AllenOK
Executive Chef
When I started working Saturday, my boss told me that one of the things I was going to be doing was prepping the chili peppers he had ordered for the yearly batch of Hot Sauce. Now, I work in a country club, and we're talking commercial quantities here, so don't be surprised by the amounts.
Ok, here's the FIRST case of peppers:
[/url]
And the SECOND case of peppers:
[img]http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/3517/peppersauce2kw2.jpg
There were A LOT of Habanero and Scotch Bonnet peppers, along with a bunch that I couldn't identify off-hand. I'm counting my lucky stars that I didn't accidently cut through my gloves while I was removing the stems. The case of tomatoes in the background of that pic are also going into the sauce, along with a bunch of onions, about a hundred cloves of garlic, some basil, cilantro, and probably almost 3 quarts of olive oil.
What we're going to do is roast the peppers first, then simmer them until the flavors marry and the peppers cook down. Here's a shot of just ONE roasting pan, out of FIVE, full of pepper goodness:
And here's the whole mass of peppery goodness, being simmered in a "Trunion Skillet", commonly called a "Tilt Skillet":
And another shot of the "mash" as it's being cooked down. Since it took me 2 HOURS to clean and de-stem two cases of peppers, the roasting pans went in at intervals. The peppers you see floating on top are from the last pan, and never actually cooked down before we blended the sauce.
My boss decided we had to try the sauce out, what most cooks jokingly refer to as a "quality check", but it just an excuse to nibble. The boss strained some of the liquid from the Tilt Skillet, then cooked off some chicken wings, and tossed the wings with the sauce. Now, mind you, this shot is AFTER about 4 cooks and a couple wait-staff "sampled" the wings. I had 6, if I remember right.
And the finished product:
My Chef isn't exactly sure of how much Hot Sauce he ended up with, but he's estimating it's around 12 - 13 GALLONS! We'll be using this to add zip to food for a year or more.
Note: the picture(s) might not show up due to bandwidth limitations. If the picture(s) are not there, check back at a later time.
Ok, here's the FIRST case of peppers:
[/url]
And the SECOND case of peppers:
[img]http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/3517/peppersauce2kw2.jpg
There were A LOT of Habanero and Scotch Bonnet peppers, along with a bunch that I couldn't identify off-hand. I'm counting my lucky stars that I didn't accidently cut through my gloves while I was removing the stems. The case of tomatoes in the background of that pic are also going into the sauce, along with a bunch of onions, about a hundred cloves of garlic, some basil, cilantro, and probably almost 3 quarts of olive oil.
What we're going to do is roast the peppers first, then simmer them until the flavors marry and the peppers cook down. Here's a shot of just ONE roasting pan, out of FIVE, full of pepper goodness:
And here's the whole mass of peppery goodness, being simmered in a "Trunion Skillet", commonly called a "Tilt Skillet":
And another shot of the "mash" as it's being cooked down. Since it took me 2 HOURS to clean and de-stem two cases of peppers, the roasting pans went in at intervals. The peppers you see floating on top are from the last pan, and never actually cooked down before we blended the sauce.
My boss decided we had to try the sauce out, what most cooks jokingly refer to as a "quality check", but it just an excuse to nibble. The boss strained some of the liquid from the Tilt Skillet, then cooked off some chicken wings, and tossed the wings with the sauce. Now, mind you, this shot is AFTER about 4 cooks and a couple wait-staff "sampled" the wings. I had 6, if I remember right.
And the finished product:
My Chef isn't exactly sure of how much Hot Sauce he ended up with, but he's estimating it's around 12 - 13 GALLONS! We'll be using this to add zip to food for a year or more.
Note: the picture(s) might not show up due to bandwidth limitations. If the picture(s) are not there, check back at a later time.
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