Portuguese Style Chile Sauce


Oddly enough, I was chatting with a Portuguese acquaintance at a barbecue a
couple of days ago. He described a sauce he makes using chiles and alcohol,
which is roughly as follows:

(To make one jar)

Fill the jar about half full with crushed hot chiles.

(He uses piri-piri, a small thin red very hot chile.  I think it's the same
as the Brazilian malagueta, for those who may know it.)

Add sufficient alcohol (aguardente, cachaca, grappa, vodka, etc) to cover the
chiles and leave for a week.

Add the other ingredients according to taste.  He uses something like:

1 fresh not-quite-ripe tomato, chopped.
1 onion, chopped.
1 clove of garlic (or more), chopped.
salt to taste
chopped cuentro (cilantro, coriander) (optional)

John Moore
From the Chile-Heads Recipe Collection
http://neptune.netimages.com/~chile/recipes.html