green habeñero hot sauce, phase one

So today is gonna be a double post day, possibly even a triple post day, but definitely a double post day. Lots to do before I hit the road for New Mexico and the Six Motels travel document.

   
At the wedding I was talking to Chef (Roland) and telling him how I had about forty habeñeros in my garden at home.  He said, Monsieur, preserve them.  But of course I meant to preserve them!  I preserve everything, chef.  The question was how and what? 

      
Did I want to let them all ripen (they turn orange), or did I want to do something with them green?  Well, since time is a-flyin, I decided that today would be the day to preserve them.  Six Motels is coming soon, and I don't have time to dick around.  I scanned some hot sauce recipes on the web.  I found a cool one.  There are two phases, and the entire process takes at least a week.

 
The recipe I found said Don't use habeñeros!  Too spicy.  But that's what I had.  Most of my jalepeños have already been canned.  I canned them before flying out to that wedding.  Did them with carrots and onions, Mexican style.       

To make the hot sauce less hot, I cut all the habeñeros in half and carefully removed their seeds and ribs with the tip of a potato peeler.  The seeds and ribs contain most of the capsicum.  It's still gonna be wicked hot.  Note: be careful not to touch any of your mucus membranes until you have thoroughly washed your hands with soap and cold water.  

   
The recipe said to add 3 TBS of kosher salt to 1 lb. of hot peppers.  I don't have a scale, but I thought I had about a pound of peppers.  I only used 2 TBS.  3  TBS seemed excessive.  I also felt confident that 2 would be enough, perhaps even too much.  I also added one clove of garlic, sliced.

  
This is what it looked like after I ran the food processor for about a minute.  Just standing over it made my eyes sting.  Plus, every now and again when I was cleaning out the ribs, little squirts of habeñero juice shot onto my face.   I kinda liked that.  Smelled amazing.

 
I transferred the young hot sauce to a bowl and took this picture of it.  Then I transferred it to a 1 pint, wide-mouth mason jar to ferment.

The recipe I found said I should set the processed hot peppers to a cool and dark place to "ripen."  Ripen?  Ah, yes, my old friend fermentation, my old pals the lactobacillis bacteria.  This habeñero mash will ferment for a few days, after which I'll add some vinegar.  Come back then to see phase two and to learn more about Six Motels.  Thanks.