Quick and Easy Trinidad Lime Pepper Sauce

I cannot live without pepper in my life! So this pepper sauce was developed to meet all the flavour requirements of my family, with just the right amount of lime.

Delicious with just the right amount of lime flavour.

I was never a fan of eating with pepper sauce; instead I prefer cooking the food with pepper or eating some raw pepper on top. However, when it comes to bread and cheese, a good lime pepper sauce is essential in my books.

Let me take you back to my wedding weekend. I had a traditional 3 days Hindu wedding, where the Friday night, known as the Maticoor Night, was done in a big way. All neighbours, friends and family were invited to this. So on this night we had tons of prayers food and there was one other condiment that everyone talked about- that PEPPER SAUCE! It was so good with just the right amount of flavours. So I had to find out where this came from and learn to make it myself. Apparently it was my aunt’s mom who made it. And luckily for me my Aunty knew exactly how to make it! Aunty Shamilla, if it wasn’t for you I would have never been taught to make this so thank you so much for sharing!

For this recipe, I like my sauce slightly chunky, so I use a food processor or a mini chopper to chop my ingredients together instead of a blender. You can use your blender, but keep in mind that you may have to alter your vinegar quantity, and salt. You will get about 1.5 cups of pepper sauce with this recipe and it can be doubled if you want more. This is an ideal amount for my small family and I just make more when needed. It can also be altered for your preference. So let’s say you think it’s too hot for your liking, you can tone it down by adding a piece of chopped carrot to the mixture. If you like more lime flavour, then add more lime juice or lime peel.

Learning Time
Why use Vinegar?
Vinegar is made of acetic acid and is used as a preservative for foods and sauces. The acidic properties of vinegar results in it having a low pH which inhibits the growth of microorganisms such as bacteria, yeast and mould. Food spoilage is caused as a result of the presence and growth of these organisms. By submerging foods in an acidic environment like vinegar (as with this pepper sauce), we can stop these microorganisms from growing in the food and effectively make it safe to eat for much longer periods of time. This process is also known as pickling.

Ingredient:

11 medium sized hot peppers- habenero, scotch bonnet, scorpion, whichever you have on hand.

2 garlic cloves

1 tablespoon lime juice

1/4 of a lime peel, boiled and chopped in small pieces- about 1/2 to 1/4 teaspoon when chopped

1 tablespoon salt

1/2 cup vinegar

My star ingredients. The reason why I don’t like to add Bhandania/chadon beni/culantro here is because it gets discoloured with the vinegar.

Method:

Juice your lime until you get about 1 tablespoon of juice. Set the juice aside.

Place the squeezed lime halves in a small pot with water and boil for 5 minutes and leave to cool. The boiling removes the bitter taste in the rind.

Prepare your peppers: Put on some latex gloves and cut each pepper in half. Add them to your food processor. If you don’t have latex gloves, then place your hands in a plastic bag to hold the pepper so that your fingers won’t come into contact with the peppers directly. My mom was a nurse so we always have latex gloves on hand.
Peel your garlic gloves and add to the processor.
Process your peppers and garlic until finely chopped.

The peppers will be of a course texture.

Add this to your bottle or storage container using a spoon.
Add the reserved lime juice, salt and vinegar. Stir to combine.
Take one of your cooled lime half. Slice it in half (equivalent to 1/4 of a lime)and finely chop using a sharp knife. This should be about 1/4 teaspoon and will depend on the size of your lime. My lime was about 1 inch in diameter. You can add this to your food processor instead, but when I tried this, it did not chop up as finely as I wanted.
Add about 1/4 teaspoon of lime peel pieces to the remaining sauce and stir. If you want a more potent lime flavour, add the other 1/4 teaspoon.
This can stay out at room temperature for some weeks- no need to place in the fridge due to the vinegar.

And that’s it! Enjoy with anything!