Spicy
Barbecue Sauce for Pork or Chicken BBQ
It’s
summer, and in Georgia that’s barbecue time. Slowly smoked pork, either pork
butt or whole hog, is the traditional favorite here, with chicken a secondary
choice. Barbecued beef brisket, though sometimes available commercially here,
is really more a feature of St. Louis, Kansas City and especially Texas
cooking. My personal favorite is smoked pork butt, with the meat “pulled” with
two forks into chunky shreds, and bone and any excess fat that survived the
slow cooking discarded.
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| BBQ sauce with pulled pork sandwich |
While many
cooks and BBQ eaters have their own favorite commercial sauce, I like making my
own when someone I know is barbecuing. A decade or so ago our restaurant
actually barbecued pork, whole hogs or butts, for special occasions. In the
course of that I worked out my favorite sauce. I made the version in the recipe
below for adults, and a milder, sweeter version with more ketchup in it for
kids and adults wanting it less hot.
This sauce
is basically in the North Carolina style, featuring cider vinegar, black pepper
and Worcestershire sauce. But I do use
some tomato, in the form of ketchup. The wonderful hot pepper sauce from
Jalisco in Mexico, “Valentina” Salsa Picante, is readily available and
inexpensive here. It’s easy to find at Mexican grocery shops and even at many supermarkets.
To me it’s more delicious in BBQ sauce than the Louisiana hot sauces or Frank’s
“RedHot” or Texas Pete, but those would work, too.
The recipe
makes about a pint and a half, enough for a good barbecue gathering, but any
leftover stores well in the refrigerator for later use. The sauce does not need
refrigeration for a number of hours, making it convenient to take to the
countryside or wherever the pig roast is happening.
A technical
note: because of the Worcestershire sauce, which contains anchovy, and soy
sauce, which has some wheat, the BBQ sauce is neither completely vegetarian nor
gluten-free. Non anchovy-containing Worcestershire sauce or gluten-free soy
sauce or Tamari can be used if need be.
1/4 cup
ketchup
1/4 cup
cider vinegar
1/4 cup
Valentina hot sauce (from Mexican grocery shops and some supermarkets)
3
tablespoons soy sauce
2
tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
3/4 cup + 2
tablespoons water
1
tablespoon brown sugar
3/8
teaspoon black pepper
1/8
teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon
canola oil
Mix
together using a fork or whisk. Refrigerate if held for more than a day.
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