How do you make hot sauces ?

As part of my new goal to minimise waste, I've taken to going through the fridge every morning to see what needs to be used. Today I found a tray of hot chillis, and decided to make some harissa sauce. My harissa recipe consists of chillis, coriander, cumin and caraway seed, paprika, mint, a little oil and salt, fresh garlic, and lots of water. Now in the past I've just blended all these ingredients together, filled a jar and put it in the fridge. Perhaps I'm getting older and more neurotic, but today I decided to tip the sauce into a pan and bring it to the boil first, before bottling. I had some concerns about the raw garlic sitting in the sauce for months, and have recently read something about raw garlic occasionally (ok, rarely) being associated with botulism.

Have to say that I didn't like the sauce nearly as much after heating as I do uncooked. Do any of you make hot sauces ? What are your views on boiling or not boiling before storing ? Prof Lipton, any views from the chemistry side of things ?

Thanks, Celia

pH is the key thing. If it's low, your sauce won't need to be ruined by heating. Vinegar is your friend.

FWIW, one of the very best hot sauces I've ever tried came from the garage of a guy in Ville Platte, LA. He made a few hundred gallons every year from peppers he grew himself. No cooking involved. Never killed anyone.

Stuart, you're probably right, but vinegar or lemon juice would spoil the flavour of the harissa. I think most of the garlic and botulism scare was associated with garlic in oil.

http://www.foodscience.csiro.au/oilvine.htm

Thanks, Celia

Chris Schlesinger of East Coast Grill fame posted his recipe for a home version of the East Coast Grill Very Hot Sauce, now that they're no longer marketing it commercially. This is a Jamaica-type hot sauce whose prime ingredients are habaneros and mangoes. I just put everything in the blender and pureed it, then into a jar in into the fridge.

Botulism is caused by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. The bacteria themselves are harmless, ordinary soil bacteria, but they release a very powerful neurotoxin that causes paralysis. A little goes a very long way and food poisoning due to this toxin (aka botox) can be fatal or lead to permanent disability. The spores of this bacteria are everywhere, but most especially in the soil. The spores are nearly indestructible--it takes prolonged cooking at above boiling temperatures to kill them. The good news is that the bacteria can't survive and reproduce if exposed to oxygen or to an acid environment. This is why canned vichysoisse or mushrooms are so often the cause of botulism. The potatoes or mushrooms have no intrinsic acidity to them, they bring the spores in with them, being creatures of the soil, the canning process drives off oxygen and then the can seals the air out, providing a perfect environment for the spores to hatch and the bacteria to grow and release their toxin. In contrast, canned tomatoes are never a problem because tomatoes have high acidity.

Garlic, like potatoes, has no intrinsic acidity to speak of and grows in the ground. So I would steer clear of garlic cloves preserved under vegetable oil, since the oil keeps oxygen away. Garlic pickled in vinegar is fine--lots of acidity there.

Any preparation where you puree the ingredients and then store it in a jar in the fridge is likely to be OK because you'll have mixed in lots of oxygen during the blending process. And if there's some acidic component to the hot sauce (such as the mangoes in the East Coast Grill Hot Sauce, or vinegar, or lemon), all the better.

-Paul W.

Paul, thank you, that's very very helpful. One thing - IF the garlic or potatoes or mushrooms under oil are contaminated, will cooking them kill the botulism ? And is botulism the main cause of what we mostly know as "food poisoning" ?

Paul, thank you, that's very very helpful. One thing - IF the garlic or potatoes or mushrooms under oil are contaminated, will cooking them kill the botchulism ? And is botchulism the main cause of what we mostly know as "food poisoning" ?

No, fortunately. "Food poisoning" is E. coli most often I think, or its cousin Salmonella.

Botulism kills you dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulism

F

Thanks Frank. The Wiki article is very interesting, explains why they've always said not to give babies honey. I used to wonder about that.

Do any of you make hot sauces ? What are your views on boiling or not boiling before storing ? Prof Lipton, any views from the chemistry side of things ?

I make hot sauces. (Probably no surprise there.)

I don't use any oil at all. I mainly make sauces consisting of chiles, garlic, vinegar, sometimes some lime juice, and sometimes if I am going to puree it, I add things like cooked chopped onions or cooked chopped carrots (but I never cook the actual sauce) if I've used mainly habaneros just to add some depth. Varying proportions of ingredients depending on what I have on hand, or what I am going to do with it. I usually use more than one kind of chile.

If I were making something as complex as you, Celia, it would be for immediate use in a specific context. Just lazy, I guess!

Salsas are a completely different thing in my mind, but I make a lot of those too.

Yes, I'm picking up on a theme here. Everyone uses vinegar or lime juice as a preservative. Cynthia, you use habaneros for hot sauce ? Wow, that's impressive. I had the tiniest bit of habanero once, and had to drink a litre of milk. It didn't help ! All power to you !

Celia, I checked the tube of commercial harissa I had on hand (hangs head in shame), genuine Moroccan made in France but with real Arabic script and everything. Anyway, it's acidified with citric acid. Maybe that's only necessary for long-term storage or packing, I don't know- I've never tasted the real thing en scene.

Mine's not really authentic Stuart. It's just how it's ended up after a few years of me messing with the recipe. I'll try it with some lime juice next time !

Thanks, Celia

How do you make it? Between you and Cynthia, I'm suddenly feeling inadequate.

Stuart, how on earth could you be inadequate ? You can do more stuff than all of us !

harissa recipe

Stuart, how on earth could you be inadequate ?

Er.... Stuart, please DO NOT answer that question. We don't really wanna know any details!

