Cornelian Cherry Hot Sauce
A fruity Cornelian cherry hot sauce made with fresh chilli, garlic and cider vinegar, balancing sweet, sour and fiery flavours.
Ingredients
- 500 g ripe Cornelian cherries
- 150 ml water plus extra as needed
- 1-2 fresh chillies of choice to taste
- 2 garlic cloves
- 100 ml apple cider vinegar
- 40 g soft brown sugar plus more to taste
- 1 tsp fine salt
Instructions
- Add the Cornelian cherries and 100 ml water to a medium saucepan. Cover and cook over low heat for 15–20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Lightly mash with a potato masher as they soften until the fruit has broken down into a thick pulp.
- Place a coarse sieve or colander over a bowl. Press the cooked cherries through using the back of a ladle, leaving the stones and tougher skins behind. Scrape the pulp from the underside of the colander.
- Add the chilli and garlic to a small food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Alternatively, finely chop by hand. Wear gloves when handling very hot chillies.
- Return the cherry pulp to a clean saucepan. Add the chilli and garlic, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar and salt. Stir over medium-low heat until the sugar has dissolved.
- Simmer uncovered for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the chilli and garlic are soft and the sauce has reduced slightly.
- Remove from the heat and carefully blend until smooth.
- Pass the blended sauce through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing it through with the back of a spoon or ladle.
- If the sauce is too thick, stir in water 10–20 ml at a time until it has a pourable hot-sauce consistency. Taste a cooled spoonful and add a little more brown sugar or salt if necessary.
- Gently reheat, transfer to clean bottles or jars and allow to cool. Refrigerate once cooled.
Notes
This Cornelian Cherry Hot Sauce is naturally vegan and dairy-free. It should also be gluten-free when made with straightforward versions of the ingredients listed above.
Adjust the chilli: Use ordinary red chillies for a moderately spicy sauce, habanero for considerably more heat, or a superhot variety such as Carolina Reaper for an extremely hot version. Start cautiously when changing varieties, as their heat levels vary dramatically.
Make it sweeter: Cornelian cherries vary in tartness, so taste the sauce after blending and cooling. Add brown sugar 5–10 g at a time if you want a sweeter sauce or need to balance bitterness from particularly hot chillies.
Add a smoky note: Add a small amount of smoked paprika or a smoked chilli such as chipotle. Keep it restrained so the fruit remains noticeable and the sauce doesn't become too similar to a BBQ sauce.
Change the sugar: Light or dark brown sugar both work. Granulated sugar can also be substituted, although it gives the sauce a slightly cleaner, less caramel-like sweetness.
Change the vinegar: White wine vinegar is a reasonable substitute for apple cider vinegar and produces a slightly sharper flavour. I wouldn't replace the vinegar with water, as the acidity is an important part of the sauce's flavour.
Storage: Transfer the sauce to clean bottles and keep refrigerated. Since this formulation hasn't been validated for shelf-stable canning, don't store sealed bottles at room temperature simply because they were hot-filled.