bbq recipes!
Sunday night I found myself needing to pull together a meal for someone with food allergies at the last minute--ratatosk and I had mostly finished preparing food when we decided to invite Fish to join us for dinner, and nearly everything contained ingredients that Fish can't eat. Luckily R had some chicken breasts in the freezer, so I mixed up a Fish-safe barbecue sauce and we threw those on the grill first, before the Fish-death-burgers went on.
Then last night, because I didn't do any menu planning or grocery shopping over the weekend, I threw together oven barbecue with some chicken legs I had hanging out in my freezer, and somehow M was impressed by this, even though oven barbecue chicken is literally the easiest thing in the world to make (and he really should know by now that it's my go-to for when I'm too tired or uninspired to make anything else). M asked me to write up a recipe so he can repeat the dish on nights I'm not home or not cooking for whatever reason, so here goes.
To make last minute oven barbecue chicken, when you haven't defrosted anything from the freezer, dump the frozen chicken (breasts, legs, whatever) and a cup or so of any sauce of your choice in a baking dish. Bake at 350F, covered, until the chicken is fully defrosted, checking it every ten to fifteen minutes, stirring it around, and spooning excess sauce over the top of the meat. Once you're convinced nothing is still frozen, remove the cover and cook another fifteen to twenty minutes, or until the chicken is done (meat thermometer inserted into the thickest piece of chicken reads 165F or the thickest piece of chicken is opaque white all the way through when cut in half). The total cooking time depends on what cut of meat you have and how much you're cooking.
The secret is to the sauce is that you don't need to buy readymade barbecue sauce. I don't like most storebought barbecue sauces, and all the HFCS in them probably isn't healthy. You can mix up homemade barbecue sauce with pantry staples, making only what you need for the meal at hand, and tuning it to your dietary needs and tastes. You don't even need a recipe! I've read hundreds of barbecue sauce recipes in my life, and made at least a couple dozen, and they all boil down to the jingle from that 90s kids show "Spicy salty sour sweet, bring me something good to eat!" That's all barbecue sauce is: something spicy, something salty, something sour or acidic, and something sweet.
I take my barbecue very seriously(*) and I am partial to the barbecue sauce of my kin(**), South Carolina mustard barbecue. That said, I am willing to admit, however grudgingly, that other barbecue traditions can be edible, or even tasty. As a nod to diversity I've put together a table of a couple of barbecue styles I'm familiar with, and what the traditional components of each are.
So how are you meant to use this table? I'm hoping to free you from the tyranny of the recipe, which is why I haven't provided quantities or even ratios. If you've eaten food, you know what tastes good to you and what doesn't. Start with small amounts of everything, taste, and adjust until you like it. You also don't need (and probably shouldn't try(***)) to use every item in a given list. Pick a row, then pick one or two items from each column in that row. If you're going to use the sauce as a glaze on the grill, or as a dipping sauce at the table, you want it to be thick. Either add thickener or simmer it on the stove to reduce the liquid. Sauces that use smoked peppers also benefit from simmering, and generally I like to saute onions and garlic to death before blending them and adding them to a sauce, but if you're in a hurry or just don't care, skip the extra simmering and sauteeing steps. The one exception to this is North Carolina vinegar sauce, which is meant to be watery. But above all else experiment and get creative! There is no One True Way to barbecue!
