www.thechilewoman.com online: she grows THE most incredible assortment of chilies from all over the world in Indiana! She can only ship in May, and so every spring I order 12 pepper plants from her- exotic ones that we can’t get locally, like Aji Rojo, Suriname, Scotch Bonnet and Madame Jeanette (to make an authentic Jamaican Jerk Sauce), Vietnamese Black Dragon, Macarena, Mongolian, Thai Mound, Peter Peppers, (that look like, yes, little peters, LOL), Monkey Butt Peppers… and add them to The Great Elkhorn Inn Pepper Garden!

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Augmenting this, we’ve brought back pepper plants from our travels, too, including Datil Peppers from Florida that were FABULOUS- they are hot, fruity, and delicious, and their scent is absolutely intoxicating- I think Datils are my favorite pepper, actually! We’ve also tried- and bought- a LOT of hot peppers, condiments, and sauces, online, but also from around the USA on our travels, (I came home with a suitcase literally full of Tabasco products after I was deployed to a disaster response operation in Texas, and made a day-off excursion to Avery Island…), and from overseas, including wonderful and unique ones from Israel, Italy, Chile, China, Korea, and the Caribbean! This year I grew “Fish Peppers”, after reading about this interesting, heirloom pepper online: https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/fish-peppers-african-american-garden-article

I also started to grow some from seed, although getting hot pepper seeds to germinate can be tricky. and usually takes some prep work and patience… The first were Tabascos from a packet of seeds I got at the Tabasco estate on Avery Island in Louisiana https://www.tabasco.com/visit-avery-island/, part of that suitcase of Tabasco goodies I mentioned above. Then came red, hot, skinny Vietnamese peppers from a Kon Tum restaurant… Then some Antiguan peppers from an Antiguan chef friend, and others that “foodie-gardener” friends have sent me… Most recently, I successfully grew Carolina Reapers from seeds I got from Puckerbutt Pepper Company: https://puckerbuttpeppercompany.com/. It took me TWO YEARS to get them to fruit- we brought the pots inside each winter, and I managed to keep them alive- and this year they finally did, and I harvested well over a dozen of them from my two plants, and DANG! They are HOT! Carolina Reapers are known as The Hottest Pepper In The World- Smokin’ Ed of Puckerbutt created them- with a Scoville rating of 1,641,300 SHU, and when I made sauce with them this year- a really delicious Blueberry-Reaper Sauce- my recipe is below- I only used 2 peppers for over 6 cups of sauce- and it’s still HOTTER THAN LOVE!

One year we had SO many Tabasco peppers that I bought a little “aging keg” like this: https://www.amazon.com/American-Barrel-liter-Chalkboard-Front/dp/B08D8JTRSR and we made an aged hot sauce similar to Tabasco Sauce: we filled the keg with West Virginia Moonshine for a good week (Tabasco ages their sauce in Jack Daniels kegs), and then drained it, and re-filled it with the hot pepper-salt “mash”… and basically forgot about it for 3 years! And it turned itself into THE Most Excellent Hot Sauce we’ve EVER had! That was the first year Dan planted a sunflower meadow opposite the Inn, and it brought in the bees, and we had THE BEST veggie harvest ever!

We had so many Habaneros that year that I went a-Googling for recipes specifically for them, and we made two great ones for “chilehead” Inn guests: Pasta with a Habanero-Cream Sauce, and Biker Billy’s “Peaches in Paradise”, which is a Peach-Habanero Cobbler- recipes below. We’ve had “chilehead” guests eat hot peppers right off our plants, too! I have a huge, and ever-growing, file of recipes, but as every year our hot pepper harvests are different, I am forever seeking out new things to make! I always make several jars of Vietnamese-style pickled hot peppers, as they are so easy to make, and so delicious and versatile: they’re not only great with Pho and other Vietnamese dishes, but basically with everything! The recipe I usually use is from Mai Pham’s cookbook: Pleasure of the Vietnam Table: https://www.amazon.com/Pleasures-Vietnamese-Table-Reminiscences-Vietnams/dp/0060192585, our go-to Vietnamese cookbook for many delicious dishes. Basically you bottle them in a mixture of rice vinegar, sugar, and salt; I added garlic and fresh lemongrass from our garden to this jar:

