Anyone do their own?
How about some Sauce Recipes???
quote:Posted by Robb on October 25, 2002 at 23:05:45:
In Reply to: BBQ sauce making questions... posted by Richard Sterling on October 25, 2002 at 19:12:29:
First, get an idea in your mind of what kind of BBQ sauce you want.
You state, tomatoe.
Next, mentally select a known brand that you want to closely duplicate.
Gates BBQ sauce is peppery, KC Masterpiece is more thick and sweet, etc.
Once you have determined mentally what you want, you next build up to that.
Its easy to jump start a BBQ sauce with ketchup, because it has the sweet and the tang, that you are seeking.
But if you dont want to, go with either tomato sauce or tomato paste.
The advantage to using tomato paste, is that you already have the thickness, and you dont have to reduce down to achieve it.
The disadvantage, is that the thickened tomato past is further from a BBQ-like taste, then tomato sauce, or ketchup. Because of that, you need to more dramatically alter the taste of the base ingredient, with substances like vinegar and spices.
I read some of your ingredients... The smoked onion is a good item to have. Cut it as fine as you can, so the flavor is released from the onion easier. The smoked tomatos with olive oil, well.. I'd save those for a side dish or somethign exotic. The effort is largely wasted on BBQ sauce.
What I do, when Im making a basic tomato based BBQ sauce, is the following:
Start with a base of ketchup. (tomato sauce, tomato paste, etc)
This gives me the sweet that I want.
I next target the heat.
I do this, with black pepper, red pepper, and white pepper.
Black pepper is a lip burning type hot.
Red pepper, is a overall hot.
White pepper, is a back of the mouth/nasal clearing type hot.
Contrary to initial mental opinion, use less black pepper then red pepper. A touch of white, to give it a light after-kick.
I then taste, to determine the heat.
Once I have the sweet and the heat... I then go for the sour.
I do this with apple cider or white vinegar.. or sometimes yellow mustard (which is basically vineger with mustard seed).
Simply add small quantities at a time, till you get what you are achieving. If you start with ketcup, you already have an initial base that has some tartness to it, so you dont need much if any vinegar.
Once I have then come to a good balance of sweet, hot, and sour...
I then mentally agree that my base BBQ sauce is complete.
I next spice it with flavors, according to my personal opinion.
Here are some basic spices to modify BBQ sauce.
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Chili powder
Paprika
Cumin
More exotic flavors that can be used, include ground jalapeno,
hickory flavorings (hickory salt), liquid smoke, etc.
If you want a "boutique" sauce, that is flavored like raspberry, or teriyaki, or any other non traditional flavoring... You should add this before the other before mentioned spices.
Taste your spices before hand, by mixing a small quantity with warm water. Warm water helps release the flavor. This helps you mentally determine if you want that in your sauce, and how much of it you want.
Me, personally, I add a little of about everything. The logic behind which, is that after im done, if the sauce is good in overall flavor.... Then when someone tries my sauce, their own personal taste buds will draw them to a particular ingredient in the sauce, that they find agreeable. That makes them smile, tilt their head sideways, and go: "hey, nice touch of cumin...."
(while the guy next to them, is thinkings: "I thought that unique taste was hickory"....
Good luck with your sauce.
Part of the fun of making sauces, is the experimentation.
Its wise to keep a small notepad, counting the ingredients and quantity, as you add them. That way you can reproduce the sauce in the future, if you find a winner.
And if you do find a winner, you can put it on the market so it can sit on the shelf next to the 65 other "unique" bbq flavors.
<-- Winky man
hehe
-Robb