Peach Cascabel BBQ Sauce

Ingredients:

5 lbs peaches
1 cup cider vinegar
12 dried cascabel chiles (1 oz or about 1 cup loosely packed)
4 dried Thai chile peppers, stemmed (optional)
1 1/4 cups onion, finely chopped (2 medium Cippolinin onions)
1 cup local honey
1/4 cup molasses
4 Tbsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp sea salt

Instructions:

Prepare canner, jars and lids.

Fill a medium stockpot halfway full of water and bring to a boil over high heat. Add 1 cup of vinegar to a separate, large stockpot and set aside.

Wash peaches and slice a small X in the blossom end of each peach. Boil peaches, one or two at a time, for about 1 minute to loosen skins, then remove with a slotted spoon and immediately plunge into an ice bath. Once cool enough to handle, the skins should slip off easily. Peel, trim off any brown spots, then break peach flesh into large chunks, removing the pit, with your fingers and add to the vinegar in the large stockpot (or roughly chop with a knife, but I find that you lose a lot of delicious peach juice that way). Toss with the vinegar to prevent browning.

Bring the peach/vinegar mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, or until peaches are softened enough to puree. Remove from heat, and use your trusty immersion blender to puree, or puree in batches in a blender or food processor. Measure the puree you should have 9 cups total. If you have less than 8 cups, adjust the amounts of onion, chile and garlic accordingly.

Remove the stems from the dried chiles, tear peppers in half and shake out the seeds into a small bowl. I don’t chop the pepper skins, as they will be chopped up by the immersion blender, however, if you plan to leave your sauce somewhat chunky, you should roughly chop the pepper skins at this point. Add the seeds according to your taste for the heat. (Cascabel are a relatively mild pepper-11,000 units- but the seeds can pack a bite.) I start with adding about half the seeds, and add more along the way after taste-testing. Thai peppers are extremely hot and I add just a few to give added kick to the sauce.

Return the puree to the stockpot and add the onions, garlic, chile pepper skins & seeds, honey, molasses, Worcestershire sauce and salt. Simmer over low heat for 30 minutes. Blend once again for a very smooth sauce, or leave as is for a chunky sauce. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Continue to simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is the thickness you desire, remembering that it will thicken some on cooling. I like a pretty thick sauce, so I simmer for an additional hour or more, tasting and adjusting spices or sweetener along the way. You can speed up the reducing of the sauce by boiling over high heat, but if so you must stir constantly to prevent scorching.

Fill hot, sterilized, canning jars to 1/2-inch headspace and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes for both half-pint and pint jars. Cool, label and store.

Yields 4 to 5 pint jars of a thick sauce.

From localkitchen.wordpress.com