I have also made Japanese-Style Hot Pepper Pickles, using the Momofuku recipe on Jaden Rae’s “Steamy Kitchen” blog that we use when we make pickled ramps in the spring: https://steamykitchen.com/4241-asian-pickled-wild-leek-ramp-bulbs.html

Last year I started making Hot Honey and Hot Pepper Jelly, (recipes below), and they are super-easy to make, too! This year I got a fermenting kit from The Culture Hub, that includes jars and special “air lock” lids, an air pump, and glass weights: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Fermentation-Silicone-Airlock-Fermenting/dp/B08JTMQ682, and I put up two jars of fermented hot peppers, including one from Chili Pepper Madness: https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/ and Korean-style ones, using a recipe from Maangchi, one of my favorite Korean Foodie Blogs:

Maangchi’s Green Chili Pepper Pickles – Gochu-jangajji 고추장아찌: https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/gochu-jangajji

This winter my plan is to again try to germinate some interesting hot pepper seeds: the Oaxacan Chile Negro, and other Mexican peppers, that I bought, dried, for the “Oaxaca Mole Project” I did with a foodie friend, where we shared pepper purchases and each made Mole; Sichuan Tribute Peppers from China, Diavoletti Rossi peppers from Calabria that I got on amazon for special, crazy-hot southern Italian dishes, and some I have dried from our garden’s plants… The one year I was successfully able to germinate a lot of hot pepper seeds, including the Reapers, I first looked up a lot of info online. and wound up creating a “germinating test site” on the dining room table! I chilled them in the fridge for 3 days (to mimic winter), and then soaked them in several different things (tea, as recommended by Puckerbutt: https://puckerbuttpeppercompany.com/blogs/insights/the-complete-guide-to-growing-your-very-first-carolina-reaper-pepper-plant , saltpeter solution as recommended on another site, and a solution of Kelp Blast and Myco Blast from Supreme Growers: https://supremegrowers.us/. Then I planted the seeds in Jiffy Pots (the little peat pellets that expand in water) in a covered, mini greenhouse seed-starting tray, and set it on a heating mat, under our Grow Lights… And I had great germination rates! For the last few years, I have been raising almost all of our hot pepper plants in large pots on our front porch, rather than in the garden, as it’s easier to bring them inside for the winter that way, rather than having to dig them up, and risk damaging their roots. In warm climates hot peppers are perennials, and they get bigger each year, so I do try to keep them alive all winter under our Grow Lights, and while I do lose a few every year, I’ve been fairly successful; I think I manage to winter-over 70% or more of them each year!

Below are my recipes- or recipes I have used and love- for some of the things I’ve made with our hot peppers; enjoy!

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT IF YOU TRY ANY OF MY RECIPES!

Blueberry-Carolina Reaper Sauce

This is, IMHO, an OUTRAGEOUSLY DELICIOUS “fruit-forward” hot sauce! NOTE: Reapers are INSANELY HOT, and I used only 2 peppers to make over 6 cups of sauce- I made a sauce that was delicious and hot, but not Insanely hot… True #chilihead folks would probably add more Reapers! My Recipe: 5 cups Blueberry Puree (I used Oregon), 3 cups fresh blueberries, 2 Carolina Reaper peppers, chopped, 6 tblsp. lime juice, 1 cup light brown sugar, 2 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 cup vinegar, 1 tsp. Kosher salt, 1 tblsp. Liquid Smoke. Bring it all to a boil, turn the heat down and simmer it; mash the blueberries, and simmer until the flavors meld, and then adjust it to taste- you can add more peppers, sugar, spices, etc. You can then puree it, or leave it as is with the blueberry bits, which is what I did… It is AMAZING on smoked turkey- among other things!

