Fragrant, fiery chile-pepper water is an essential condiment on the Hawaiian table, where a few drops of the stuff transforms even stodgy cutlets and lumpen beef stews into something almost magical.

Active time: 10 min Start to finish: 45 min

Servings: Makes about 1 1/2 cups

Ingredients

1/2 garlic clove, minced
2 fresh red Hawaiian or serrano chiles, halved and seeded
2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
1/3 cup plus 1 1/4 cups water
1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

Preparation

Blend garlic, chiles, ginger, a pinch of salt, 1/3 cup water, and vinegar in blender until smooth. Bring remaining 1 1/4 cups water to a boil. Then add chile mixture and bring to a boil. Cool completely. (Keeps, covered and chilled, 1 month.)

CHILI PEPPER WATER Don’t let the tiny size of the red chili peppers floating in the bottle fool you-this firewater makes Tobasco taste tame. Made of fiery Hawaiian chilies, water and/or vinegar, bottles of it used to be found only in homes, but today plate lunch places and even upscale regional cuisine restaurants display it au table.

My Hawaiian chili pepper water is sort of like Tabasco-lite, but you can regulate the ‘heat’ by the number or type of chili peppers used.

• 6-10 small Hawaiian red chili peppers,
  dried or fresh. You may also use red Thai or Asian peppers.
• 1 teaspoon of freshly grated ginger
• 2 teaspoons white or rice vinegar
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and cut into thin strips
• 1 teaspoon Hawaiian salt (rock/kosher style sea salt, not iodized table salt)
• 2 cups of hot distilled water, but not boiling.

I usually chop about 1/2 the peppers into small pieces and leave the others whole. Warning: Hawaiian chili peppers are very hot! Don’t get any in your eyes and wash your hands well after chopping them.

Combine the peppers, ginger, garlic and salt in a glass jar. Add in the hot water and let the mixture steep at room temperature overnight.

In the morning, fill one or more appropriate sized ’shake n serve’ bottles. Clean Tabasco or soy sauce bottles work great. Be sure to divide the garlic, ginger, and peppers between each of the bottles. Keep refrigerated.

Chili pepper water is great on rice, eggs, meats, seafoods almost anything.