A couple folks have asked, so here’s the approximate method for DIY salt-fermented chiles.
You need about a pound of chiles of your desired degree of hottitude. Wash them, remove the stems, and chop them coarsely. I often bung them in the food processor and whir them until they are mostly coarsely chopped with a few bigger and a few smaller bits. It saves a lot of time.
Put your chopped chiles in a large bowl. Add about 2 Tablespoons kosher salt for a pound of chiles, and combine thoroughly. Feel free to knead the salt and the chiles together if you like. Pack salt and chiles into a clean glass jar or jars and put lids on them loosely.
Leave the chiles out on the counter at room temperature for about 2-4 days depending on how warm your kitchen is. Less if it’s warmer, more if it’s cooler. They’ll give off some liquid and you’ll see some little bubbles starting to form in the liquid. Stir things around some with a chopstick, put the lid(s) back on (still loosely) and put your jar(s) in the fridge. Every day or two, stir things around some more with a chopstick. In about a week to ten days your chiles will be sufficiently transformed that you can start using them.
They will continue to improve over the space of a couple of months. If you use them at a steady clip you’ll figure out eventually how much you have to make in your initial batch so that you will not run out until after they’ve had a chance to reach their peak. What their peak is, of course, is subjective.
If things get fuzzy, remove the fuzzy bits and carry on. If things start getting blue or grey, though, or it smells like a horrible dead thing that has died horribly, throw it away and start over.
And if you are even more adventurous than this, you can use Andrea Nguyen’s amazing recipe for homemade fermented Sriracha sauce.
