Shatta Sauce (Middle Eastern Hot Sauce Recipe)

Fermented Shatta Instructions

1. Weigh your trimmed and sliced chillies and calculate 5% of your final sliced chilli weight. (If you have 200 grams of sliced chillies, 5% is 10 grams.)
2. Add the sliced chillies and 5% salt to a bowl and mix well.
3. Place the mix in a sterilised glass jar and seal it tightly. Put the container in a dark cupboard and gently rotate the jar through the upside down position daily to evenly distribute the salty liquid.
4. After three days, open the lid carefully. It will off-gas slightly with a satisfying hiss and a potent chilli smell. Drain off the spicy, salty liquid.
5. Place the drained chillies in a small food processor or spice grinder and blitz to the desired consistency – I like mine coarse. You can also crush the chillies using a pestle and mortar.
6. Stir in the vinegar and lemon juice. Taste the sauce and add more salt if you prefer. It should be very spicy, slightly salty, and pleasingly acidic. Transfer the mix to a sterilised jar.
7. Top the chilli sauce with olive oil and store it in the fridge for up to six months.

Unfermented Shatta Instructions

1. Place the chopped chillies in a small food processor with ½ teaspoon salt. Blitz into a coarse paste.
2. Stir in the vinegar, lemon juice, and olive oil. Taste the sauce and add more vinegar and salt if you prefer. It should be very spicy, slightly salty, and pleasingly acidic.
3. Transfer the mix to a sterilised jar and refrigerate for up to one week.