Lots of people coming for a big graduation party at my house. This is what I did.
June 28, 2008 Midnight, Buffalo, NY. Tonight I am going to attempt to perfect my first serious barbecue sauce since learning some authentic techniques. A few weeks ago, I added pineapple and it was too sweet Like all complex sauces these days, I'm going to try to stick to the rule: Carbs, Proteins, Fats. I am convinced that it must start with a good tomato sauce. Several shallots and a half clove of garlic sweated in olive oil with thyme and a rosemary twig, followed by tomatoes. I am concerned about using fresh tomatoes right now from a flavor perspective, so I might need to revert to canned crushed imported Centos. Then wine, salt and sugar to correct the seasoning as it thickens. Then I want to add bourbon and coffee for complexity and brown sugar and or fruit like pineapple for sweetness. Somewhere about now, this will need some vinegar. In another pot, I'll make up a celery, mushroom (porcini for umami perhaps) and heavy bay leaf (after Walter Jetton*, for bitter probably) chicken stock, thicken it up to a demiglace and add it for balance. Finally after I strain it, I'll melt in the butter off heat to clarify it. The dry rub for the meat will be salt. pepper, ancho chile and cumin, Therefore, the sauce will need no chili powder. And since the meat will be smoked in beer with mesquite or pear wood, I'll need to stay away from chipotles. And, I never add brown sugar to the dry rub anymore as it will burn. The spice options are to add to the shallots or add for a few minutes before straining - I'd like to do the first but think I'll try the latter to better control the heat. corrections can be made as follows: Sweet - brown sugar; Sour - Lemon or Vinegar; Salty - Salt or Soy; Bitter - zest; Umami - Soy, Balsamic Vinegar or Romano Cheese. The idea is to get these flavors into perfect balance. Good luck.
June 29, 2008 Midnight, Buffalo, NY. I started with about 5 pound of fresh, large, not very flavorful tomatoes and cut them into pieces to fill my 8 or 10 cup Cuisinart braising pot. I added a cup of water, covered the pot and boiled it for 20 minutes. Then I uncovered it and boiled it down to 1/3, added a cup and a half of malbec red wine and boiled it down again. In my 12 inch nonstick skillet, I added 3 finely diced large shallots and a half clove of minced garlic and sweated them in olive oil with fresh thyme, fresh oregano and two small rosemary twigs. In my quart-sized gravy pot, I placed 4 small bay leaves, 1/3 cup of dried porcini mushrooms and 1/3 cup of celery, filled it with chicken stock and boiled it down to 2/3. Then I added 1/2 cup of early times bourbon and 1/4 cup of black coffee to the tomato base, boiled out the alcohol, and stirred in the herb mix and the stock reduction, adding 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper, and boiling it down to the 1/3 mark once again before retiring it for the evening and turned to my dry rub, which turned out to be about a cup of equal parts of salt, finely ground pepper, ancho chile, cumin, coriander and ground coffee. The chili powder omitted from the sauce forms the basis of the dry rub and would come together with the sauce at service. Around 10 am, I place about 30 charcoal briquettes on each side of my weber 22 inch charcoal grill, fill two foil baskets with a pint total of mesquite chips in the area in between, cover them with water, and, vents open, light the Weber cube fire starters. While the heat is coming up, I rinse, dry and coat the 5 to 6 lb brisket and the 2 1/2 pound rack of pork ribs, membrane removed, on foil with the dry rub. I then set the ribs on end for space, fashion foil hats loosely over the bottoms to let the smoke in, and split a bottle of Molson Canadian under the meat to keep it moist. Around 11 am I place them on the center grill grate for three to four hours plus of indirect heat. I place my thermometer in the upper vents and set both upper and lower vents to somewhere around a 275 degree target. I add coals every hours but there's a problem keeping the temperature up, rekindling once and finishing at a hotter 325 degrees around 3pm. In the meantime I strain the sauce, boil it down to about 1 1/3 cups, and correct it by adding 1/2 cup brown demararra sugar, 3 Tbsp white vinegar and 1 tbsp soy sauce. After removing meat from the grill, I add the fat - 1/4 cup dry-rub flavored, melted pork fat from the ribs. I slice the brisket thin across the grain, cut up the ribs, and serve it with the sauce. It is good. Its not quite as tender as I could possibly get it, but the temperature drop and subsequent higher late-cooking temperature dried the meat our slightly. Its as tender as anyone else has ever had, though, and its easy to cut thin to serve. And the sauce is great, but after so much work and tasting its hard to keep perspective. There are some leftovers, but not much. I have about 4 tbsp of sauce left for the post mortem. All in all, not a bad barbecue day. Next Installment: How it Stacks Up against dinosaur and other popular sauces.
June 30, 2008, Midnight, Buffalo, NY: Its way more complex and just a little bit less vinegary than Dinosaur. IMHO its better. Others in blind tests have confirmed this.
July 1, 2008, Midnight, Buffalo, NY: I've waited till the cook was waning and became a taster - it is superior as described. While I might add a touch more vinegar in the future, I now have to work on controlling the complexity. A great success despite a slight lack of grill control and therefore meat moistness...an incredible success.
*The sauce below was made famous by President Johnson's Pit master, Walter Jetton. Bone stock is used for cooking beef and mop, but his mop, sauce and braised brisket all have lots of bay leaf.
INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup ketchup
1/2 cup cider vinegar
3 stalks celery, chopped
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons chopped onion
3 bay leaves
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon salt
pinch of black pepper
PREPARATION:
Mix all ingredients together. Place in saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and strain.