The Three “S’s” (Pt.2): Sauce

A beautiful complement to a smoked BBQ dish. With so many different variations, it’s easy to get lost. It’s also easy to lose the delicious smoke taste when you go with an overpowering coat.

It takes me a long, long time to finally settle down on a sauce. I love a lot of store bought items, but similar to the seasonings… it’s about making it your own. Showing up to your smoke out with a mason jar of sauce while your buddy a smoker over is unscrewing his store bought instills a sense of pride.

Let’s get into some of my favorite creations.

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The Sauce

A couple work trips down to Alabama and I was introduced to the Alabama White sauce. I’m normally not big into mayonnaise, but am much more forgiving towards it than I am mustard. The way this tangy sauce shines on a bird is magical. I love that it doesn’t overpower the chicken, just accompanies it. It was great.

Same goes for a nice, thin vinegary sauce for pork. Adds good moisture with as much zest as you want. I haven’t made the vinegar pepper sauce in awhile, truth be told. Since I started throwing a finishing sauce (basically a vinegar pepper) when I mix up my pulled pork, I didn’t need a separate one for later.

My first attempt at a hot sauce, was an absolute knockout. The Serrano, Jalapeño, and tomatillo marry up perfectly. I’ve since tried a couple different sauces, and none of them matched up to this blend. This process took awhile.. take a look at the before and after fermentation:

Since the first go-around, after the food processor I make changes the liquid/solid ratio to find my happy-medium. Since it usually ends up more liquidy than solid, I have a nice chunky residual that I’ve used on tacos, nachos, etc. Again, find your blend and run with it.

This was a magical moment. I’ve spent days trying to make the perfect BBQ sauce. I’ve stunk up many a kitchen with ketchup on the stove, many countertops sticky with molasses, even threw caution to the wind with the addition of mustards. I couldn’t find one that worked.

Then a pal shared a recipe that blew my mind. This was the sauce that I was looking for. I made a few judgement calls with some of the ingredients, and my God, it worked. It wasn’t spicy though. So I added spice, and it got better. I can’t wait to keep working with it over the years and make it even better than the last time. Actually, here’s what all went into it:

When you look at that list, think “Why?” “What will this do to the flavor balance?”. My usual smoke is a pulled pork sandwich. I’ve created my own rub to throw on it. I’ve found my wood to put on there. I splash it with a finishing sauce for moisture. and then add this serum to drive it home. I’m proud of the finished product on a lot of these because of the time and effort that went into it.

I may make a part 2 to the part 2 later on, because I’ve definitely made some other sauces. I love an asian sauce – so buying the fish sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, etc. and finding that blend is the same journey. I don’t have a picture for a lot of my creations, but for the ones posted above, you can get some insight into the pride I put into my cooks.

I wanted to get a new post written, because it’s been too long. I’ve started a new employment journey in life, and I’ve let this slip a bit. Next up is the Christmas ham, and I can’t wait to share it with you.