Portuguese BBQ Sauce Recipe

[dmlou]

Just wanted to post this if anyone's interested. It's a tasty change of pace compared to the usual BBQ sauces typically used in the US. Instead of being tomato-based (like Tennessee, KC, Texas, etc. sauce) or vinegar-based (Carolina BBQ), it's actually chili sauce based (although this particular chili sauce is made with vinegar).

The amounts here are a guestimate as I kind of eyeball the amounts I use. However, this should make you about 1/4 cup or so of sauce. With that, here's my dad's BBQ sauce recipe:

• One tablespoon of pimenta moida (Portuguese hot crushed peppers). You can get them from PortugueseFood.com if your local super/ethic markets don't carry it. Alternately, you can try similar crushed red chili sauces (some Asian ones I've seen work nicely, and Pastene makes an Italian version that looks close enough and may be easier to find, though I've never tried it
• One tablespoon of granulated garlic. This may be also sold as "garlic powder," however a lot of the garlic powder I've seen tends to be too finely ground
• One tablespoon of paprika
• Two tablespoons of butter or margarine
• Fresh ground black peper

Melt the butter/margarine in a saucepan or microwave-safe dish and then combine it with all the spices. Use a basting brush to apply the sauce to chicken, pork, beef, etc., as it cooks on the grill. This also works very well if you use your stove's broiler if you can't use a proper grill.