Not that I like a lot of Barbeque sauce, but I do like variety.
One thing I noticed early on when watching Bobby Flay is that he is a master at creating a sauce with flavor profiles that complement his food. I also noticed this the first time I ate at Bobby’s Burger Palace – the variety of spices that give you flavor options with different bites.
Today I’m going to talk about several sauce base flavors that you can use to start and then build from there to adjust the flavors for your particular cook
Simple BBQ Sauce Baseline
The first is a simple BBQ sauce that you can remember in your head to build from – you can literally whip this up from ingredients that you always have on hand and then I mention a few ways to modify.
A couple tablespoons of Vegetable oil
1/2 cup grated onion
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup ketchup
2 teaspoons each salt, black pepper, hot Hungarian paprika, dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon each garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne or homemade chipotle powder
Saute the grated onion in veg. oil until soft, stir in remaining ingredients and bring to a boil, adjust salt & heat as necessary.
From this base sauce you can add coffee, Worcestershire, chili powder, mustard powder, etc. to create the flavor profile you want for ribs, chicken, pulled pork, etc.
Texas Style Brisket Sauce
This is the sauce I love for brisket it’s not as sweet and seems to not cover the beef flavor of brisket. I tend to use sparingly as I like brisket just on it’s own but may dip every other bite or so in this sauce.
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, minced
1 carrot, minced
Melt 1/2 stick of butter in a saucepan and add 2-4 cloves of minced garlic, 1 grated or minced onion, 1 carrot, I will often just put these 3 ingredients in a mini food processor (the one for my stick blender) and mince them all at once. cook over low heat until everything is tender.
Then add remaining ingredients:
1/4 cup vinegar – I use white or apple cider doesn’t matter
1 lemon, juiced
1/4 cup Worcestershire
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup coffee
2 1/2 cups ketchup
1 T cayenne
1 T chili powder
1 t each salt & freshly ground black pepper
Cook down until thickened – probably 2 hours or so adjusting flavors as necessary.
Horseradish or White sauce
1/2 cup sour cream
2 T prepared horseradish
1 T Creole or other hot mustard
1 T white vinegar
1/4 t white pepper
1/4 t cayenne or chipotle powder
Mix together and put in the fridge for several hours for flavors to meld.
This makes a great sauce for any kind of beef, pastrami, pork or even baked ham for your Christmas lunch.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS