Today I’m gonna share a sauce recipe that is a staple in many African and some Caribbean countries, the recipe may change slightly depending on the region.
If you want to start with a small amount, you can reduce all ingredients by half.
Tip: For ingredient balancing purposes and so that it doesn’t taste too tomatoey…(is there such a word really ) or too oniony…, do this: for every 2 tomatoes, add an onion, same as the bell peppers, for each bell pepper, add an onion.
Now, let’s get to what we need.
Ingredients
10 tomatoes
5 bell peppers
10 purple onions
3 whole bulbs of garlic
a piece of medium-sized ginger
1 piece of any type of hot pepper(you can use any amount, as per your preference).
A quarter cup of olive oil
One hipped teaspoon of salt
Procedure
Dice up tomatoes, bell peppers, and hot peppers in quarters (remove the seeds of the hot peppers if you don’t like them too hot), then blend them all to your preferred consistency, start with the tomatoes, since they are juicy, and will make the blending easy, then follow in with the bell peppers and hot peppers. I like mine chunky, so I just blend a little bit. Set this aside separately.
Dice up the onions into one-eighth sizes, and chop up the garlic and ginger into tiny pieces as well.
Using a food processer, shred together the onions, garlic, and ginger, then set aside.
Now, there are two ways to make this, the first one is, to blend all the ingredients all at once, then bring them to a boil, and the second is to blend the tomatoes and bell peppers separately, then shred the onions, garlic, and ginger separately in a food processer, so by not mixing everything all at once, you can fry the onions, garlic, and ginger in oil first, this allows your sauce to get more flavor. I prefer the latter.
On medium heat, in a medium non-stick pot ( if possible not Teflon), heat your olive oil, then add the onions, and keep stirring, to allow even cooking.
when your onions turn brown, add in the garlic and ginger, and keep stirring so that the mixture does not stick to the bottom of the pot, as garlic is very notorious for this.
TIP:
Be careful not to burn the onions, and the garlic mixture, as this will add a burnt and almost bitter taste to your sauce, and you may end up not liking it, can you imagine, after all that hard labor in the kitchen, especially the part where you endure chopping them onions, as you struggle with a snorty nose and teary eyes…
When your garlic and ginger start to brown, lower the fire and add your blended mixture of tomatoes, bell peppers, and hot peppers, and keep stirring periodically. let it cook for about 30 minutes. Keep checking and stirring.
You know your sauce is done when the water level reduces, and the oil floats on top of the mixture.
Remove from the fire and let it cool to room temperature, once at room temperature store it in an airtight glass container, and keep it in the fridge.
Enjoy it as a dipping sauce with your favorite dishes.
