Further adventures in unintentional cookery
I made the most awesomely awesome barbecue sauce tonight. I've been thinking about barbecue lately, maybe because it was hot for a couple of days, so now that it's grey and chilly and Northwestern again, I've finally gotten around to making some.
It ended up different than my usual standard barbecue sauce, because predictably I was out of a whole bunch of major ingredients, or nearly so. (This is the tragic deception of having a fridge full of jars and bottles: it looks like you have lots of stuff to cook with, and then halfway through, you discover that you have been cruelly misled. However, it is an opportunity to experiment.) So I made up the difference with coffee, and threw in some red pepper, since I did have that, and somehow it worked really well. And now I'm writing it down here, so I will be able to remember what I did.
Coffee Barbecue Sauce
3 Tbsp butter
1 med. onion, chopped
2 fat cloves garlic, minced
1/4 red bell pepper, chopped fairly small
the butt end of a jar of Heinz chili sauce (about 2 Tbsp)
the last sad dribble of worcestershire sauce (about 1-1/2 Tbsp)
half a cup of really strong old coffee (or add a heaping spoonful of instant coffee to 1/2 cup water)
juice of half a lime
1/2 tsp ground cumin
black and/or red pepper if you feel like it
1 lb. pork shoulder
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. It's a lot of butter. This is the greasy kind of barbecue, not some bogus healthy substitute. Cook the onions in the melted butter for a few minutes over low heat, until they get soft and translucent, then add the garlic and red bell pepper and cook for another few minutes. Then dump in the various liquid ingredients in whatever order you can fish them out of the fridge, and stir in the spices.
Cut the pork shoulder into chunks, and brown the outsides in a skillet. Then dump them into the simmering sauce, stir to make sure they're all coated, put a lid on it, and simmer it very slowly for several hours or as long as you can possibly stand.
I made corn muffins while the meat was simmering. Adding greens to the vat would probably also be a good call. Strong smoky tea is recommended with barbecue, or else very sweet iced tea.
It ended up different than my usual standard barbecue sauce, because predictably I was out of a whole bunch of major ingredients, or nearly so. (This is the tragic deception of having a fridge full of jars and bottles: it looks like you have lots of stuff to cook with, and then halfway through, you discover that you have been cruelly misled. However, it is an opportunity to experiment.) So I made up the difference with coffee, and threw in some red pepper, since I did have that, and somehow it worked really well. And now I'm writing it down here, so I will be able to remember what I did.
Coffee Barbecue Sauce
3 Tbsp butter
1 med. onion, chopped
2 fat cloves garlic, minced
1/4 red bell pepper, chopped fairly small
the butt end of a jar of Heinz chili sauce (about 2 Tbsp)
the last sad dribble of worcestershire sauce (about 1-1/2 Tbsp)
half a cup of really strong old coffee (or add a heaping spoonful of instant coffee to 1/2 cup water)
juice of half a lime
1/2 tsp ground cumin
black and/or red pepper if you feel like it
1 lb. pork shoulder
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. It's a lot of butter. This is the greasy kind of barbecue, not some bogus healthy substitute. Cook the onions in the melted butter for a few minutes over low heat, until they get soft and translucent, then add the garlic and red bell pepper and cook for another few minutes. Then dump in the various liquid ingredients in whatever order you can fish them out of the fridge, and stir in the spices.
Cut the pork shoulder into chunks, and brown the outsides in a skillet. Then dump them into the simmering sauce, stir to make sure they're all coated, put a lid on it, and simmer it very slowly for several hours or as long as you can possibly stand.
I made corn muffins while the meat was simmering. Adding greens to the vat would probably also be a good call. Strong smoky tea is recommended with barbecue, or else very sweet iced tea.