Green sriracha

By: Rohan Anderson
From: A Year of Practiculture
Makes: 1 litre
Photographer: Rohan Anderson & Kate Berry

I had a heap of green jalapeño chillies and I wanted to make something different from a salsa picante, so I tried a fermented sauce. Sometimes when you have to use an ingredient you have lots of you’re forced to learn a new skill. Fermenting chilli to make a sauce was never really part of the plan, but I think I’ll make a batch each year now. I may even take it up a notch and smoke some chillies before fermenting them. Who knows what might happen? I love that about food – there are no rules, you just give it a go. This type of sauce will take a few days to make, as you need to allow fermenting time, but like all good things, it’s worth the wait.

This sauce works just as well in food that you’d normally use store-bought sriracha for, but minus the preservatives. Next year, I’m going to try this recipe with red chilli and see if it makes a difference in sweetness. But for now, green will do the job.

Ingredients

Quantity	Ingredient
1kg	jalapeno chillies, ends removed, seeds in
2	garlic bulbs, cloves separated and peeled
50-100g	brown sugar
1 tablespoon	salt
250ml	white vinegar
1 teaspoon	xanthan gum

Method

Blitz the chillies, garlic, sugar and salt in a food processor.
Transfer the mixture to sealed glass jars, then once a day for 5–7 days, remove the lids to stir with a clean spoon.
Turn the mixture back out into the food processor and blitz again, this time adding the vinegar.
Strain through muslin into a saucepan, discarding the seeds and pulp.
Heat the strained sauce, add the xanthan gum and cook, stirring frequently until the sauce thickens. Pour into sterilised bottles and seal.
The sriracha will keep for a few months in the larder. Refrigerate after opening.