Mango and Molasses Habanero Hot Sauce

A Warning From the Future

I made this recipe very, very long ago. I didn't calculate the correct amount of vinegar needed to make it shelf stable, so it probably isn't. Reader beware.

I'll probably update this in Fall 2020 as I'll have a garden again for the first time in a few years, and should be making some hot sauce with the hot peppers left at the end of the season.

Ingredients

Common

• 1 Extra Large Mango (or 2 medium)
• 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
• 3 tbsp molasses
• 1 1/2 tbsp cumin
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tbsp paprika

Super Hot

• 15ish Fresh Habaneros
  • Do not deseed
• 1 tbsp cayenne pepper

Edible and Tasty

• 7 or 8 fresh habaneros
  • Deseed and remove the inner flesh
• Equivalent mass of fresh red bell pepper (roasted)

Directions

1. Put on gloves and perhaps a respirator and goggles to avoid death by capsaicin
2. Peel and pit the Mango (naturally)
3. Place everything into a food processor
4. Whir about until it turns into some kind of paste (60ish seconds seems fine)
5. Transfer to a pan, cover, and simmer for around five minutes
6. Store in a jar and refrigerate
7. Destroy your tastebuds

Dear God Why

The year was 2010. The season was summer. The location a pot garden. A bell pepper seedling died a few weeks into the growing season owing to being weak or perhaps poorly taken care of. To avoid wasting the soil and pot a package of habanero seedlings was procured; one was to be planted and the other two given away, but no one came through on their offer to adopt the plants. Thus the garden ended up with three habanero plants. It is a little known fact that habaneros produce ridiculous numbers of peppers, and so something had to be done with them after the family grew sick of spicy foods every night.

A Justification for the Mild Variant

The initial super hot sauce proved to be tasty for a moment and then overwhelmingly hot. Now, don't get me wrong, I like incredibly spicy things, but the initial flavor of the sauce was rather nice and it seemed a shame to have it destroyed by the habanero. With the replacement of some habanero by a sweet pepper the flavors come into balance, and the sauce becomes a rather nice adjunct to things like chili or black bean burritos.

<Sonarman> WHAT??!??! you don't want to attend my roundtable on neomarxist deconstruction schemes for modern capitalism? YOU'RE PROPPING UP THE SYSTEM, PIG. <Sonarman> brb latte

Last Modified: December 1, 2019