My
Best Barbecue Sauce
This Barbecue sauce recipe is by far my best so far and it can virtually be used with any kind of meat either as marinade or as a side dish.
Barbecue is a cooking method, the apparatus used, or a social event at which these feature. It involves cooking food on a fire, usually meat. Beyond this, the interesting etymology and cultural diversification which has occurred insure that barbecue means different things to different people.
Looking at the global and linguistic distribution of the English word barbecue and similar words in other languages, it appears that it has its origins in the word barabicu used by the Arawak of the Caribbean and the Timucua people of Florida, and points to ancient beginnings in that region of the world.
The term would then have been borrowed by the Spanish as barbacoa, the earliest records of its use in Spanish are sixteenth century, and transferred into Portuguese, then French and finally English, where it is first recorded in the 17th Century. It entered the English language as a verb, and only thirty years later was first used as a noun.
Early uses of the word describe a framework of sticks set on posts, or cooking meat slowly in the ground, and it is used in the context of process. In the eighteenth century it is described as a method of dressing a whole pig. In some parts of the US it is predominately pork that is used.
A British barbecue is more omnivorous and likely to include chicken and vegetables. Interestingly in British English barbecuing is fast and hot, over direct heat while grilling is moderate direct heat, but in the US, grilling is the fast and hot process and barbecuing is slow, using indirect heat from smoke. The slowed down cooking at home is typically accomplished by moving the coals to the side and increasing the distance from coals to grate, as compared to grilling. This is new information to the average South African who believes the barbecue is just the American version of the braai, a fast, hot direct method of cooking meat which involves fire. Burning meat over a fire is actually a global tradition with many different forms that are quite fascinating in their diversity. There are five ways of cooking over fire basically: fast and hot over direct heat, for just a few minutes, slow smoking in a pit or vessel, roasting with both direct and indirect heat in an oven, braising in a pot over flame, either wet or dry, and baking using convection heat in an oven.
When it comes to barbecue sauces the diversity in tradition really gets indescribable. Apparently in Carolina which is the hotspot for sauce recipes, you may find vinegar based sauces, which can be combined with ketchup, light or heavy, or mustard. Tomato vinegar sauces predominate in Memphis, dry rubs with spices, and the sauce on the side in Kentucky. Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee use sweet tomato sauces, and so on. Other variations are mayonnaise and vinegar, tangy tomato sauces and horseradish. In South Africa a braai sauce would normally contain spice, tomato, and some sugar, salt and vinegar, and may vary between fiery and sweet depending on region, culture, family recipes and preferences.
This German recipe is complex for a barbecue sauce, and gives complex flavour, but is quick to prepare. It contains several
fruit and some sourness, in apricot jam, ketchup, lemon juice, and apple vinegar. There are seven types of green herbs, three commercial black sauces, oil, several spices garlic and some of the famous Carolina Reaper chili powder. It can be used as a marinade, dip or on the side with cooked meat.
Preparation time: 15 minutes
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Cooking time: 0 minutes
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Resting time: 120 minutes
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Total time needed: at least 135 minutes
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Grade of Difficulty: standard
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Yields about 400 ml / 13.5 oz
Ingredients
for
Barbecue Sauce
- 5 tbsp. apricot jam
- 9 tbsp. tomato sauce
- 3 heaped tsp. mixed herbs
- 1 tsp. oregano
- 3 fresh basil leaves, chopped
- 1 tsp. dried rosmarine
- 1 tbsp. lemon juice
- 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp. soy sauce
- 1 tbsp. oyster sauce
- 2 tbsp. Worcester sauce
- 3 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 tsp. Madras curry powder (optional - use hot curry powder of your choice
- pinch of ground fennel seeds
- 1 tsp. plain paprika powder
- 1/8 tsp. Carolina Reaper chili powder (optional - Use more but anything more than 1/4 tsp. will make the sauce really spicy, so don't overdue it!)
- 1 tsp. dried parsley
- 1 tbsp. fresh parsley, chopped
- 1 tbsp. fresh dill, chopped
- 4 cloves of garlic, minced
Directions
- Add all ingredients to a large glass bowl and mix them very well using a whisk or a fork
- Pore the finished barbecue sauce into a glass jar or bottle and store for at least 2 hours at room temperature before you serve it.
- Use with any meat, as marinade or side dish
- Optional - if you want to try new taste combinations or want to reduce the spiciness in case you added to much Carolina Reaper chili powder mix the sauce with home made mayonnaise and or tomato sauce.
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