Sweet Chili Sauce

From sweet chili sauce

My husband loves sweet chili sauce for chicken nuggets (we sometimes have those frozen chicken nuggets from the grocery store). We were using Jufran sweet chili sauce then that he braved to try and very much liked better than duck sauce (which he used prior). But I don't always find Jufran sweet chili sauce in the Asian stores. When we ran out of it, I tried to make my own, which was acceptable to him.

Recently when I made and canned atsarang papaya, I ended up with extra brine that I did not feel like dumping. But since I had no plans to make additional atsara or other pickles at the time, I could not bring myself up to storing the brine in the fridge either. Voicing these concerns to my older son, he came up with a brilliant suggestion. "Ma, why don't we make sweet chili sauce out of it?" Now why I had not thought of that myself, I have no idea! But thanks to my son, I made our own canned sweet chili sauce. I need not say it was cheaper to do this, since I did not have to travel 2 hrs to get them, and I have all the ingredients right in my pantry/freezer, and I actually avoided wasting the brine from making atsara! I am sure, with my experience in pickling that adding the ingredients below will not affect the pH negatively, so that the outcome will most likely last in the shelf for as long as one year. I was able to come up with 5 (8-oz) and 3 (4-oz) jars of sweet chili sauce (I like using small jars so I can easily chuck the leftovers whenever we use them).

My son will probably be a good cook...

Ingredients:
leftover brine from atsarang papaya (less than 2 quarts)
handful of frozen green and red bell peppers, chopped
1 thumb-sized ginger, sliced or julienned
1 tsp dried chili flakes (I got from Spice of Life)
tapioca flour (as needed, mixed with cold brine or water for thickening)

Method:

Boil the brine to rolling boil. Add the spices and cook 5 minutes. Slowly add in thin streams the tapioca dissolved in cold brine or water, constantly stirring the mixture, until you achieve the desired consistency. Keep on low heat when canning.
Place in sterilized jars and leave 1/4 inch headspace. Wipe rim. Cover with lids and bands fingertight. Invert for 5 minutes then set upright to completely cool. Those that will not pop in need to be refrigerated and used within two weeks.