Mango-Habanero Sauce

NOTE: I only used 3 Habaneros to make over 5 cups of sauce, as I wanted it hot, but not “insane”, and “fruit forward”; a real #chilihead would probably use more peppers! My Recipe: Sautee 1/2 large chopped onion, 6 chopped cloves of garlic, a large piece of ginger, chopped, and 3 chopped habanero peppers in a bit of olive oil until almost golden. NOTE: You can also smoke the peppers first (see below), and I intend to do that for the next batch! Add the fruit of 2 mangoes, chopped, 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar, 5 cups of Mango Puree (I used Oregon), 4 tblsp. lime juice, 1 tsp. Kosher salt, a cup of light brown sugar, and 1/4 cup of date syrup (Silan). Bring to a boil, turn down the heat, and simmer until the flavors meld, and it is as thick as you like. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Cool it, and then process in a food processor until smooth. This is also AMAZING on smoked turkey, too- among other things!

SCHUG! A Super-Delicious Yemenite-Israeli hot condiment

I made our Green Schug with our garden’s fresh hot peppers, cilantro, parsley, and mint, garlic, coriander, cumin, cardamom, and Kosher salt. SO GOOD! Think of it as “Yemenite Pesto”! There are a number of recipes online for both red and green schug, but I did not follow them; I made it to taste, based on the Israeli schug I know from Israel and sometimes buy online. Basically: One big bunch of fresh cilantro, a bunch of fresh parsley (I used both flat leaf and curly), and a bunch of fresh mixed mints, with at least 8 cloves of fresh garlic, and olive oil, in the food processor, adding green and yellow hot peppers, and the above spices, to taste. Carolina Reaper & Scorpion peppers make AWESOME Schug!

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Hot Honey

Hot Honey– which got really trendy recently- is THE easiest & one of the most delicious things I think I’ve ever made from our garden’s abundance of hot peppers!   Chop up hot peppers into tiny bits, heat the honey of your choice in the microwave, and stir in the pepper bits, and then heat the honey a few times more to get the essence of peppery joy into the honey- and that’s it! It is DELICIOUS on waffles and sausage, and basically Everything else- and is THE best gift for a #chilehead or a #foodie!! You need this in your life! 

Hot Pepper Jelly

I made an INCREDIBLY DELICIOUS Hot Pepper Jelly from our garden’s Habaneros, Vietnamese, and other peppers, using this EASY recipe from Food.com: https://www.food.com/recipe/habanero-gold-jelly-132932 This is another great gift to make for the “foodies” in your life! Use peppers of different colors- we had green, red, yellow, and Black Dragons- to make it pretty!

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Italian Tuna-Caper Stuffed Hot Peppers in Olive Oil

I first had these in Italy, and brought back jars of them… and I have been “jonesing” for them for years! I’ve ordered them online, but the ones I’ve bought weren’t hot at all, and they need to be! So I Googled for recipes, and discovered that they’re quite easy to make! Some people soak the peppers in vinegar-water for a week, some people blanch them for a minute or two in boiling water, some people use them fresh and raw… your choice! The way I did it: Bring your choice of vinegar/wine and bit of salt to a boil & cook the hollowed, de-seeded peppers in it for 5 minutes. You can also add garlic and herbs, if you like. Most people use “Cherry Peppers”, but I used a variety of hot peppers from our garden, including Habaneros! The stuffing is really good Italian canned tuna, capers, and parsley, (or other herbs- your choice), and a dash of Kosher salt to taste, blended to a paste. Some people add anchovies, too; I did not. Process the stuffing ingredients in a food processor, (we use a mini Ninja for small amounts), until it’s a paste. Dry the peppers inside and out, and stuff them with the tuna puree, and then pack them into a jar, either packing them tightly, or weighing them down, so they will stay totally submerged in the oil. (You can use a glass weight, like the one that comes with the fermenting kit, OR a ZipLoc bag with a bunch of pebbles in it…) Cover with good olive oil, and let them sit in the fridge for a few days to marinate. (People also make these stuffed with Italian cheese and prosciutto; check out the recipe on Cooking With Nonna: www.cookingwithnonna.com; her shop BottegadellaNonna.com is where I got the Italian canned tuna, olive oil, and other yummy things from Italy…) These peppers are GREAT on an Italian charcuterie board, served with an assortment of cheeses, meats, olives, and good, crusty bread or crackers…

