Pace Picante
Sauce
(Medium)
by Todd
Wilbur
Texan
David Pace had been selling 58 different varieties of jam, jellies and sauces
from the
back of his liquor store in the 1940's when he came up with
a recipe for a thick and spicy
tomato-based sauce he dubbed "Picante."
When sales of David's new sauce took off, he
concentrated all his efforts on marking his all-natural,
preservative-free product, and designed
the sauce's famous hourglass-shaped jar (to keep it from
tipping over). Now
one Mexican hot sauce brand, Pace Foods makes it known that
it still uses only fresh jalapeno
peppers in the sauces, rather than the brined, less
flavorful jalapenos -- like those canned nacho
slices. Each year all the fresh jalapenos used by the
company weigh in at around 30 million
pounds, and the nation gobbles up around 120 million pounds
of the zingy sauces. Here's a simple
recipe to make a kitchen copy of the medium heat level Pace Picante Sauce which was the first
variety David
created. The mild and hot versions were added in 1981, and you find clones for
those at the bottom of the recipe in "tidbits."
1 10.75-ounce can tomato puree
1 can full of
water (1 1/3 cups)
1/3 cup chopped
Spanish onion
1/4 cup
chopped fresh jalapeno peppers, with seeds (3-4 peppers)
2 tablespoons
white vinegar
rounded 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon
dried minced onion
1/4 teaspoon
dried minced garlic
1. Combine all
ingredients in a saucepan over medium/high heat.
2. Bring to a
boil then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until thick.
3. When cool,
bottle in 16-ounce jar and refrigerate overnight.
(http://www.topsecretrecipes.com)
Makes 2 cups (16 oz.).
Tidbits
For the mild
version of the salsa, reduce the amount of fresh jalapenos to 2 rounded
tablespoons
(2-3 jalapenos).
For the hot variety, increase the
amount of jalapenos to 1/3 cup (4-5 jalapenos