After some success last year making arancello, I decided to branch out a bit more this year with some pompelmo-cello, made from the white Sicilian grapefruit that John showed me at the Civic Center market. I used the same process

1. Zest the fruit and infuse in alcohol. This time I found Everclear at BevMo, and so I used that instead of 100-proof vodka. I made about 1.25 liters of “mother” alcohol, at full Everclear strength. 
2. After the “mother” alcohol has infused for a month or more, strain it and mix with simple syrup and water to dilute to desired strength. I diluted it down to about 3:1, so I got 3.75 liters of finished product from 1.25 liters of “mother.”
3. Throw it in the freezer for a little while, and then start drinking it and giving it away!

I was going through old issues of my mom’s Saveur magazine and came across a great-looking recipe. I’m always interested in hot sauce, and this piri-piri stuff looked amazing.

We made the first batch a couple of months ago, and started putting it on everything, so we decided to make up a bunch for the holidays and turn everyone on to the piri-piri revolution! We pretty much stuck to the recipe above, using red Fresno peppers as suggested – you can find them at Whole Foods. If anyone knows where to get African birds-eye chiles, let me know!! As you can see from my note scrawled at the top of the page there, one batch makes about one cup, or 8 ounces – a bit less than the recipe states. Heat varies with the peppers – the first batch was VERY hot, while this larger holiday batch is more sweet-hot. Next time I’ll keep a couple of habaneros handy to jack up the heat if necessary.

Just throw everything in the blender. No need to chop the garilc, it just blends right up. The only adjustment I might make to the recipe would be to use a little less lime juice – if you use the full amount, it gets a little soupy. Run the blender for about 30 seconds or so – that’s all you need!

If you find yourself in need of more piri-piri, just drop me a line, we’ll be happy to do refill orders, in exchange for suitable barter, of course.

PS: If you just received some of this piri-piri from the Christmas 2008 batch, please refrigerate and use it right away – it is not packaged for long-term storage.