Jennifer Trainer Thompson: Hoodoo Voodoo Hot Sauce

My favorite summer recipe is Hoodoo Voodoo Hot Sauce, which I was cooking up in Storey’s tent last weekend at the Wilco Solid Sound Festival in the Berkshires (see photo below). Named after the Woody Guthrie classic that the band Wilco soars with, Hoodoo Voodoo Hot Sauce is a lively Caribbean-style sauce that’s perfect for enlivening gazpacho or dousing fried clams or fritters. (Hint: This bold sauce is so flavorful and aromatic that you should try the following: Put a cup of this sauce in a plastic bag along with four to six chicken breasts, and marinate for 4 to 6 hours. When you grill the chicken, you’ll find that it has retained the lovely aromatic flavor without the searing heat. If you want to heat things up, just serve fresh sauce on the side.)

Hoodoo Voodoo Caribbean Hot Sauce 

If truth be told, my favorite hot sauce is a Caribbean-style sauce, which combines tropical fruits with the fiery habanero or Scotch bonnet chile. I discovered it while sailing in the Virgin Islands and have been addicted to it ever since. There is always a West Indian hot sauce by my stove, ready to shake into stews, scrambled eggs, rice and beans; you name it, I’ll shake it.

Ingredients
5 fresh Scotch bonnet or habanero chiles (preferably yellow, red, or orange), stemmed and seeded
1 ripe papaya or mango, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped
1 small yellow onion, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
½ cup cider vinegar
½ cup water
2 teaspoons honey
1 tablespoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
½ teaspoon salt
Pinch ground cumin
Pinch ground coriander

Directions

1. Add all of the ingredients to a blender, and puree until just smooth, taking care not to aerate the mixture too much. 
2. Pour into a nonreactive saucepan, bring to a boil, then lower the heat, and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.
3. Let cool, then pour into bottles. Refrigerated, this sauce will keep for 6 weeks. If storing for a long period, see Storage Tip instructions.

Makes 2 cups

Recipe excerpted from Hot Sauce! © 2012 by Jennifer Trainer Thompson. All rights reserved.

Try this sauce in:

• Spicy Pineapple Margarita (this recipe is coming soon to InsideStorey)
• Atomic Pickles 
• Tuna Ceviche
• Yucatán Lime Soup
• Garlic Grilled Clams

(Recipes for the above can be found in Hot Sauce!)

More recipes from Hot Sauce! on our blog:
Picante Sauce
Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa
She Simmers
Prairie Fire #3
Sweet Basil Habanero Bloody Mary

Jennifer Trainer Thompson is the author of numerous cookbooks, including Hot Sauce! and The Fresh Egg Cookbook. She has been featured in Martha Stewart Living magazine and has written for Yankee, Travel & Leisure, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and other publications. Thompson is the chef/creator of Jump Up and Kiss Me, an all-natural line of spicy foods. She lives in Western Massachusetts with her family and a flock of backyard chickens.