The Bitter Buffalo

The sauce.

You might not realize it right away, when it first hits your tongue. You taste citrus and smoke and maybe a hint of herb. It tastes good, real good, a lovely compliment to the morsel it accompanies.

Then the heat. It hits you like a train whistle, a sort of gustatory Doppler effect that grows and grows and ultimately bowls you over, changing in pitch and intensity over the course of ten seconds or so. Another minute later, your palate is on its way to recovery. Your tongue still tingles. Your brow is beaded with sweat. You feel strangely tired. But you also have a craving to repeat the process. Thus, another spoonful of the sauce on another bite of food.

You are addicted.

The perfect pepper sauce works exactly like I just described. It combines wonderful piquant flavor with a roaring heat that knocks you on your ass and leaves you clamoring for more. In my quest to find the perfect pepper sauce, I have tried dozens of commercial preparations and any number of homemade concoctions. Some were very flavorful, but lacked the heat I wanted. Others were hotter than sin, but tasted thin if at all.

So I took it upon myself to develop the perfect pepper sauce. The Bitter Buffalo Century Sauce is the result of my endeavors. I am sharing it with you because I have a young son who needs to learn one of life’s most important lessons: sharing is good.

That doesn’t mean you can have it entirely for free. Leave a comment if you make the Century Sauce yourself. Let me know what you think. And should you choose to make a batch of your own and decide to publish the recipe (in print or on the web), I’d appreciate it if you’d tell everyone you found it here. And if you decide to produce it commercially, please give me a call first. It’s my recipe after all, and if you make money off of it, then I should make some, too. Sharing, remember, is good.

Here’s how it’s made:

Start with 100 habanero peppers (that’s where the name “Century Sauce” comes from, duh). If you’re unsure where to get them, wait until next spring and pick up five or six seedlings from a nursery for a buck apiece, then stick them in well drained ground with good morning light. Water them and feed them, and with any luck by mid-August you’ll have an amazing bounty of habaneros with which you can do anything you want (of course, you’ll have to wait until next summer if you choose this method). Or, you can hit your local grocery store and buy them in bulk. Mine is currently selling them for $9 a pound. A hundred peppers weighs (by my estimate) about a pound an a half. You’ll still need to count them.

I got lucky this year because my father-in-law planted a bunch of habs as a border plant in his garden. They produced prodigiously. I used hundreds of them to perfect my Bitter Buffalo Century Sauce.

In case you are unfamiliar with habaneros, here’s a quick overview: they are just about the hottest pepper you can get. The unit of measurement used to describe the heat of a pepper is called a Scoville Unit, which basically measures the level of a compound called capsicum (which is what makes a pepper hot) in a pepper. A jalapeno, which you’ve probably eaten pickled and slathered on your nachos at a ball game many a time, is somewhere between 2,500 and 8,000 SCU (and if it’s pickled it’s probably on the lower end of this spectrum). You probably think of jalapenos as pretty hot, but they are nothing compared to habaneros. Habaneros measure between 100,000 and 350,000 SCU (that’s between twelve and 140 times as hot). Habaneros are also distinctly flavorful, with an intensely fruity flavor that belies the heat contained within.

And I’m telling you to use 100 of them in this sauce. Sounds crazy, I know, but you won’t think I’m crazy once you try it.

• Roast 30 of the habaneros, whole, on an outdoor grill. I used a grilling basket, which was useful because I could just toss the peppers whenever they needed turning. You can use a grill basket, or you can use tongs. Whatever works for you. Roast them until their skin turns black and crispy. It’s the roasted skin that’s going to give the Century Sauce its distinctive smokiness. Set the roasted peppers aside to cool.

Now would be a good time to remind you that these peppers are dangerous. Therefore, WEAR GLOVES WHENEVER YOU ARE HANDLING THEM. I cannot stress this enough. You can get disposable latex gloves cheap at the drugstore. Wear them at all times. Believe me, you’ll want them. Pepper juice on your knuckles will cause an uncomfortable burning sensation in your fingers that can last for ten hours or more. You cannot wash it off once it’s on your skin. Worse, you cannot rub your eyes or touch any sensitive part of your body with fingers that have touched pepper juice. I am warning you now: be very careful.