SpicySaltySourSweetOther SeasoningNotesSouth Carolina MustardMustardSaltVinegarHoneyRed chili, paprika, black pepper, allspiceYou can add tomato, but why would you? The mustard can be a bottle of prepared mustard, like French's or Grey Poupon or whatever, or you can use mustard powder, or toast some whole mustard seeds. If you use prepared mustard, you don't need to add extra vinegar, as prepared mustard has vinegar in it already. I mean, unless you really really like vinegar, in which case, go for it!Tonkatsu/BulldogMustard, horseradish, or wasabiSoy Sauce or TamariRice vinegarMirin (sweet rice wine)Worcesteshire sauce, garlic powder, oyster sauce, ketchupUse less spice, proportionally, than other bbq sauce stylesKansas CityRed chili powder, cayenne pepperSalt, soy sauceApple cider vinegar, tomatoMolassesgarlic, Worcestershire sauce, onion, allspiceKC bbq is known for being sweet, so load up on the molasses here.TexasSmoked ancho or chipotle chilis, chilli powderSalt, soy sauceLemon juice, tomato, coffee, beer, Coca ColaBrown sugaronion, garlic, cumin, coriander, mustard, liquid smokeLemon juice is pretty much required, supplemented, if desired, by one of the other sour ingredients. More so than any other style sauce you want to make sure you have something smokey, either smoked peppers, or cook the meat in a smoker, or, as a last resort, add a drop of liquid smoke.Eastern North CarolinaTabasco sauceSaltWhite vinegarBrown sugar, molasses, honeyblack pepper, Worcestershire sauceUse only very small amounts of sweetener, and never ever add tomatoes to an eastern NC sauce
Lastly a note on ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. Lots of recipes in cookbooks and on the internet will tell you to add ketchup or Worcestershire sauce or both to your barbecue sauce. If you're like me, though, you don't have ketchup or Worcestershire sauce in your kitchen, and that's also fine! Ketchup is just tomato, sweetener, and vinegar. Everywhere you see "tomato" in the table below you can either cook down fresh or canned tomatoes, or use a couple spoons of tomato paste, or use a couple spoons of ketchup, depending on what you have on hand, but since ketchup is sweet, if you use it, cut back on how much other sweetener you use. Worcestershire sauce is vinegar, molasses, onions, garlic, anchovies, tamarind, and red pepper, and with the exception of the tamarind and anchovies, you're probably already adding the other ingredients on the label already. If you like it, it's fine to add it, but if you don't, or if you're vegetarian, or if you don't have any and don't want to run to the store, skipping it is fine too. If you have tamarind lying around, treat it like any other sour ingredient and add it or not according to your taste.
(*) I'm not, really, but it's fun to needle my North Carolina friends about how their barbecue is Wrong.
(**) Really! Some fourth cousins or something from my mother's mother's mother's branch of the family have a barbecue restaurant and mail order barbecue sauce business in Leesville.
(***) I've made coffee barbecue, and Coca-cola barbecue, and beer barbecue, but I've never tried mixing all three and cannot be held accountable if you try it.
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Then last night, because I didn't do any menu planning or grocery shopping over the weekend, I threw together oven barbecue with some chicken legs I had hanging out in my freezer, and somehow M was impressed by this, even though oven barbecue chicken is literally the easiest thing in the world to make (and he really should know by now that it's my go-to for when I'm too tired or uninspired to make anything else). M asked me to write up a recipe so he can repeat the dish on nights I'm not home or not cooking for whatever reason, so here goes.
To make last minute oven barbecue chicken, when you haven't defrosted anything from the freezer, dump the frozen chicken (breasts, legs, whatever) and a cup or so of any sauce of your choice in a baking dish. Bake at 350F, covered, until the chicken is fully defrosted, checking it every ten to fifteen minutes, stirring it around, and spooning excess sauce over the top of the meat. Once you're convinced nothing is still frozen, remove the cover and cook another fifteen to twenty minutes, or until the chicken is done (meat thermometer inserted into the thickest piece of chicken reads 165F or the thickest piece of chicken is opaque white all the way through when cut in half). The total cooking time depends on what cut of meat you have and how much you're cooking.
The secret is to the sauce is that you don't need to buy readymade barbecue sauce. I don't like most storebought barbecue sauces, and all the HFCS in them probably isn't healthy. You can mix up homemade barbecue sauce with pantry staples, making only what you need for the meal at hand, and tuning it to your dietary needs and tastes. You don't even need a recipe! I've read hundreds of barbecue sauce recipes in my life, and made at least a couple dozen, and they all boil down to the jingle from that 90s kids show "Spicy salty sour sweet, bring me something good to eat!" That's all barbecue sauce is: something spicy, something salty, something sour or acidic, and something sweet.
I take my barbecue very seriously(*) and I am partial to the barbecue sauce of my kin(**), South Carolina mustard barbecue. That said, I am willing to admit, however grudgingly, that other barbecue traditions can be edible, or even tasty. As a nod to diversity I've put together a table of a couple of barbecue styles I'm familiar with, and what the traditional components of each are.
