Brad Makes Fermented Hot Honey

[hood dings]

Hey guys, today on It's Alive,

we're gonna be doing a real, simple, fun fermented recipe.

Fermented chili, hot honey.

And then we're going to drizzle it over,

and make a little fried chicken.

Hell of a snack, hell of a treat, hell of a dinner.

[rock music]

Oh. Whew. Ha!

We're here at my house.

We're going to start with the chilies, alright.

So the recipe calls for five habaneros, one serrano,

and then one jalapeno.

I got some red jalapenos.

So I'm going to scale that up a little bit.

I'm going to go two of each of the others,

and six habaneros.

[pans clink]

I really love the floral-ness,

that's kind of this real tropical notes,

as well as a lot of heat that comes from the habaneros.

I throw the seeds right in there, too.

And then with the peppers,

I just like to slice them thin,

that way they really just kinda

infuse really nicely and ferment in that honey.

We're gonna throw it over some fried chicken today.

And then right in, right in the jar.

Kind of originated from the garlic, fermented garlic, honey.

It almost looks like it's not even honey.

And we didn't add anything else.

Very similar application.

This one's just a bit spicier.

I mean, any other flavor notes you could really,

you could throw a cinnamon stick in there,

if you wanted to, throw a couple,

a couple of threads of saffron, if you're feeling,

if you're feeling cute, knock yourself out, you know?

Oh, with the honey, you just wanna get

the best stuff you can.

I like to get a nice local, raw honey.

A lot of people out there, there's all types.

There's a big honey community,

if you look, you know, they got different hives,

you can get, go to farmer's markets.

It's definitely the way to go.

Bees, oh, the bees, the great pollinators.

And then look, I'll cut up a little

a couple of cloves of garlic.

Crush in the garlic and it gets

that nice allicin going, but then also slicing it.

You know, that, that does it as well.

And I just like how it can,

you can have nice little thin slices.

you can kind of spoon over food,

using it more as a condiment.

And then, again, some honey,

like I said, you just want to get some,

I'm up here in Connecticut and we've

got some nice Connecticut honey from,

Oh, Cory's family.

They got some hives and they set us up with

some nice stuff here, it's delicious,

it's wonderful, it's it's, you know, it's.

I was nibbling on it before,

and it's just has such like a candy kinda

[sniffs] Barney, but not like crazy,

but it's actually smells, it smells awesome.

I'm really excited to what it's gonna do with the chilies.

Especially those habaneros, that tropical fruitiness

kinda does wonderful things with a honey like this.

Oh god, smells so good.

So I'm just going to pour that over this,

and then we'll let it mix around a little bit.

And then I cover it with cheesecloth.

I'm going to add the whole jar.

And then you can nip at this all year, you know.

And as it ferments, it'll, you know,

the peppers, they don't break down, but they get softer,

and they wilt out, and they also will,

it'll start to bubble.

So I just put cheese cloth over it

because it will give off a bunch of gas and ferment.

Honey, by its, you know, by nature,

it's, you know, it never goes bad, right?

You might want to fact check that.

But I think it kind of just like never goes bad.

It's got its own like peroxide, it's a miracle.

It's because the bees take all the moisture out of it,

and it's just like a nice little, you know,

a high sugar, or whatever else is in there, kind of thing.

And no moisture makes sense.

Just, it doesn't go bad, okay.

The, you know, the Egyptians, they, just Google it.

So I'm adding these chilies to it, which are,

you know, you're gonna do a little bit of its own

lacto-ferment in there.

So just by the, all the microorganisms

that are in the honey, but then also

that are on the peppers.

They're gonna ferment in there.

They're gonna give off bubbles.

They're gonna get loose.

They're gonna give off the water

that's in the cell walls of the the pepper.

And that'll make it for a much more looser consistency.

And I mean, it's beautiful, look at that.

Give it a nice stir,

I just like to let the peppers mix around a bit.

And you know, they can break up, you know,

it doesn't have to keep super perfect rings.

I don't really mind.

Just like any ferment, you know, it's gonna,

it's gonna happen faster in a warmer climate,

or in a warmer place.

So, keep it somewhere where it's going to be around,

you know, anywhere from 60 to 75 degrees.

And that's just really gonna determine how fast

it takes to get to what you want it to be.

So that's it.

Oh, wow.

Oh. Whew! [coughs]

Ha!

Just, you know, obviously,

it's honey and chilies, but,

sweet, but then just, you know,

just that instant kind of habanero heat was there.

Put a little cheesecloth on that.

Alright, so we've got our honey all set up.

This one's gonna take about, you know, a week,

Sometimes two weeks, I go.

It's a little cooler these days.

I like to push it a little bit, too, with the fermentation.

Really let all the bubbles stop

and kind of let it just mellow the garlic.

We'll get a nice little amber color.

All the peppers will kinda wilt down.

Put that in a cool dark spot.

