If you love hot sauce...

...you'll love this. Okay, it's no secret that the foodies of the blogosphere have gone crazy about a particular kind of hot sauce: Sriracha.

 They've gone crazy about it for a good reason as well: it's a sweet, garlicky, tangy, spicy red hot sauce with a kick. What's not to love?!

This is my favourite recipe to make your own sriracha, and I love it because it's dead easy, only five ingredients are needed, and it's one of those recipes that you do the minimum preparation, put your feet up and everything else is done as if by magic. Plus, I promise you that the taste will be even fresher and bolder than the bottled sauce you get from Tesco's.

To make your taste buds happy, you'll need:
- 1 pound of chillies. Don't go for the small, super hot ones even if you like your sauce hot. Choose some meaty ones, they'll be easier to handle and won't make your sauce inedible. Also, I highly recommend a visit to your local farmers' market to get these fresh instead of the packaged ones in the supermarket.
- 3 fat cloves of garlic, crushed and finely chopped
- 1 cup of white distilled vinegar
- 1 tablespoon of salt
- 2 tablespoons of agave nectar, or sugar, or honey or whatever sweetener floats your boat and you have in your cupboard.

To make magic happen, roughly chop the chillies and put them in a container with the vinegar, salt and garlic. Depending on your heat tolerance, you can include the chilli seeds as well. Let the brine mellow the peppers for a day or two while you get on with your life.
After the peppers have mellowed, pour everything in a pan, add the agave/sugar/honey, bring to the boil and then turn it down to a simmer for about five minutes. Turn the heat off, let the mixture come to room temperature, transfer to your blender and blitz away.
When you see the vibrant red mixture jumping up and down your blender you know you've made it. Run through a strainer, pushing out as much pulp as possible, pour the sauce into jars and smile. You've made your own homemade rooster Sriracha.

Concerning storage, this baby contains enough vinegar to last for decades if you keep it in the fridge. Alternatively, you can freeze it and when ready to serve, defrost it and give it a quick stir.

Now what to do with it: use it with pretty much everything. That's what I do. Nevertheless, if you need some ideas, I love Kristen's Spicy Sriracha Butter:

image via theendlessmeal.com

  these Sriracha-Cheese crackers:

image via anoregoncottage.com

Diana's Sriracha garlic wings:

image via appetiteforchina.com

and Cassie's Sriracha Sesame Ginger Popcorn:

image via bakeyourday.net

Eat and be merry :)