Hot sauce is my favorite condiment. Whether you’re talking Tapatio, Sriracha, or Blair’s Ultra Death, I love them all. You could put that stuff on crusty boot-leather and it would make it taste good. I mean what else can you think of that can be squirted onto airline food to make it palatable?
In the world of fruit though, my love for hot sauce is paralleled by citrus. That’s why yuzu kosho (yuzu chili paste) is perhaps my favorite hot sauce of them all. For those of you that have never had it, yuzu is a small Japanese citrus that tastes somewhere between Meyer lemon, grapefruit and lime. In Japan the zest is combined with green chili peppers to make a potent paste that not only adds heat, it adds a heavenly fragrance that goes with just about anything.
While yuzu kosho in paste form is concentrated and delicious, I like to add some citrus juice so you can use it as a sauce. Yuzu isn’t the easiest citrus to find, but you can get it in fall at Japanese supermarkets. If you can’t find yuzu, this is also delicious made with other citrus zests such as Meyer lemon, lime, or even orange.
Warning: These are some seriously potent chilis. After handling them, my hands literally felt like they were on fire for almost 24 hours. I’d recommend using gloves. If you happen to make the same mistake I did, scrubbing your hands with vegetable oil, then washing with dish soap helps a little.
Units
Ingredients
- 2 green togarashi chili pepper (or 3 thai bird chilis)
- 6 green yuzu
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Remove the seeds and white membrane from chili peppers. I recommend wearing gloves when doing this. Mince the chili's as fine as you can make them. Use a microplane to zest the yuzu.
- Place the chili, yuzu zest and salt in a mortar and pound with a pestle until it turns into a smooth paste. Add the juice from the yuzu and mix well until the sauce is the consistency you want it.
- Because of the salt content it will keep for a month in the fridge, or longer if you freeze it.
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Annie, yuzu is quite different from kaffir lime taste wise, but you could do something similar to this using it.
Earlene says
If I find fresh yuzu this fall will it work to zest and juice them and freeze in ice cube trays?
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Earlene, great idea! Once you freeze the juice, I’d recommend taking the cubes out of the trays and transferring to a sealed container to prevent freezer burn.
kathy moody says
Other recipes for Yuzukosho say it is fermented……..but yours is used “fresh”. Please explain.
Eileen says
Do you have an estimation of how many grams of yuzu zest we should have? I have different size yuzu fruits
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Eileen, I’m sorry but this recipe was made before I started using weight measures for this site. The yuzu I used was about the size of a golf-ball.
Kathy Stroup says
Hi Marc! I was thinking that zesting citrus might make a good technique video. You could explain the science behind extracting the flavor and show some different ways to zest. Ways to preserve citrus zest would be great to cover, too. I recently infused some alcohol with Meyer Lemon zest, and it’s wonderful!
I came across this recipe in a Google search. What if you revisited it as part of the video? I’m always finding ways to use citrus zest in sweet dishes, so finding this has piqued my interest.
I recently made a Meyer Lemon and Jalapeno hot sauce following your Preserved Lemons method. It is FANTASTIC! I’m going to have to make another batch. This sounds very similar. You turned me into a Chili Head!🥵😁 (I have always been a Lemon Head!🍋😉)
Marc Matsumoto says
Thanks for the idea Kathy! We’re past green yuzu season here but will definitely add this to the list for late summer/early fall. It’s funny in retrospect, but I have some bad memories associated with this one. I minced the chilies by hand without wearing gloves, and my hands turned bright red and I felt like I was holding them in boiling water for over a day. I was holding an ice pack all night. I’ve been careful around chili peppers since then. Your Meyer Lemon hot sauce sounds fantastic! Love the idea of using citrus juice instead of vinegar and I bet the fragrance from the Meyers is amazing.
Kathy Stroup says
So sorry to make you revisit painful memories! I was really thinking about a non-yuzu version of this condiment, since most people have trouble finding them, including me. I have a ton of citrus right now, and I’m struggling to keep up with processing it all.
I was online researching yuzu a few months ago and came across a Japanese bath at a citrus farm. They had ripe yuzu floating in the bath. It looked so magical! I have so many Meyers right now that I decided to try taking a bath with some of them. It was wonderful, but probably not as amazing as the one I saw.
I’m going to try dehydrating and pulverizing some Meyer Lemon zest. I’m not sure how long it will keep. I might try making some lime salt, too. I also like to make my own version of Tajin, which is so much tastier than the commercial version. I love using the candied peels for garnishes, so I’m going to make some of that. I’ve been dehydrating mandarin peels for tea and cooking. I will try making some Kosho with a combination of citrus (maybe not with super-spicy chilis😉), and I will make another batch of Meyer and Jalapeno hot sauce. I always make marmalade, too. It’s been quite popular with the neighbors! At least it’s a great time of year to be standing at the stove all day!