Car­ol Quash

Pep­per sauce goes on al­most every­thing we eat in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and for some peo­ple, food with­out some spicy flavour is con­sid­ered sac­ri­lege, which is not a bad thing, be­cause pep­pers are an ex­cel­lent source of vi­t­a­mins A and C, fi­bre, folic acid and potas­si­um.

There are dozens of lo­cal brands that line the shelves of su­per­mar­kets, are sold at the mar­ket or at road­side stands.

So whether it’s mass-pro­duced, made on a small com­mer­cial scale, or just for home use, there is al­ways a slight, medi­um or hot pep­per sauce out there to suit any need.

Over the past three years or so, I have found a cer­tain lev­el of ful­fil­ment in de­vel­op­ing recipes and mak­ing dif­fer­ent types of sauces, some­times in­cor­po­rat­ing fruits and veg­eta­bles to add a bit of ap­peal.

From se­lect­ing my in­gre­di­ents at the mar­ket to pour­ing the rich, colour­ful fin­ished prod­uct in­to the jars, the process al­ways leaves me with a feel­ing of ac­com­plish­ment.

So when a post about the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries’ free pep­per-sauce-mak­ing train­ing course popped up on my so­cial me­dia feed, en­rolling was a no-brain­er be­cause I al­ways like learn­ing how to im­prove on things.

The course was a project of the min­istry’s Na­tion­al Agri­cul­tur­al Train­ing Ini­tia­tive and ran from May 28–29 at the Farmer’s Train­ing Cen­tre, Cen­teno. It was in­ten­sive, cov­er­ing six mod­ules and a live prac­ti­cal demon­stra­tion of a ba­sic pep­per sauce recipe in ap­prox­i­mate­ly eight hours—a lot to take in, but it was worth it.

And there was a bonus—vi­tal in­for­ma­tion for those want­i­ng to go in­to the sauce-mak­ing busi­ness from pro­gramme leader of the Food Tech­nol­o­gy De­part­ment at the Caribbean In­dus­tri­al Re­search In­sti­tute (Cariri), An­drea Mul­raine-Ash.

“Cariri col­lab­o­rates with or­gan­i­sa­tions to pro­mote the so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of our coun­try. One of the things you recog­nise is the need to en­hance the knowl­edge of en­tre­pre­neurs in terms of food safe­ty and food se­cu­ri­ty, so it re­al­ly is im­por­tant for us to col­lab­o­rate with stake­hold­ers such as the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and or­gan­i­sa­tions such as Ned­co so that knowl­edge can trans­fer in­to build­ing a bet­ter and stronger econ­o­my for both the lo­cal and ex­port mar­kets,” Mul­raine-Ash told me, as we sam­pled the sauce from the prac­ti­cal de­mo. It was good.

My take­away

All pep­pers are part of the cap­sicum fam­i­ly, and the ones with which we are most fa­mil­iar in T&T in­clude:

• ↓Cap­sicum an­nu­um: bell pep­pers, jalapeños, pi­men­tos, cayenne

• ↓Cap­sicum frutescens: tabas­co, bird pep­per

• ↓Cap­sicum chi­nense: ha­banero, Scotch bon­net, con­go, sev­en pot, scor­pi­on

When mak­ing pep­per sauce, the type of pep­pers you choose will be de­ter­mined by the lev­el of heat you want from your sauce, and that is where the Scov­ille scale comes in—a unit of mea­sure­ment used to rate the spici­ness of pep­pers. This, I learned, was a very im­por­tant step in sauce mak­ing, es­pe­cial­ly for com­mer­cial pur­pos­es, as there is no one-taste-fits-all ap­proach. Some peo­ple may go for a more bal­anced or mild type of sauce, while there are those who thrive on the heat.

The Scov­ille Heat Unit (SHU) mea­sures the con­cen­tra­tion of cap­saicin—the chem­i­cal that caus­es the burn­ing sen­sa­tion. The heat range spans from ze­ro SHU to mil­lions.