So how are you meant to use this table? I'm hoping to free you from the tyranny of the recipe, which is why I haven't provided quantities or even ratios. If you've eaten food, you know what tastes good to you and what doesn't. Start with small amounts of everything, taste, and adjust until you like it. You also don't need (and probably shouldn't try(***)) to use every item in a given list. Pick a row, then pick one or two items from each column in that row. If you're going to use the sauce as a glaze on the grill, or as a dipping sauce at the table, you want it to be thick. Either add thickener or simmer it on the stove to reduce the liquid. Sauces that use smoked peppers also benefit from simmering, and generally I like to saute onions and garlic to death before blending them and adding them to a sauce, but if you're in a hurry or just don't care, skip the extra simmering and sauteeing steps. The one exception to this is North Carolina vinegar sauce, which is meant to be watery. But above all else experiment and get creative! There is no One True Way to barbecue!
SpicySaltySourSweetOther SeasoningNotesSouth Carolina MustardMustardSaltVinegarHoneyRed chili, paprika, black pepper, allspiceYou can add tomato, but why would you? The mustard can be a bottle of prepared mustard, like French's or Grey Poupon or whatever, or you can use mustard powder, or toast some whole mustard seeds. If you use prepared mustard, you don't need to add extra vinegar, as prepared mustard has vinegar in it already. I mean, unless you really really like vinegar, in which case, go for it!Tonkatsu/BulldogMustard, horseradish, or wasabiSoy Sauce or TamariRice vinegarMirin (sweet rice wine)Worcesteshire sauce, garlic powder, oyster sauce, ketchupUse less spice, proportionally, than other bbq sauce stylesKansas CityRed chili powder, cayenne pepperSalt, soy sauceApple cider vinegar, tomatoMolassesgarlic, Worcestershire sauce, onion, allspiceKC bbq is known for being sweet, so load up on the molasses here.TexasSmoked ancho or chipotle chilis, chilli powderSalt, soy sauceLemon juice, tomato, coffee, beer, Coca ColaBrown sugaronion, garlic, cumin, coriander, mustard, liquid smokeLemon juice is pretty much required, supplemented, if desired, by one of the other sour ingredients. More so than any other style sauce you want to make sure you have something smokey, either smoked peppers, or cook the meat in a smoker, or, as a last resort, add a drop of liquid smoke.Eastern North CarolinaTabasco sauceSaltWhite vinegarBrown sugar, molasses, honeyblack pepper, Worcestershire sauceUse only very small amounts of sweetener, and never ever add tomatoes to an eastern NC sauce
Lastly a note on ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. Lots of recipes in cookbooks and on the internet will tell you to add ketchup or Worcestershire sauce or both to your barbecue sauce. If you're like me, though, you don't have ketchup or Worcestershire sauce in your kitchen, and that's also fine! Ketchup is just tomato, sweetener, and vinegar. Everywhere you see "tomato" in the table below you can either cook down fresh or canned tomatoes, or use a couple spoons of tomato paste, or use a couple spoons of ketchup, depending on what you have on hand, but since ketchup is sweet, if you use it, cut back on how much other sweetener you use. Worcestershire sauce is vinegar, molasses, onions, garlic, anchovies, tamarind, and red pepper, and with the exception of the tamarind and anchovies, you're probably already adding the other ingredients on the label already. If you like it, it's fine to add it, but if you don't, or if you're vegetarian, or if you don't have any and don't want to run to the store, skipping it is fine too. If you have tamarind lying around, treat it like any other sour ingredient and add it or not according to your taste.
(*) I'm not, really, but it's fun to needle my North Carolina friends about how their barbecue is Wrong.
(**) Really! Some fourth cousins or something from my mother's mother's mother's branch of the family have a barbecue restaurant and mail order barbecue sauce business in Leesville.
(***) I've made coffee barbecue, and Coca-cola barbecue, and beer barbecue, but I've never tried mixing all three and cannot be held accountable if you try it.
comments were made at DreamWidth. You can comment there using OpenID.