Calabrian Chili Bomba

Che Fico has a pretty awesome house hot sauce; made with Calabrian and Fresno peppers, it is incredibly flavourful while not being spicy enough to disqualify most of its audience. I would consider it rationally spicy; some people get spiced out by anything.

Recipe

Overview

As with most things I prepare, there is wiggle room and few absolutes

Ingredients

  • TuttoCalabria, Crushed Calabrian Chili Pepper 33.5oz/950g (Brand to hand, explore at will)
  • 2 lbs fresh fresno chillies
  • 1 head of garlic, roasted

Prep

  1. Lacto ferment the fresno chillies (~2 weeks)
    • I used a ~3% brine (3% salt by mass/volume, for water + peppers; most online resources recommend 3-5%)
    • The goal is to engage in anaerobic fermentation, so I processed the chillies minimally; I basically remove the (thick) stem so I dont need to touch them again, and to allow immediate brine penetration into the cavity of the chillies. If you have never indulged in lacto fermentation, you should probably read a couple different primers to get a handle on the situation. The TL&DR is that you need glass weights to make sure everything you are fermenting is submerged in brine, and then you have to prepare for venting; I have lids that fit on mason jars and associated air locks which capture pickle juice while allowing off gassing. You want iodine free salt to avoid undermining Lactobacillus.
  2. Blend the lacto fermented chillies with the commercial Calabrian chillie paste, a subset of your brine (to your personal taste; I actually used all my brine) and the roasted garlic. Once blended, move this into another vessel which can be conveniently burped. As readily anticipated, once you add non-fermented Calabrian chillie pepper to the fermented Fresnos, a secondary ferment kicks off and the bottle will need to be burped. At this point in time, I am relying on the pre-existing galloping lacto fermentation to grab the reins and carry on consuming the recently added Calabrian pepper. I was burping the bottle on a daily basis and had to do so given the pressures that were accruing.