“Hot Mango” Cocktail

Rum, Mango Nectar, and Habanero Simple Syrup, with a rim of Scotch Bonnet Pepper & Salt! “Once a barmaid, always a barmaid”, LOL! No proportions, because you make this to your own taste! 🙂 Make the Habanero or Jalapeno Simple Syrup by repeatedly boiling jalapeno pepper slices in sugar water- keep boiling ’em, and you make candied hot pepper slices that way- also known as “Cowboy Crack”, LOL- and they are YUM-O! Mix up the Rum, Mango Nectar, and Syrup to taste in a pitcher, shaking it with ice cubes if you want it cold. Rim the glasses by dipping them first in water or lemon or lime juice, and then in the pepper-salt mixture. You can also rim the glasses with a hot-pepper rub… Then carefully strain (or pour through a funnel) the drink mixture into the glasses without disturbing the salt rim. You can then get creative and decorate the glass with a slice of mango, or a hot pepper, or a sprig of mint or rosemary…

“Peaches in Paradise” – Habenero-Peach Crumble Cobbler from “Biker Billy” Bill Hufnagle https://bikerbilly.com/

Biker Billy, (who cultivated the Biker Billy Jalapeno), created the “Peaches in Paradise,” recipe using canned peaches and a habanero, “which even a milquetoasty ex of Bif’s likes, i.e. it’s not as hot as it sounds”. (NOTE from Elisse: You can make this as hot as you like, obviously, by adding more habaneros to taste!) Serve hot or cold, or with cream or ice cream. Serves 8. CRUMB TOPPING: 1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 tsp. cayenne powder, 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg, 4 tbsp. (1/2 stick) butter. Combine the brown sugar, flour, cayenne, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl, and whisk together for 30 seconds to mix thoroughly. Cut in the butter until the mixture has a granular texture. Set aside. SAUCE: 1 fresh habanero, stemmed and seeded (leave whole, not chopped), 32 oz. canned sliced peaches in light syrup (drained, reserve liquid), 1/2 cup honey, 2 tbsp. corn starch, 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg, 1 1/2 tsp. fresh lemon juice. In a saucepan, combine the pepper, reserved syrup, honey, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon juice. Stir well and cook over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Stirring constantly, cook the thickened sauce. Remove from the heat; discard the habanero. BISCUIT TOPPING: 1 cup flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tbsp. sugar, 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 3 tbsp. butter, 1/2 cup milk. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, sugar, baking powder to combine well. Cut in the butter until the mixture has a granular texture. Form a well in the center of the flour and pour in the milk. Stir just until a dough forms. ASSEMBLY: Heat oven to 400F. Pour the sauce over sliced peaches and mix to coat the peaches evenly. Place mixture in an 8-inch square baking pan. Spoon the biscuit batter on top of the peaches, distributing the dough evenly, but not completely covering the peaches. Sprinkle on the crumb topping. Bake until the top is golden brown, about 30 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Pasta with Habanero Cream Sauce:

Ingredients – 4 servings: 1 (8 ounce) package cavatappi pasta (or other pasta), 1 teaspoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon butter, 1 shallot, chopped, 2 cloves garlic, diced, 1 chopped habanero pepper (or more if you like!), 2 cups heavy cream,1 large tomato, diced, 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon black pepper, 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese. Melt butter with olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add shallots, garlic, and habanero pepper, and cook until lightly browned. Pour cream into a saucepan, and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Stir in the ingredients from the skillet, along with the tomato. Mix in the flour and black pepper, and simmer until thickened, 5 to 8 minutes. Stir in Parmesan cheese, and remove from heat. Allow sauce to cool for a few minutes before serving over pasta.

