Shatta is a delicious Middle Eastern hot sauce made from green or red chillies, olive oil and vinegar. I include instructions for an unfermented or fermented hot sauce, but I highly recommend using the metric weight for fermented shatta.
Yield1 cups
Servings16
Equipment
- Two-cup glass jar with lid – Sterilised.
- Kitchen scale – Set to grams.
- Mandolin – Or a sharp knife.
Ingredients
- 9 ounces red or green chillies rinsed, trimmed, and roughly chopped
- 2 teaspoons salt, non-iodised with no anti-caking agents
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
Fermented Shatta Instructions
- 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.)
- Add the sliced chillies and 5% salt to a bowl and mix well.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Top the chilli sauce with olive oil and store it in the fridge for up to six months.
Unfermented Shatta Instructions
- Place the chopped chillies in a small food processor with ½ teaspoon salt. Blitz into a coarse paste.
- 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.
- Transfer the mix to a sterilised jar and refrigerate for up to one week.
Notes
- If you're making fermented shatta, don't wash the chillies vigorously, just rinse off any visible dirt. I also highly recommend using the metric weights (toggle between US Customary and Metric settings at the top of the recipe card). You can be more precise with metric weights.
- If you're making the quick, unfermented version, feel free to use the US Customary measurements and adjust to taste. Just don't add all of the salt up front.
- I use a mix of green chillies for green shatta – such as jalapeño, green finger, and serenade peppers – but you can use any one of those. Or use red chilli peppers for red shatta sauce.
- Wear protective gloves if you touch the chilli membranes and seeds with your hands. Or use a mandolin to avoid this.
- During refrigeration, the oil will firm up and settle at the top. Just give it a good stir before using it.