Well, I can't make your harissa until you tell me how, eh?

edit: Cynthia,

Stuart, how on earth could you be inadequate ? You can do more stuff than all of us !

harissa recipe

Stuart, just CLICK THE LINK she helpfully provided! Sheesh!

Paul, thank you, that's very very helpful. One thing - IF the garlic or potatoes or mushrooms under oil are contaminated, will cooking them kill the botulism ?

Celia,

If a food is infected with botulism, it's the toxin released by the spores that cause the food poisoning in the adults. This toxin is neutralized by boiling the food for about 20 min. The spores, however, are killed either by very high heat or by fairly acidic environment. The spores don't normally cause adults any issues because their stomach acid is acidic enough to kill the spores, but the acid does nothing for the toxin released by the spores. Babies have issues with the spores, since their stomach acid has a higher pH and is not acidic enough to kill the spores.

If you didn't add any acid to the hot sauce, then you could keep it in the fridge for about a week without having to worry about it any botulism toxins. Even if you cook the sauce ahead of time, Celia, there is no guarantee that you would kill the botulism spores, since they need really high heat to be killed. So you may neutralize the toxins, but if the spores are still present, then you would still need to eat the sauce within a week and keep it refrigerated for that time.

Your best bet is to make enough to eat within a week, and forego the cooking step. Or, like everyone else suggested, adding some acid to it.

I once went on a chile-growing tear about 10 or 12 years ago, and ended up one weekend with almost 5 gallons of fresh-picked fire, over half of which were habaneros and serranos. Jalapenos were the mildest of the bunch. I pureed them (my wife-at-the-time bitched for a month about how everything she put in the blender came out hot, hehe) with a couple of pounds of carrots and onions, added some garlic, a quart of key lime juice, and a quart of cider vinegar, cooked it for an hour or two, then canned in pint Mason jars. It was thicker than any ketchup, just as red, and had not a single tomato in it. One teaspoon would heat a pot of chili to the point I was the only one in the house who would eat it. I still have a pint in my cupboard.

Thanks for all the advice, friends. I've added the juice of a couple of limes to my harissa. Changes the taste, but definitely not in a bad way, and since I've never been to Morocco, I can just imagine that that's the way it's supposed to taste.

Robert, brutal sounding sauce ! I go chilli sauce mad every six months or so, make up a heap of different ones (all much milder than yours), and then have hot sauce on everything for about two months. Then I move onto curry pastes for a while..

Paul, thank you, that's very very helpful. One thing - IF the garlic or potatoes or mushrooms under oil are contaminated, will cooking them kill the botulism ? And is botulism the main cause of what we mostly know as "food poisoning" ?

I think that once the bacteria have produced the toxin, only very prolonged cooking will denature the toxin.

What we usually think of as "food poisoning" comes usually from Salmonella and less commonly from some varieties of
E. coli. In these cases, you eat food contaminated with the live bacteria and they start replicating in your gut. The vomiting, diarrhea, fever, chills, etc. are the body's reaction to this.

In contrast, botulism is caused entirely by the toxin left behind by Clostridium botulinum. The bacteria themselves are long gone. Botulism poisoning causes severe nerve paralysis and is often fatal. And it only takes the tiniest traces of the toxin to produce very severe symptoms.

The Clostridia are a lovely little genus of bacteria. In addition to C. botulinum, there's C. tetani, whose toxin results in tetanus (aka lockjaw), and C. perfringens, which causes gas gangrene.

-Paul W.

If you didn't add any acid to the hot sauce, then you could keep it in the fridge for about a week without having to worry about it any botulism toxins. Even if you cook the sauce ahead of time, Celia, there is no guarantee that you would kill the botulism spores, since they need really high heat to be killed. So you may neutralize the toxins, but if the spores are still present, then you would still need to eat the sauce within a week and keep it refrigerated for that time.

It's not the spores that are the problem. They're everywhere, although mostly in soil. The spores are dormant, inactive bacteria. It's how the bacteria survive a hostile environment. Once a spore lands in a suitable environment, it activates and the bacteria start replicating. And releasing their toxin. So it's the active bacteria that are the problem. The spores are, as you said, very tough and it takes prolonged high heat to kill them. This is why you use prolonged heat when canning something.

These particular bacteria can't survive in the presence of either acid pH or free oxygen. A freshly made pureed sauce is going to have lots of oxygen-laden air mixed in, so it's safe even if the preparation isn't very acidic. It's non-acidic, only lightly cooked canned goods (where the oxygen gets driven off), or non-acidic items stored in oil (which shields the contaminated food from the oxygen in the air) that are the problem.

Honey can have C. botulinum spores in it. The human gut has no free oxygen, but in adults the pH is very wrong and the bacteria can't grow. But in infants they can grow in the gut, the toxin is released and absorbed, and you have big, big trouble.

-Paul W.

I had the tiniest bit of habanero once, and had to drink a litre of milk. It didn't help ! All power to you !

I ate an entire freshly picked habanero once. It provided a very instructive lesson on the path of the digestive tract. I knew at all times exactly where in my gut that habanero was.

-Paul W.

Paul, again, thanks. As always, you're a (slightly scary!) wealth of knowledge, and it's kind of you to share.

I understand that the botulism toxins don't cope with oxygen, but am confused why that didn't solve the problem for the vichysoisse ?

The story is on the Wikipedia page for vichyssoise. The Bon Vivant soup company had a faulty canning process that let out canned soup contaminated with C. botulinum. The soup is not acidic and, once canned, free of oxygen, so it provides an excellent culture medium for the bacteria. And since you serve vichyssoise cold, you there's no reheating process to help destroy the toxin.

-Paul W.