You know, somewhere over here,

somewhere over there, I don't know yet.

Maybe up here, away from the kiddos.

You don't want kids getting this one, all right?

Get in their eyes, ruin their day, get in their mouth.

Nothing about it's good for the kiddos,

unless they're into that stuff and a little older.

I do have a swap here, that's about, you know,

about six or seven days in, but can you,

you can tell how loose it is already.

We'll see how it is.

I'm going to fry up a little chicken thighs,

and that we'll get into that.

Let these hang out and then let's get going.

Get this baby hot. [engine starting]

Yeah, buddy.

We're gonna do a simple little flour, egg,

bread crumb, little, you know,

classic little egg wash, little fry job.

We're gonna drizzle some hot chili honey on there.

Oh proper, oh God,

some real nice egg noodles or something.

That's what I'm talking about.

Cory, let's go to Italy.

We'll make raviolis.

Drink funky little barn wine.

Little Italian guys with little fingers.

First things first,

the flour.

It's just all purpose, flour, egg.

Some people like to use a tong,

I just wash my hands like every other time.

And this was Panco, and I also added just some,

like, regular bread breadcrumbs to it, too.

I'd say like a, like 23% regular breadcrumbs, seasoned.

Cory, you watching the new Sex and the City?

[jazzy piano music]

You know, I'm not quite sure which one's, which,

but I like the, like, the older sassy one

that like, like, you know,

I guess like slept around a lot.

I guess that'd be her.

I'd be a Samantha.

In case you don't know, Cory has a podcast

all about Sex and the City.

It's called the Bradshaw Boys.

Maybe you get it. I don't.

Just some grandma style chicken.

You know what I'm saying?

How do you like that hood, Cory, right?

Getting that smoke right out of there.

You guys are making fun of me because I

hit my head on it all the time.

But boom, see you later.

I got my crystal for good energy.

[harp music]

[retro music]

Isn't that lovely, huh?

[retro music]

This is the one we just started about 30 minutes ago.

It looks about the same.

Okay.

And here's the one we did about a week ago.

Same kind of honey.

Look at that, nice and loose.

Alright, so this one's been going,

and Captain Cory, he's been burping it,

and babysitting it, let's see if there's any,

oh yeah, it had a little tss,

I don't know if you picked that up,

either way, you can tell, look, it's,

it's starting to wilt out a bunch,

and the big thing you can, you know,

it's givin' off all of its own water.

And as this is the one that's been fermented,

and that gives off, you know,

as it's doing its own lacto-fermentation,

it's givin' off,

the peppers, have a lot of water in them as well.

So that's kind of leeching out into the honey,

loosening it out.

And if you keep watching it and then this'll get real

bubbly and fermenty, and [sniffs]

just smells, it smells incredible.

Smells like a mixture of like a lacto-fermented hot sauce,

meets a sweet honey and, yeah, not mad about it.

Yeah, that's what you're looking for.

Giving off gas, bubbles,

and then ultimately a nice loosened out honey.

That's one week.

I'll go another week on that one, two weeks total.

But again, it's always depending on the temperature,

and the honey and the peppers, and the yada yada yada.

Perfect.

Come on.

Who doesn't like that?

A large population of the world.

So we go us, ooh, oh my god, there it is.

Get it back in.

A little chili mop.

Alright, I'm going right in.

I can't help it anymore.

Nope.

Mmm!

[slaps counter]

I just want to taste it by itself real quick, though.

That initial like Caspian, burn your mouth,

fire really, really toned down.

And what you're left with is those really pleasant,

tropical floral notes from the pepper.

That's incredible.

You can go heavy on it, you know,

you can really put it on that chicken,

and even a little bit of the pepper,

put a little pepper on there.

It's really good.

That's such an easy thing to do,

and the applications are great.

I mean, that'd be great in a vinegarette,

you can put it in a sauce,

Spicy candy drizzle.

It it's unbelievable.

I think it would be phenomenal on fish,

not to be a squid hound,

but just great on some grilled squid.

Really easy recipe.

I mean, it's just chili and garlic and some honey.

And get the best stuff you can,

always grow it if you can, even better.

And tune in next time,

when we do something cool at my house, again.

We're talking rooster talk,

and I have, we had four of them,

while I shot one and ate him.

We harvested one.

And, and then the one, then there was one,

he's all, he's all matched up with the one,

the main hen that we got, the first hen that we got,

and then the other new hens,

they kind of shacked up with the one real handsome,

black and white speckled one.

And then the other one, he is like, man, I'm screwed,

no one wants nothing to do with me.

So he ran across the street to our neighbors,

and they, he's shacking up in there.

He's he's got the best thing going.

He's got like six or seven hens all over there by himself,

eating food, strutting around, no one messing with him.

And yeah, my guy,

I guess I don't remember where we were going with that.

[chicken squawks]

[lounge music]