Seriously, who makes their own red chili sauce? Even I think it’s a little crazy. With the gazillion choices of chili that we have on our supermarket shelves you’d think I’d be satisfied.
In this country we’re multi-ethnically blessed with this. Today there is nothing as American as sriracha. This ubiquitous sauce that now have potato chips with its flavor was developed by a Vietnamese entrepreneur making a Thai chili sauce. What can be more American than that? We not only eat it with our pho, which we first started sriracha with. Now it also goes with hamburgers, chicken, bacon. And ice cream. You know you’ve made it if it goes with ice cream. BuzzFeed reports sriracha goes with everything.
To me, it’s even more American than Texas Pete Hot Sauce which is not from Texas at all, but from Garner, North Carolina. I know because my daughter lives near Garner and they are proud of this. And I haven’t even gone down the aisle of the International Market near where my daughter lives which has an amazing array of Hispanic chili products.
And yet with all these sauces I still must have my grandmother’s red chili sauce when I eat crab. I guess I can eat crab with vinegar and ginger, or melted butter. But it’s not tradition. It’s not comfort food if I can’t eat steamed crab with my Popo’s chili sauce.
And so I make my own.
Because when I do it brings back wonderful memories of Popo teaching me how to make it. It brings me back to her giving me instructions from across a room–me stirring a huge pot of chili in the kitchen and she sitting on her bed!
When Popo started to get too old to climb the stairs she moved her bed from upstairs in to the extension she built at the back of their row house in Serangoon Garden Estate in Singapore. The extension doubled the living area of her downstairs living and dining area. She partitioned one corner of it with shelves and set up her kitchen there.
Next to the kitchen area was the large round dining table where she happily cooked for all her children and grandchildren. On the other far corner she placed her comfortable queen sized bed, which always had with clean sheets. Next to it was an office desk and she used the desk and drawers like her bedside table.
These were the drawers that I found her, one day about 35 years ago, rummaging through and looking at photographs and love letters that my grandfather wrote to her. This moment is engraved in my memory; it inspired me to write about her life in my first book, To My Heart With Smiles, more than 30 years ago.
My popo was very strict with her children but she was the gentlest soul with me and my siblings. Maybe it was because we were her first grandchildren. Maybe because we were raised to be filial and loving towards her. Maybe because as we got older we were good company for her.
It’s funny what grandmothers do freely with grandchildren. I can appreciate that bond now that I have Aiden. One day, out of the blue when I was freaked out by a cockroach (and they are huge in Singapore) she caught it in her hand and showed me there was nothing to be squeamish about. She pinched off its head and pulled out its belly. “This is what we used to do as kids,” she said. “This poor cockroach hasn’t eaten. Look at the empty sac!” Eeeew. I was both horrified and impressed.
Popo taught me to cook. She taught me to clean crab, prawns and squid and how to gut and scale fish. She taught me to pluck feathers off a chicken and how to clean chicken feet.
She drilled into me the discipline of cleaning up as I progressed in the kitchen. She shared my pride when at the end of cooking she saw the kitchen looked as clean as when we started. I still cook this way. It’s impressed people.
And Popo taught me this very simple, basic chili sauce. Popo would buy probably three or four pounds of chili. In those days before Singapore went metric we bought vegetables in katis and tahils.
Sometimes when we steamed fish, our cook also made this same chili sauce with just a handful of red peppers, pounding the ingredients in a mortar with pestle and then boiling it quickly with water, vinegar and salt and sugar. It takes less than 10 minutes to have home made chili sauce.
When cooking in bulk Popo blended the peppers in a food processor. It might have been her new toy. Then she put the pulverized chili into a big pot, added vinegar, water, and sugar and salt to taste.
“You have to taste it to see if it is tasty enough,” she said. “It’s so hot!” I said. I didn’t understand how hot chili sauce could be tasty until you add salt and sugar and it actually becomes flavorful. It’s spicy. Your tongue may burn when you are testing it but that’s the only way to adjust it to your preference.
Popo made so much she usually bottled them and gave some to her children and friends. I usually make about 1 pound of chili and keep it in a bottle. It keeps for weeks, even months. Just make sure you use a clean spoon whenever you dish it out.
Popo also taught me that if you’ve had the sauce in the refrigerator for more than a month, you should probably pour the whole bottle into a pan and boil it up again for a few minutes and place it back into a new, clean jar. When recooked, it’s sterilized and fresh again.
Popo’s Red Chili Sauce
Makes about 2 jars
Preparation and cooking time: 30 minutes
1 pound red chili
10 cloves garlic, peeled
8 large slices ginger, peeled
2 cups water
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
½ cup distilled vinegar
Trim and discard stems of red chili. Rinse and drain well. Cut chili in short pieces. Place chili, garlic and ginger in blender and pulse until chili pieces are about the size or slightly larger than a chili seed. Don’t puree it; it should have little pieces.
Transfer chili into a small saucepan, add water and bring to a boil. Stir, lower heat and leave to simmer covered for about 5 minutes. Add sugar, salt and vinegar and simmer for another 15 minutes. Chili should be tender and pulpy. Test for taste, adding more sugar or salt, if desired.
Store in a clean glass jar.
NOTES
–You might want to wear disposable gloves when handling and cutting the chili.
–We use the common red chili (goat horn chili, pictured above), the kind that is about 5-6 inches long, is smooth skinned and not that spicy. I prefer to avoid the tiny and potent bird’s eye chili because it makes the sauce too spicy for me. Cayenne peppers and other varieties of red chilies sold in the U.S. give it different flavor and spiciness.
–Store leftover in refrigerator. If you cook in bulk, bring it to a boil again if it has been kept for more than a month.
–You can adjust this Basic Chili Sauce and make it into chili sauce for Hainan Chicken Rice.
