Recipe: Scotch Bonnet Pepper Sauce

the appetizer:

The Caribbean includes islands and countries as diverse as Cuba, Curacao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, French Antilles, Guadeloupe and Martinique, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and The Virgin Islands. Common foods like seafood, chicken and coconut, as well as recipes like jerk and callaloo, unite these islands into a heterogeneous culinary paradise.

The Caribbean

Scotch Bonnet Pepper Sauce

Handle Scotch bonnets with extreme caution. It's best to wear gloves when cutting and cleaning them. The tiniest drop of pepper juice on your hands can result in incredible pain should you inadvertently wipe your face or rub your eye. Enjoy this Scotch bonnet sauce, but use it sparingly!

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 onions, diced
2 ripe mangoes or pawpaws (papayas),
skinned, seeded, and diced to 1/2 inch
6 carrots, diced
2 cho-cho squashes, peeled and diced
12 pimento (allspice) berries
10 whole black peppercorns
4 thyme sprigs
1 ounce ginger root, finely diced
1/2 cup sugar
8 to 12 Scotch bonnets
1/4 cup cane or cider vinegar

In a nonreactive pot, heat the oil. sauté the onions until they are translucent but not brown. Add the mangoes or pawpaws, carrots, cho-cho, pimento berries, peppercorns, thyme, and ginger. sauté the mixture 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the sugar and Scotch bonnet peppers. When the sugar has become syrupy, add the vinegar, and cook until the carrots are soft, about 5 to 10 more minutes.

Purée the mixture in a blender, and strain it. Store it in a tightly closed bottle in the refrigerator.

Yields 3 to 4 cups

Recipe from:
Traveling Jamaica with Knife, Fork & Spoon
A Righteous Guide To Jamaican Cookery
By Robb Walsh & Jay McCarthy
Photographs by Robb Walsh
$16.95 / Paperback
The Crossing Press
Released 1995
ISBN: 0-89594-698-X
Reprinted by permission