Scotch Bonnet and Red Pepper hot sauce

I have been a chilli lover for a long time (fellow chilli lovers in the UK I thoroughly recommend Flaming Licks for a monthly delivery of the good stuff. I'm not affiliated with them, they just source great hot sauces!). I don't grow chillis either. I'm a rubbish gardener. I managed to keep a Peace Lilly at work alive because it tells me when it's dying. That's about as good as it gets.

Anyway, I've also always enjoyed cooking. So I took a trip to the Moor Market in Sheffield (UK) today, bought 8 scotch bonnet chillis and a few red peppers and thought... how hard can it be to make a hot sauce. So this is my attempt at making a very basic scotch bonnet and red pepper sauce (day 1).

• 8 scotch bonnets (seeded - keep seeds from 2)
• 1 red pepper (seeded and rough chop)
• 1 garlic clove
• 2tbsp sugar
• 2tsp salt (maldon)

Day one is very simple. Throw all the above ingredients into a blender and make a course mix. Chuck it all in an airtight container and leave it for 12-24 hours to ferment. I reckon at this point you could chuck in some gin or something... but I've not tried that (though Mushemi Fire do a fantastic scotch bonnet and red pepper based sauce called Mothers Ruin that contains Gin - try it - it's fantastic on eggs). Maybe one for another post. The colour will look great at this point...

Tomorrow, i'm going to throw it all back in a blender, add 128g (2^7, which pleases me greatly) of cider vinegar and another 2 tsps of sugar, blend it until smooth (might have to sieve it), and then thicken with something - probably cornstarch. I'll let you know if it's actually any good in the comments.