Pique (Puerto Rican Style Hot Sauce)

Submitted by Sharon123

"I'm told every household in Puerto Rico has a bottle of pique on the table. And every family has their own version. You can use any hot peppers you like, according to your heat tolerance. All measurements are adjustable to your taste. You will need 1 clean, empty glass bottle of about 12-ounce capacity with a tight fitting lid(In Puerto Rico they traditionally use rum bottles). If there is a removable plastic shaker top, that is even better! Remove the shaker top prior to filling and set aside. An empty rice wine vinegar bottle works very well."

 

• Ready In: 10mins
• Ingredients: 9
• Yields: 1 batch

ingredients

• 1 cup cider vinegar (I like Braggâ s Raw Apple Cider Vinegar-you can try other vinegars too)
• 12 long hot peppers (You can use any combination of jalapeno, arbol, scotch bonnet, habanero, cayenne, etcâ )
• 4 -6 garlic cloves, peeled and cut in half lengthwise
• 12 black peppercorns
• 1⁄4 teaspoon kosher salt (or other non-iodized)
• 1⁄2 a bay leaf

• Other optional tasty additions

• 3 stems fresh cilantro (or fresh oregano)
• 1 -2 squeezes lime juice
• toasted cumin seed

directions

1. Drop the garlic cloves, peppercorns, salt and bay leaf (and any of your optional additions) down into the bottle.
2. Remove the stems from the hot peppers. Leave the seeds and membranes intact if you want your Pique spicy! If necessary, slice the peppers lengthwise until they are a size that fits easily into the mouth of the bottle. Insert peppers (or peppers strips) into the bottle.
3. Use a funnel to pour vinegar into the bottle to cover the peppers and spices. If your bottle has a shaker top, snap it back into place, add the lid and set out on the counter for two days. After two days, store your Pique in the refrigerator.
4. You can top off with vinegar when it starts getting low with more vinegar. When the peppers start losing their punch, use a chopstick to remove the peppers and start over!

Reviews

[alishar2001]

While this is a lovely hot sauce recipe, this is NOT Puerto Rican style pique, perhaps a general caribbean hot sauce but not puerto rican . Certainly every family has a slight variation, including my own family, but we puertorriqueños don't use cider vinegar (that's a recent trend resulting from all the cider vinegar miracle cure hype) lime juice, bay leaf or cumin when making a traditional pique. A more authentic puerto rican pique is made with white vinegar (which doesn't alter the flavor but rather blends the flavors of the ingredients), fresh pineapple pieces or pineapple juice if pieces are not available (this adds to the unique flavor of pique puertorriqueño that is not achieved with cider vinegar), aji caballero (a VERY traditional very hot pepper used by boricua's), recao leaves, cilantro, and oregano (adds to the flavor of cooking puertorriqueño), and olive oil (because we love it!) are added to the remaining ingredients above. Some of us will take a few peppers and smash them, with the seeds, in a mortar and pestle before adding into the bottle with the whole or sliced peppers. And we don't top off our pique when it begins to run low, we make a fresh batch using the pique previously made (similar concept to sour mash). Why would we cheat ourselves in such a way?!?!

 

[Rosemary W.]

This easy and quick recipe was just what I was looking for to use the abundance of habaneros from my garden. Better yet the apple cider vinegar complements the flavor of the pepper while calming the intense heat. I love the flavor of the habanero , but one must be cautious with the heat! I used the basic recipe and stuffed as many peppers that would fit into the container and have aged it for a month, and it is perfect!

 

[maggiepcs]

My neighbor gave me a small bunch of mixed hot peppers from her garden and this was such an easy way to use them! When we vacationed in Puerto Rico, we had this served with every breakfast and loved it; this bring us back there. I'm going to make some good rice and beans to enjoy with it!

 

[Lavender Lynn]

Great combination of flavors and really fun to make. I used the peppers listed plus yellow peppers and serranos. Made for ZWT9 for Hot Stuff.

 

[Jostlori]

Very spicy and very good! I made these exactly as stated, using habaneros and scotch bonnets - the most common chiles here. The only optional ingredient I added is a pinch of oregano. Made for team Gourmet Goddesses, ZWT9.