Barbecued pork ribs were the topic of yesterday’s post, and if you’re going to do them, I think you need a special barbecue sauce to go with them; well, at least I do. Here’s the sauce we had with our ribs last Sunday. My wife usually avoids sauce when we have barbecued anything, but this sauce was so flavorful that she made an exception.
1 recipe dry rub, from yesterday’s post.
1/2 C distilled vinegar.
1/4 C prepared mustard.
1 C tomato catsup.
4 thin slices lemon.
Tabasco® sauce, to taste (optional)
In a saucepan, dissolve the prepared mustard in the vinegar and mix thoroughly. Add the dry rub and stir until dissolved. Now, add the catsup and mix thoroughly. Float the lemon slices on top of the mixture.
Bring the saucepan to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir gently periodically. The intent here is to extract some lemon flavor while minimizing extraction of the bitterness in the white membrane under the peel of the lemon.
Remove saucepan from heat and allow contents to cool. When cooled, add the Tabasco® if you want it. Makes about a cup and a half.
Incidentally, a little bitterness is a good thing in a barbecue sauce; hence the turmeric in many recipes. Too much bitterness, on the other hand . . . That's a different story altogether. I once had the bright idea of trying to cook a different barbecue sauce recipe, one which also calls for lemon slices, in a slow-cooker, overnight. Come next morning, I sampled a sip: yuk! it was just gawd-awful - unsalvageably bitter - and lemon was the culprit. I ended up tossing the sauce and starting over. Learn from my mistakes. Please!
In my opinion, barbecue sauce of any sort is best when made a day or two before it’s to be used, and held covered in the refrigerator. Just let it to come up to room temperature before you serve it. I guess it’s a little like home-made chili – refrigerate it overnight, on account of "it ain’t fit to eat the day you make it."
Happy cooking!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
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