Pickle Juice Hot Sauce

400g red chillies (Fresnos or similar)
8-10 garlic cloves
1L water
30g fine sea salt (for a 3% brine)
100-150ml pickle juice (from sweet & sour gherkins)
50g olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste

Optional (for serving):
Pickled gherkins, breadcrumbs, oil for frying

Method:

Ferment the Chillies
Remove the stalks from the red chillies but keep them whole. Place the chillies and peeled garlic cloves into a clean, sterilised jar. In a jug, mix 1L of water with 30g of fine sea salt until fully dissolved to create a 3% brine.

Pour the brine over the chillies and garlic, making sure everything is fully submerged. Weigh them down with a fermentation weight or small jar if necessary. Seal the jar and leave it at room temperature to ferment for 7-10 days, ‘burping’ the jar once a day to release any built-up gas.

Make the Hot Sauce
Once fermented, drain the chillies and garlic from the brine (you can discard the brine for this recipe). Add them to a food processor.

Drain a jar of sweet & sour pickled gherkins, reserving all the pickle juice. Pour 100–150ml of the pickle juice into the processor with the fermented chillies and garlic.

Blitz everything together until very smooth, gradually drizzling in the olive oil to help emulsify the sauce. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed.

Bottle and Store
Pour the finished hot sauce into clean, sterilised bottles or jars. Store in the fridge for 2–3 weeks. For a longer shelf life, you can bring the sauce to a boil before bottling to halt the fermentation.

Perfect straight out of the bottle over fried chicken or crispy fries. Or for the full 'circle-of-life' moment, breadcrumb and deep-fry the drained gherkins from earlier and coat them generously in the hot sauce for the most incredible pickle-on-pickle snack.

Hot, spicy, sharp and sweet. Pickle Juice Hot Sauce might just be unbeatable.