I was given an entire styrofoam case of scotch bonnet chillies, a variety of chilli that is close to the hottest on earth. They lend earthiness and complex stone fruit flavours to dishes, if it is possible for you to get past the sensation of drinking lava. The only sensible approach to cooking an entire crate of these hot capsicums is either drying and slowly chipping away at piles of chilli powder and flakes, or making chilli sauce.

The simplest way to make chilli sauce is fermentation, and all you need is a pile of chillies and salt. Salt is required to provide the perfect environment for lactic acid bacteria, somewhere between 1 and 10 per cent salt by weight per other ingredients. At the lower end of the salt concentration, you’ll get bacteria that generates alcohol, lactic acid and complex aromatics and the higher end tends to favour bacteria that generates lactic acid predominantly.

Many recipes suggest “starting” the fermentation with a vegetable starter culture or fresh whey. Both work, but are unnecessary. There is generally enough wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria on the skins of the chilli to kick things off themselves. Garlic and any combination of aromatic herbs can also be added for to lend further complexity to the sauce, but I prefer straight chilli heat.

You’ll need
1 kg fresh chillies, whichever variety you prefer
10g of salt
Glass jars
Rubber gloves
A food processor
A fine metal sieve

Method
Put on your rubber gloves. They’re essential if you’re planning on processing large quantities of chilli. Here’s a graphic tale of what happens if you don’t have gloves on. Cut the excess stems off the chilli, but leave the green caps on.

Add the chillies to a food processor and blend to a fine paste. Add the salt and mix thoroughly. I don’t own a food processor, so I ran the chillies through a meat grinder set on the finest grind, which works but is not the easiest approach. If you have a smaller quantity, you can mince up the chillies finely with a knife.

Add the mixture to clean glass jars and press the pulp to the bottom of the jar. Seal the jar and place it somewhere warm for a week. If all goes well, it should slowly bubble and begin to smell acidic and slightly alcoholic. If it goes badly, the paste will grow a layer of fuzzy mould, at which point, I’d throw it away.

After a week, put on your rubber gloves then pour the contents of the jar into a sieve and press it through with a spoon. You’ll end up with a very fine, complex chilli sauce. Store in a clean glass jar in the refrigerator. It should keep for a few months. The leftover remnants of skin and seeds can be dried for chilli flakes or added to oil.

From 4 kilos of scotch bonnet chilli, I yielded almost 3 kilos of fine, vibrant red hot sauce. It’s impossibly hot; at a rough guess, it is two to three times hotter than commercial Tabasco sauce. I almost gassed myself opening the jars after fermentation.