Pique Recipe - Puerto Rico's Homemade Hot Sauce

From restaurant to home, Pique is a kitchen table staple. Depending on how hot you like your Pique, you can adjust the heat based on the amount and type of peppers you use.

This is the Pique recipe from Deaverdura restaurant in Old San Juan.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Puerto Rican, Caribbean

Keyword Hot Sauce

Prep Time 5

Servings 1 bottle

Ingredients

2 cloves smashed garlic
1 - 5 small chili peppers green or red
4-5 black peppercorns
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 - 2 sprig or leaf fresh sage or rosemary, optional
1 stem cilantro
Enough white vinegar to almost fill the jar

Instructions

Peel the garlic cloves. Smash small enough and drop them into the bottle.
If you have very tiny peppers, add them right into the bottle. If too large, remove the stems and slice in half or to fit.
Drop in the peppercorns, thyme sprig, cilantro stem.
Pour the white vinegar into the bottle. Leave a little room at the bottle neck.
Tighten the bottle cap and shake to mix.
Place the bottle in a bright place and allow to sit out from 2 days to 2 weeks. Once you start to use the hot sauce, keep it in the refrigerator.
You can add more peppers, herbs and vinegar to refill. Enjoy!

Notes

You can use this sauce on almost everything! It's especially good on fish, in stews and even deli meats.

Control the heat by adding different peppers.