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Smoked Habanero Rellenos (Stuffed Peppers): We used a recipe I found online for New Mexico Green Hatch Chile Rellenos, which we’d done before- Google, as there are many- but this time we used Habaneros! We first smoked the Habaneros on the stove-top (see photo), which mitigated some of the heat AND gave them a delicious smokiness! BE CAREFUL when you smoke hot peppers, as inhaling the smoke will NOT be a pleasant experience- and if they’re “super hots” it really could cause breathing problems!! For deep-frying the stuffed Habaneros we used a “whipped egg dip” (3 egg whites beaten to soft peaks + 1 egg yolk beaten for another 3 minutes) over a flour dredging- HIGHLY recommended! You have to use it Fast, or it separates, but it’s SO light and fluffy- almost “tempura-like”- and becomes “one” with the peppers; it doesn’t pull off like a normal crust would. You then want to deep fry them in batches. When they come out of the fryer, drain on paper towels, and then put them in the oven at 180F to keep them warm until the rest are done… Like “poppers” and latkes, and other deep-fried yummies, these need to be HOT to be Really Great!

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Habanero Poppers

Winner winner Habanero Poppers for dinner! These turned out GREAT! Panko is a MUST, and frying mitigates the insane hotness, so they are actually edible and quite delicious! Recipe for about 12 Habanero peppers: Batter: 1 cup flour, 1.5 cups water, 1/2 cup cornstarch, 1/4 tsp baking powder, Kosher salt. Mix all into a batter. Put 1 cup of Panko Crumbs in a bowl. Slit peppers and de-seed them, and then stuff them with Mozzarella cheese (or the cheese of your choice- many people use cheddar, a mix of cheeses, or cream cheese). Dip stuffed peppers in the batter, and then roll in Panko Crumbs to coat. Let them dry for a few minutes, and then do it again. Fry in hot vegetable oil for a couple of minutes until golden brown. Sprinkle with Kosher salt. YUM-O! From reading 16 different recipes online, LOL, I learned that drying them between the repeated dipping-&-breading is KEY; you want as much Panko adhering to them as possible. They are time-consuming to make, but they came out excellent- the best Poppers I’ve had since the ones at Brother Jimmy’s in NYC, back in 2002! (My “starting point recipe” was https://www.allrecipes.com/…/best-ever-jalapeno-poppers/ )

Jalapeno “Mummy” Poppers

Another fun thing to make- especially for Halloween- when you have a surfeit of Jalapenos, is a platter of baked Jalapeno Mummies! This was the recipe I started with: https://amandascookin.com/jalapeno-popper-mummies/ but I used only Mozzarella cheese to stuff them with. Basically you cut the jalapenos in half lengthwise and seed them, stuff each half with cheese, wrap them in strips of Pillsbury crescent roll dough, brush with an egg-water wash, and bake them on a greased cookie sheet at 400F for about 12-15 minutes until they are golden brown! I added the plastic eyes right before serving; you can also use candy eyes or black olives…

Pepper Surprise

Last, but definitely not least, I give you my Comfort Food recipe for “Pepper Surprise”! I created this dish in Israel, during a brutally cold winter in Jerusalem… When Nothing would warm me, or my tiny house in the Shchunat HaKurdim near the shuk (market), this did- from the inside! So now it’s my go-to winter dish, and my “memory food”… Hot peppers, stuffed with cheap mozzarella (which works better for this than the good stuff), and cooked in a pot of rice, sprinkled with Kosher salt. Some are mild, some are hot, some are Insane… each pepper is a different surprise!

What are YOUR favorite hot pepper recipes??

PLEASE tell me in the comments, so I can expand my repertoire!