"Sweet Pain" Fatali Mango Mezcal Hot Sauce

The Fatali Pepper is a super hot chili from the Central African Republic. It tastes a bit like its cousin the habanero, but has a fruity apricot flavor that makes a fantastic hot sauce.

This recipe was inspired by my cooking buddy, the creative pepper genius David Zheutlin, who is co-founder and sauce master at Trop Flavor Co, as well as a middle school history teacher and garden master/pied piper at The Brooklyn Youth Sports Club garden in New Lots.

This recipe calls for fatali peppers which you can easily find September trhough November at Eckerton Farm stand in NYC’s Union Square Farmer’s Market. But if you can’t find these beauties, habanero peppers will work fine.

It also calls for mango, mezcal and brown sugar. Wowza. Tasty stuff. If you don’t imbibe, you can leave out the booze.

 WARNING: always use latex gloves when handling hot peppers and hot sauce. These babies can BURN your skin!!

This recipe makes about 3x 5-oz bottles of hot sauce. You can use old alcohol bottles or jam jars too.

INGREDIENTS

8 Fatalii, scotch bonnet, or habanero hot peppers
1/2 cup mango, chopped into 1-inch cubes
1/2 onion, peeled and chopped
3/4 cup white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup water
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon lime juice (about 1 limes worth)
1 ounce of mezcal
1 tablespoon salt

DIRECTIONS

  1. Turn the oven on to a high broil, and on a sheet tray, lay out the first 4 ingredients: onion, hot peppers, and pineapple.

  2. Broil for about 10 minutes or until they’re all slightly blistered and soft, and peppers are bursting, turning halfway through.

  3. Transfer contents to a blender and add the rest of the ingredients: mango, lime juice, mezcal, vinegar, water, and salt, and pulse until the desired texture is reached.

  4. Fill bottles or jars with a funnel and cap.

  5. Refrigerate when cool.

  6. It will last in your fridge for at least 6-months.

Laena McCarthy