In the lull before the growing season, what to do? Two out of three seed orders have arrived but it seems silly to start chitting without the other seeds. Email query sent, the thumbs are twiddling again. Ahhh, the fermented chillies! That’s what we can do.

At the end of the harvest season we collected and bottled a range of chillies. Not vast quantities but enough to play with. One jar of whole Prairie Fire chillies (plus garlic, turmeric and ginger slices). The chillies were too hot, too small and too seedy to be of much use.  Another jar filled with deseeded red Scotch Bonnet chillies and a last jar of mixed peppers (Aji Limon, Bulgarian Carrot, Fresno, Big Bomb & Jalapeños) all deseeded with garlic. Salt and water was added and the ferment was ON!

The jars were left on the south facing windowsill. They made a beautiful display. Then things got a bit lively. Fizzing and overflowing despite the lids being screwed on super tight. Saucers were put under the jars and they were left to continue their journey. They’ve been sitting there since October, quietly bubbling, fermenting and developing a wonderful flavour.

It turns out that making a fermented hot sauce is not tricky at all. Strain the contents of the jar. Whizz up the chillies with a bit of the fermenting water, some apple cider vinegar and this case, some honey. Other flavours can be added at any stage of the process. Cook it up and/or can it if you want it to halt the fermenting process there & keep outside of the fridge. If not, it will keep for a month or so in the fridge, and will continue to ferment.

And the end result? Fermented super hot Prairie Fire chillies make…yes you guessed it…a super hot chilli sauce. The mixed peppers made a more orangey hued sauce. Hardly any heat (although maybe my mouth was numb from tasting the Prairie Fire sauce?) Yummy all round flavour. The Scotch Bonnet sauce is beautiful. An almost glowing scarlet sauce with a stunning flavour. Hot, yes, but the flavour is worth it. Off to order some more Scotch Bonnet seeds for this year, despite the Chinense category being over subscribed already.