Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce

Naga Bhut Joloki – Ghost Peppers

Adding fire to the hottest peppers in the world

The hottest peppers in the world.
The peppers you should fear.

It all started one beautiful spring day. My sister and I head to a local greenhouse looking for tender bits to plant in the garden. She knows next to nothing about gardening. I have a good 7 years of WHAT NOT TO DO under my belt, and like to think of myself as more of a brown thumb than a plant killer.
We’re cruising through large plastic saunas that smell like dirt, pretending we look like we know what we’re doing when all of a sudden my sister squeak-squeals, grabs a 6-pack of something that looks remotely like baby pepper plants, and stuffs it in the cart.
Me: “What’s that?”
Evil Sister: “Ghost Peppers!!! ~squeal~”
Me: “Huh. Ok”

Hell on a cookie sheet

I think nothing of it as I buy these baby hellcats.
I think nothing of it as I plant six pepper plants.
I think nothing of it as they grow and thrive, flower and bud.
I don’t actually put any sort of cranial effort whatsoever towards these damned things until harvest time comes, and I find I have more than 60 ghost peppers in my raised beds. Time to figure out what I can make with these babies. I do what any grossly under-educated geek does, and I look up Ghost Peppers on Wikipedia.
Oh. Sweet. Baby. Jesus.
Until that moment, I knew nothing about the Scoville heat index. My knowledge of hot peppers and hot sauce was vastly limited – about as limited as my tolerance of them.
One time? I smelled a fresh cut jalapeno and the entire lower half of my face became a rash-covered red mess of pain for 4 hours. Another time?  I accidentally ingested a whole Thai chili pepper in an Asian restaurant. My waiter started crying on my behalf.

It looks a bit like molten lava, eh?

To put Ghost Peppers in perspective, let’s talk Scoville for a second.
Jalapenos come in at 3,500 – 8,000 heat units
Thai Peppers rank at 50,000 – 100,000 units
Ghosts? 855,000–1,463,700 units of PAIN
(…have you ever felt cold hard fear creep slowly up your spine?)
There I sat with far too many Naga Bhut Joloki peppers, desperately scouring the internet for hot sauce recipes and finding each recipe only called for 1-3 peppers. I was screwed. It wasn’t like I would ever eat the stuff, what on earth was I going to do? I had the ingredients for chemical warfare sitting in my kitchen and the creeping suspicion that my sister was a cruel and evil human being.

Notice the rubber gloves?

All of a sudden I have THE MOST BRILLIANT IDEA EVER! What if I order bottles, make funky labels, and hit up the facebook gene pool? How many people would actually be brave/gullible/stupid enough to want a bottle of liquid satanshit?
…damn, people…
You did not disappoint.
I could not believe the requests that poured in for free hot sauce, and at one point I was worried I would not have enough goods to deliver to the masses.
Hot Sauce Hell Day arrived, and I began making the sauce. Dehydrate the peppers, check. Fire roast the peppers, check. Make the sauce, check. At no point was I ever foolish enough to be without rubber gloves or good ventilation, or too far away from 911 on the iPhone.
It took only 9 ghost peppers to make several bottles of that sauce. I decided to be kind to my victims, and added a generous amount of carrot to temper the heat (for those of you who have told me it was too mild, be prepared for next year. I will not be so kind). My nasal passage are still not speaking to me.

Recipe: Bhut Hurt Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce

Summary: homemade hot sauce, using fresh garden-grown naga bhut jolokia peppers. This version is greatly tempered to make it edible without a trip to the emergency room.

Ingredients

Bhut Hurt Death Sauce

• 11 ghost peppers
• 1 whole onion
• 1 bulb fresh garlic
• 4 large carrots
• 2 c. apple cider vinegar
• water
• salt & pepper

Instructions

1. Set aside 2 ghost peppers for food processing.
2. Fire roast remaining 9 peppers over open flame
3. open all windows and doors
4. put on rubber gloves and breathing mask
5. Place roasted peppers in large saute pan
6. dice onion and garlic, add to peppers
7. Add a touch of water, begin to cook over medium low heat
8. Puree remaining 2 peppers in food processor and add to mixture on stove
9. puree carrots and add to mixture on stove.
10. Add vinegar & season with salt and pepper.
11. Vacate premisis for 30 minutes
12. Return, remove from heat, store in air tight containers, and try not to kill yourself doing so