![Pique sauce](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Pique_sauce.jpg)
Pique is a Puerto Rican
hot sauce
Hot sauce is a type of condiment, seasoning, or salsa made from chili peppers and other ingredients. Many commercial varieties of mass-produced hot sauce exist.
History
Humans have used chili peppers and other hot spices for thousands of years ...
commonly found at restaurants and roadside stands. Homemade versions of this type of sauce are made by steeping hot peppers in vinegar, with seasonings and fresh herbs.
One popular variant is
habanero pepper
The habanero (; ) is a hot variety of chili. Unripe habaneros are green, and they color as they mature. The most common color variants are orange and red, but the fruit may also be white, brown, yellow, green, or purple. Typically, a ripe hab ...
s with pineapple and fresh recao leaves. The longer it sits, the hotter it gets.
![Pique sauce at home](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Pique_sauce_at_home.jpg)
Different types of island ajíes picantes (hot peppers) will have varying amounts of heat; the hottest of all is the
ají caballero
The Ají caballero (or "gentleman pepper") is a scarce hot chili pepper used as the basis of some Puerto Rican condiments, such as the Pique sauce. The fruit of this plant
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the k ...
.
Pique criollo
Pique criollo, also known as pique boricua de botella or
Puerto Rica
Puerto, a Spanish word meaning ''seaport'', may refer to:
Places
*El Puerto de Santa María, Andalusia, Spain
*Puerto, a seaport town in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines
*Puerto Colombia, Colombia
*Puerto Cumarebo, Venezuela
*Puerto Galera, Orient ...
n
Tabasco
Tabasco (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tabasco ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco), is one of the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa.
It is located in ...
is a hot
condiment
A condiment is a preparation that is added to food, typically after cooking, to impart a specific Flavoring, flavor, to enhance the flavor, or to complement the dish. A table condiment or table sauce is more specifically a condiment that is serv ...
used in
Puerto Rican cooking. It is made of
Cubanelle
The Cubanelle, also known as "Cuban pepper" and "Italian frying pepper", is a variety of sweet pepper of the species ''Capsicum annuum''. When unripe, it is light yellowish-green in color, but will turn bright red if allowed to ripen. Compared to ...
peppers,
caballero
Caballero (plural: Caballeros), the Spanish word for ''knight'' or '' gentleman'', is used as a form of address for older gentlemen and may refer to:
Places
* Caballero, Coclé, Panama
* Pedro Juan Caballero, Paraguay, a city
* Santiago de los Ca ...
hot peppers and/or
habanero
The habanero (; ) is a hot variety of chili. Unripe habaneros are green, and they color as they mature. The most common color variants are orange and red, but the fruit may also be white, brown, yellow, green, or purple. Typically, a ripe hab ...
peppers,
pineapple
The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...
(skin, core, juice and/or small pieces),
vinegar
Vinegar is an aqueous solution of acetic acid and trace compounds that may include flavorings. Vinegar typically contains 5–8% acetic acid by volume. Usually, the acetic acid is produced by a double fermentation, converting simple sugars to et ...
,
oregano
Oregano (, ; ''Origanum vulgare'') is a species of flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae. It was native to the Mediterranean region, but widely naturalised elsewhere in the temperate Northern Hemisphere.
Oregano is a woody perennial pla ...
,
peppercorn
Black pepper (''Piper nigrum'') is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, known as a peppercorn, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about in diamet ...
s,
garlic
Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plant in the genus ''Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, Allium fistulosum, Welsh onion and Allium chinense, Chinese onion. It is native to South A ...
and/or
onion
An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion ...
s. Additional ingredients can be
citrus fruit
''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the rue family, Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes. The genus ''Citrus'' is native to So ...
, cilantro,
culantro
''Eryngium foetidum'' is a tropical perennial herb in the family Apiaceae. Common names include culantro ( or ), recao, chadon beni (pronounced shadow benny), Mexican coriander, bhandhania, long coriander, sawtooth coriander, and ngò gai. It i ...
, sugar, coriander seeds, cumin, rum or
chocolate
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...
. Although pineapple is most traditional it can be replaced with papaya, avocado, sour orange, sweet plantain, tamarind, mango, passion fruit or guava.
References
Further reading
*
{{hot sauce
Hot sauces
Puerto Rican cuisine