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flavor Hot sauce collection with good flavor variety and great colors

So this is too late for this holiday season probably, but I was thinking it would be cool to make a set of 4-6 different hot sauces that could be given as gifts. I'd want a good representation of different flavors but also really nice and distinct colors. So just throwing out some ideas and seeing if I'm missing anything really great. I'm staying away from the super hots because my palate and those of most of my friends peaks out in the habanero range of heat. Oh, and I'm not totally married to this idea, but I thought it would be cool for each sauce to have two hot peppers. A little more complexity than a single one, but not so many competing flavors that they get lost.
 
Red: so many options, but thinking red jalapeno and guajillo. Sort of a little more interesting Sriracha. Garlic, salt, vinegar, maybe beet juice if needed to make the red color pop if the guajillos mute it too much. Versatile, pretty low heat.
 
Orange: Habanero and I'm not sure what else, maybe manzano. Can apparently get both all the time at the local supermarket. Carrot, lime, salt, garlic. Tried and true but is it interesting enough?
 
Yellow: Was thinking aji amarillo two ways: fresh and dried (aka aji mirasol). Maybe yellow bell pepper if needed to reinforce the color. I'm guessing this would work better with citrus juices than vinegar. I've seen turmeric used for color too but not sure the flavor would work. Alternatively theres aji limon but I'm not too familiar with it.
 
Green: well I already used jalapeno, so maybe Hatch and serrano. Tomatillo, lime, salt, garlic. Too predictable?
 
Blue: ok probably not going to get a good blue hot sauce
 
Purple: I know there are cultivars that are purple, at least for some part of the ripening stages, but not sure how to get them or what to pair them with. So maybe go brown with ancho and chipotle and tamarind, then add blueberries and beet juice to make it more of a burgundy color.  This would fill a flavor niche and still look visually appealing I think.
 
Any other ideas?
 
tumeric goes great in hit sauce
 
 
this year my yellow got a variety of yellows (fatali, devils tongue, yellow brain, yellow bullet habs and a few others) along with 5lbs of fresh smoked pineapple, and was finished with yellow curry, tumeric & agave syrup
 
 
last year's blend (which gets all colors of peppers, smoked, along with onion, garlic in the smoker) got a bunch of fresh tumeric root as well (having a hard time locating some locally this year)
 
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i've also been making a chocolate with chocolate peppers, tomatillo, tomato, garlic, all spice, raisins, cumin, thyme, onion, cinnamon, cloves, cummin and finished with mexican chocolate and agave syrup
 
 
think of it as a mole inspired hot sauce.......comes out amazing
 
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orange - persimmon makes for an interesting ingredient
 
 
green - i smoke most of my greens, and add garlic, onion and a mix of lime/orange/lemon and agave syrup
 
 
my red this year got cranberries and ginger....finished with honey (i love a little sweet on the finish)
 
i have a smoked red going right now.......all varieties of red (maybe 12-15) went into the smoker along with garlic and black oxford & honeycrisp apples.......made a vinegar syrup using 4 gallons of cherries from my tart cherry tree, and am using that along with apple cider vinegar....will get some dark agave to finish
 
brown color--- chipotle is a given for that, but also....a pumpkin cranberry sauce.  The recipe is around here somewhere.  Rocketman posted the original recipe, I used it in some hot sauce classes.  
 
Blueberry (some nice red or yellow hot pepper) JAM!  or jelly!  There are several blueberry sauces out there witht he nice blue/purple color.
 
Maybe throw in some hot pepper seasoning salt herb blend......
 
Great fun project.  Have Fun and Post Pics...(next year....:lol:  )
SL
 
for a purple hot sauce....use some purple peppers, beets, blueberries, balsamic vinegar, black garlic, purple onion (roasted).....just a thought~
 
salsalady said:
for a purple hot sauce....use some purple peppers, beets, blueberries, balsamic vinegar, black garlic, purple onion (roasted).....just a thought~
That sounds like it would look really cool. It fits a criteria that I didnt mention, in that I'd like the color of the sauce to reflect the color of the peppers (so it would be cheating IMO to use red habanero and a ton of blueberries to make a blue sauce). There might be a farm local to me that grows Pretty in Purple peppers, which seem like they're pretty mild. No idea what the flavor of those are like and if they're distinct enough from the other proposed sauces. Whereas a chipotle sauce wouldnt have that vibrant color but would fill an obvious flavor niche.
 
Anyway, I appreciate the ideas. This is probably something I'm going to plan for a while so lots of time to figure out exactly what I want to do. And I will definitely post pics when all is said and done.
 
Sounds crazy. When the goal is color the flavor will suffer. Why is the goal color?
 
The Hot Pepper said:
 
So color is 1st?
 
 
Color is important only in that I dont want to make two sauces that look the same even if the flavor profiles are different. But I don't want to sacrifice flavor just to get a certain color. Clearly its possible to make a vibrant red, orange, yellow, and green sauce and get flavors for each that are tasty and make logical sense. The blue and purple are the ones that are a little less obvious to me. If, for example, I cant make a blue sauce I like the taste of, I wont make one.
 
Well, looking at all the different colored sauces already on the market, I'm voting it is possible to make a tasty sauce in any color.

PS...welcome jhc and I notice you are in Seattle. We have a campout every year. would love to have you and your family join us.
 
salsalady said:
PS...welcome jhc and I notice you are in Seattle. We have a campout every year. would love to have you and your family join us.
 
Thank you salsalady, though you made me realize I needed to update my location. I moved to The Couve aka Vancouver WA. Is your campout in eastern WA?
 
Seattle area- kanasket palmer state park.  I think it's going to be the 3rd or 4th weekend in August this year,
 
Here is number one. Peppers are orange hab and orange manzano. Carrots, onion, smoked garlic.  Lots of fruits too: mango, pineapple, guava, orange, prickly pear (last one was for color not so much for flavor). Spices: turmeric, allspice, coriander, just a touch of cumin. Acidified with lemon juice, citric acid, and a little ascorbic acid I added mostly in hope of preserving the color.
 
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It almost came out perfect. It's sweet at first but the combo of fruits and spices really make you think "tropical" not "sweet". And a decent amount of heat on the back end for the average palate. Most here would find this pretty mild. And you can really taste both the habs and the manzanos. The only problem: it's too thick. I meant it to be thick but it thickened much more than I anticipated after cooling. I think the problem was too much fruit pulp (maybe the guava jelly is the main culprit). If you shake it really hard it still pours ok but it's almost like ketchup. Next time I'll make juice or syrups from some of the fruit instead of putting them in whole. Plan is to let it age better part of a year, though I think I will be opening a bottle or two as a BBQ sauce ingredient in the summer.
 
Oops correction: there was no onion in this one, and the carrots were roasted. Sadly the smoke flavor from the garlic didn't come through and I didnt do anything to add more of it. In a next version, I think I would smoke and grill more of the ingredients (the flavors from a thin blue smoke vs. a char grill are different but complimentary IMO). Smoke the carrots, grill the pineapple, etc. I think this is 90% there towards being a very good, relatively mild and accessible, tropical hab sauce.  
 
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