Chris Hart <hart2001@yahoo.com>
BBQ List
1/22/02

Sweet BBQ Sauce


Howdy-

I entered a sauce at the Pig n Pepper competition this past weekend and won
1st place sweet BBQ
sauce and best overall amateur sauce.  I started with the Cooks Illustrated
Sweet BBQ sauce recipe
I posted here a while ago.  But, I felt I wanted something a bit more over
the top that would
glaze well on chicken and ribs. So in addition to adding some cumin, I added
a batch of Bellys
Texas Style Finishing Sauce that I found in the FAQ to the mix.  I guess the
judges thought it ws
pretty good, here is the sauce recipe:


3 Medium Onion Peeled and Quartered
3 Cup Ketchup
6T Cider Vinegar
6T Worcestershire
6T Dijon Mustard
1C Molasses
3t Tabasco
1 triple batch Bellys Finishing Sauce
1t ground black pepper
2 pureed chipotle pepper
2T veg oil
3 med garlic clove, minced (I used a mortar and pestle to bring down to a
paste)
3T Chili powder
1T Cumin

1. Process onions and 3/4 c water in a food processor until pureed and
mixture resembles slush,
about 30 seconds. Srain mixture through fine mesh strainer into cup,
pressing on solids to obtain
1 1/2 cup onion juice. Discard solids.
2. Wisk Onion juice, ketchup, vinegar, worcestershire, mustard, molasses,
hot pepper, pureed
chipotle, Bellys Finishing sauce, black pepper in Large bowl. 
3. Heat oil in saucepan add garlic, chili powder and cumin - cook until
fragrant, about 1 minute.
Wisk in ketchup mixture and bring to boil; reduce heat to med-low and simmer
gently, uncovered
about 1 hour.  Cool and refrigerate.




Belly's Texas-Style Finishing Sauce

Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method
--------  ------------  --------------------------------
   5      ounces        worcestershire sauce
   2      cups          dr. pepper
   1      dash          tabasco sauce
     1/4  cup           brown sugar
     2/3  cup           good salad oil
                        salt to taste
   3      teaspoons     garlic power
   6      ounces        can tomato paste
     1/2  cup           lemon juice

Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan and bring to a low boil. (I
simmered for one hour)


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Follow up posts on the recipe by Bill Ackerman and Chris Hart. 
-----xxxxx-----xxxxxx


This question is for Chris Hart or anyone who has made the recipe he
posted back in October (see recipe below): The recipe calls for a triple
batch of Belly's Finishing sauce. Is the recipe that was posted for
Belly's sauce a single or triple dose? I haven't made it yet, but
tripling the posted amounts seems like it might be too much (e.g. 1.5
cups of lemon juice). 

Regards,
Bill Ackerman

-----------------------------------

Bill - I just made this 2 weekends ago.  It should be DOUBLE batch of Bellys
finishing sauce.  

I did a couple of tweaks to Bellys finishing sauce as well, I took a 2 liter
of Dr. Pepper and
reduced it down to the 4 cups I needed.  I went heavy on the brown sugar and
did not double the
lemon juice (still used only 1/2 cup)

If you make it please let me know how it comes out....

chris hart
-----------------------------------
Chris:

Just made up a batch of your sauce (1 part Belly's Dr. Pepper Sauce to
1/2 part of your base sauce). This is really a great sauce, although I
couldn't resist toying with the formula. I've been bitten by Nigella and
have been putting Coleman's English Mustard Powder in everything. I
wasn't too impressed when it was warm, but after being in the cooler for
a few hours, it really improved. What I like about your sauce is that it
seems to be an effective balance of sweet, sour, and spicy that all hit
you at the same time. I'm making a batch of babybacks tomorrow and will
use your sauce for glazing and dipping. Menu includes german potato
salad, cornbread, flan and lemonade. It's up near 60F today and supposed
to be warmer tomorrow, so might as well pretend winter is over. Thanks
for posting your recipe.

Bill Ackerman
-------------------------------------------

Bill-

Glad it came out OK.  The sauce is definitely better after it cools and sits
for a few days.  The
base sauce provides a nice backbone via onion juice and sauteed spices,
bellys sauce provides a
nice sweet and sour, variety of sweetners (dr. pepper, brown sugar,
molasses, ketchup, vidalia
onion) give it complexity.  The heat factor is up to you.

What I'd like to improve is the recipe method itself, there really shouldn't
be the need to make
two separate sauces, a more unified recipe would be nice...  but its a good
sauce so I hesitate to
mess with it...

Enjoy those babybacks.

Chris Hart
------------------------------------

Chris,

I agree, there is no reason for two seperate sauces. I would make the
onion juice, boil down the Dr. Pepper, fry up the spices, and then
combine all of the ingredients to cook for a while. What do you think?

Bill Ackerman

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Jim Morrissey
My guess is the mustard takes a little while to settle in, and announce
itself, making that nice little bite. :)
After a few times of making some mustards, I kept tasting as I was in the
process, if I didn't get a little kick, I would mix a bit more powder with
liquid and make more additions. A couple days later during  a taste test, it
would be hotter yet. I now follow the guidelines that "more isn't always
better".