OK. I’ve satisfied any insurance requirements now. Back to the recipe.

• Stem 20 of the peppers and chop them coarsely. Leave the seeds and the ribs in these peppers – the seeds will give the sauce a nice chewy texture (folks say the seeds and ribs is where the heat is, so they may give the sauce a bit of heat, too; I say when you’re dealing with 100 habaneros, what difference could a few seeds possibly make?). Set aside.

• The remaining 50 peppers should be stemmed, seeded, and ribbed. Coarsely chop and set aside.

• By now, the roasted peppers should be cool. Stem these, and remove the seeds. Leave the skin – it will contribute to the smokiness of the Century Sauce. Chop coarsely and set aside.

• Peel and coarsely chop two heads of garlic. Yes, I said heads, not cloves. You should wind up with about three-quarters of a cup of chopped garlic. The garlic gives the sauce a savory aroma and contributes to its front-end flavor (though it does nothing for the heat – that’s all about the peppers). Besides, if you can't handle that much garlic, you shouldn't even be reading this recipe. Wuss.
  

• Find some fresh thyme (if you don’t grow it yourself, shame on you; the dry stuff will work, but you’re always better off with fresh). Cut several sprigs, strip the leaves, then chop them a little bit to ensure consistency. You should have 2-3 tablespoons of thyme, which will give your Century Sauce a lovely herbal aroma and will compliment the smokiness of the roasted peppers nicely.

• Heat about two tablespoons of vegetable oil in a non-reactive skillet over medium heat. When hot, add the garlic, stir and cook until the garlic begins to soften (about 5 minutes).

• Add the 70 fresh peppers to the skillet. Stir and cook for about 3 minutes, until the peppers begin to glisten.

• Add the 30 roasted peppers. Stir.

• Add about 3 tablespoons of kosher salt. I prefer kosher because I can taste the iodine in table salt, but I suspect it wouldn’t make much of a difference if you used table salt. Use whatever you have. Stir.

• Add the juice of 3 large limes, or 4 small ones – enough for about three-quarters of a cup. The limes will bring out the fruitiness of the peppers. They will also give it a Caribbean taste – appropriate as habaneros are native to the Caribbean. Stir.

• Add a half cup of light brown sugar. Habaneros respond well to sweetness (try them with peaches, or mangos… mmm!), and the brown sugar adds just enough sweetness to the sauce to fully round out their flavor. For an even more Caribbean taste (and to add a caramelized depth to the flavor of the sauce), use dark brown sugar or add a tablespoon of molasses. Stir.
  

• Add a half cup of vinegar. I use cider vinegar because I like the flavor of it, but any unflavored vinegar will do. Since the peppers are somewhat variable in their moisture content, and since the “juice of 3 large limes” might, in fact, vary significantly volume, I suggest you eye the vinegar carefully. You’re looking for just the right amount of liquid so that when you process the sauce, it comes out as a free-flowing slurry. It’s easier to add liquid than it is to take it out, so go easy on the vinegar at first. You can always add more in the food processor.
  

• Bring the mixture to a simmer, then immediately take off the heat.
  

• Carefully add the mixture to a food processor (I use a ladle). Be very careful here – if you’re the kind of person who is prone to splashing, then I suggest you wear eye protection. You do not want to get the Bitter Buffalo Century Sauce in your eye. Trust me on this.
  

• Process for a minute to a minute and a half. Add vinegar if necessary. Test periodically to see if it’s the desired consistency.

Now, aside from canning the stuff, you are pretty much done. Can the Century Sauce just as you would any vegetable: use mason jars and be sure to follow the manufacturer’s instructions. The Century Sauce is a "high acid: food (that's a canning term, evidently), so all you really need to do is drop the filled jars in boiling water for five minutes to ensure a good, sterile seal. Let the jars cool for 12 hours and you’re done.

The Bitter Buffalo Century Sauce is easy to make, super tasty, and incredibly hot. It is, in my opinion, the perfect pepper sauce. Make some, and give a jar or two to your favorite chilihead for the holidays. They’d thank you if only their tongue weren’t so swollen.

Great idea for the holidays - we're on it!