Liven Up Your Grill with Some Apple Barbecue Sauce
Yummm... apple barbecue sauce. Just the thought of it makes me lick my lips. How about you? Saturday, June 02, 2018
Back when I was a lad, my Dad used to regularly flavor his barbecue sauce with apple juice. Sadly, it wasn't a secret that got passed down to yours truly. Well, I recently got a hankering for that home-style apple barbecue sauce flavor, so I thought I'd do some investigating. In this article, I'll tell you what I found out.
Doing it the easy way
In my family, we tend to take the easy way out when it comes to recipes (it's safer for all involved that way). So the simplest way to get a fine, apply-flavored barbecue sauce is simply to take your favorite existing sauce and add a nice tot of apple juice, on the order of a cup per quart, and mix thoroughly.
What you end up with is a concoction somewhat thinner than ordinary sauce, but that's easy enough to fix. Just set the pan on the edge of the barbecue grill and let it reduce a little, and soon it'll be as thick as you like.
Going whole hog (so to speak)
To some people, of course, not making barbecue sauce from scratch is nigh unto sacrilege. So for those barbecuers, I've got a sweet apple-flavored barbecue sauce recipe that'll have you singing the praises of Malus pumila*.
The ingredients
Here's what you'll need to get cracking:
* 1/2 cup of grated onion (white or red for heat, yellow for sweetness)
* 2/3 cup of peeled and grated apple, any type
* 4 teaspoons of grated bell pepper
* 1-1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
* 1-1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
* 1 teaspoon of brown sugar
* 1/2 cup of apple juice
* 2 cups of ketchup
* 1/2 cup of soy sauce
* 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
The procedure
Thoroughly mix it all together in a large saucepan and bring it to a boil, before lowering the heat and letting the sauce simmer for about 15 minutes. Then cover and allow it to cool to room temperature, and put it into the refrigerator until you're ready to use it. Simple, no?
How to use the sauce
My Dad used his sauce on just about any meat he came across, and it tasted fine. However, in my opinion this sauce tastes best with pork and chicken. It leaves a nice, thin glaze, given the sugars in the apple juice and the brown sugar.
But those are just my recommendations. Try apple barbecue sauce on your own culinary creations this summer, and let me know what you think!
* That's the apple tree, for you Philistines.
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