Home-made Pineapple Hot Sauce

Ingredients

1 tbsp Coconut Oil

2-3 Garlic Cloves (crushed with the back of knife)
Thumb-size piece Fresh Root Ginger (diced)
Half a Red Onion (roughly chopped)
1 Large Fresh Red Chilli (halved)
3 Chipotle Chillies (halved)
100g Fresh Pineapple
10-15 Cherry Tomatoes
5 tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
Juice of 1 Lime
½ tsp Five Spice
Freshly Ground Sea Salt to season

Method

1. Add oil to frying pan. When heated, add all ingredients except vinegar, lime juice, five spice and seasoning. 
2. Cook for 10-15 minutes over medium heat, until browned and softened. Feel free to add a bit of water if it becomes too dry. Just before the end of the cooking process, add the vinegar. Don’t move the mix around too much in the pan, let it stick and get caramelised, just give it a quick stir now and again. 
3. Place all ingredients, including the seasoning in a blender and whizz until smooth. If needs be, add a few splashes of water. 
4. Taste and season/add more lime according to your own taste. 

Store in fridge – consume within 4-6 weeks.

This is something I’ve wanted to make for a while now! I’m a huge fan of hot food and am consistently the guy asking for extra-hot sauce in any Mexican restaurant. The difference between this and a traditional hot sauce is the addition of the pineapple to give this sauce a sweet kick. If you want to make it sweeter, you can add more pineapple or a tablespoon or two of honey. Obviously if you’re a real hot-head, you can add more chillies, or hotter chillies, such as habaneros. Habaneros are especially great in this sauce because they have a sweeter flavour when cooked.

I actually made two slightly different batches this time, one with extra pineapple and the five spice powder, and one without. The five spice makes the sauce smell fantastic, and gives it a slightly more Caribbean twist. Just play around with whatever suits your personal taste. 

Serve this sauce with tacos, fajitas and everything Mexican, for something slightly different, serve it with a vegetable frittata or add a spoonful to some plain boiled rice.