Cur­rent­ly, the Car­oli­na Reaper is con­sid­ered to be the hottest pep­per in the world, rang­ing from 1.56 mil­lion to 2.2 mil­lion SHU.

When prepar­ing sauces, whether it’s for home use, to share with fam­i­ly and friends, or as a source of in­come, taste, safe­ty and con­sis­ten­cy are of ut­most im­por­tance.

Ba­sic equip­ment needs will in­clude a stain­less-steel pot for pas­teuris­ing the sauce, a food-grade ther­mome­ter, food proces­sor or blender, a scale, and a pH me­ter—an in­stru­ment used to mea­sure the acid­i­ty or al­ka­lin­i­ty of the sauce.

It pro­vides pre­cise, dig­i­tal read­ings on a scale from ze­ro to 14. For safe, shelf-sta­ble pep­per sauces, a pH read­ing of un­der four is ide­al to pre­vent the growth of bac­te­ria.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the use of preser­v­a­tives is nec­es­sary for shelf-sta­ble sauces, and these can in­clude nat­ur­al preser­v­a­tives such as vine­gar, salt and sug­ar, and syn­thet­ic preser­v­a­tives like sodi­um ben­zoate.

The high acetic acid con­tent in vine­gar helps pre­vent the growth of harm­ful bac­te­ria, while salt and sug­ar draw out mois­ture, mak­ing the sauce less at­trac­tive to mi­croor­gan­isms.

Syn­thet­ic preser­v­a­tives are typ­i­cal­ly added to sauces to ex­tend shelf life and must be used in prop­er mea­sure­ments for op­ti­mum ef­fi­ca­cy.

But, for the best out­come, adding preser­v­a­tives must go hand in hand with good man­u­fac­tur­ing prac­tice (GMP). I’m sure some of you may have opened a bot­tle of your favourite sauce, even though it con­tained preser­v­a­tives, on­ly to find it slimy or mouldy.

There are a num­ber of fac­tors that can con­tribute to sauce spoilage, among them in­san­i­tary equip­ment and work sta­tions, in­suf­fi­cient heat­ing dur­ing the pas­teuri­sa­tion process, and im­prop­er seal­ing of the con­tain­ers in which the sauce is stored.

It is, there­fore, im­por­tant to fol­low core GMP process­es, which should in­clude a prop­er work­space lay­out in or­der to avoid con­t­a­m­i­na­tion through move­ment; a prop­er wa­ter sup­ply; ad­her­ence to prop­er per­son­al hy­giene habits; wear­ing PPE (hair nets, gloves, aprons); prop­er waste man­age­ment; pest con­trol; and reg­u­lar equip­ment main­te­nance.

As Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, we are known for our cre­ative culi­nary skills—our abil­i­ty to make a de­li­cious meal out of just about any­thing. The same goes for our sauces. I am par­tial to us­ing fruits and veg­eta­bles in my sauces, in­clud­ing man­goes, pineap­ples, cor­ni­chons, five fin­gers, cher­ries, car­rots, pump­kin, toma­toes, pom­me­cythères, and pom­mer­acs—once it’s in sea­son, I make use of it.

How­ev­er, it must be not­ed that these fruits and veg­eta­bles can al­ter the pH lev­els of the sauces, re­sult­ing in a po­ten­tial food safe­ty com­pro­mise. So, dur­ing the process, it is nec­es­sary to keep track of the pH and take steps to main­tain a safe lev­el.

Whether you’re mak­ing smooth, chunky, mixed or flavoured pep­per sauce, it starts with se­lect­ing fresh, qual­i­ty in­gre­di­ents and ad­her­ence to GMP guide­lines.

It is al­so ad­vis­able to doc­u­ment each step for trace­abil­i­ty, taste at every stage, and keep at it un­til you’re sat­is­fied with the out­come. That’s how great pep­per sauce recipes are born and how they evolve.