Après Moi, le Déluge

My harsh criticism for a certain establishment on Madison is well known, but it's not my fault. The Bar-B-Q Shop continues to suck. On Saturday, I planned to pick up the final sauces needed for our little tasting, but before I could get it in gear, the clouds burst. I thought, "No worries, I'll run out and grab the last minute items tomorrow, at the last minute." No need to mess about in the storm.

It was not my intention to exclude said restaurant from the gathering. In fact, I knew I'd catch a lot a grief if they weren't represented, as a host of Bar-B-Q Shop apologists would be in attendance. Well, the stupid place is closed on Sunday. Tops? Open. Central? Open. Three Little Pigs? Open. Whole Hog Café? Open. Bar-B-Q Shop? Closed. Also, the sauce does not seem to be available at either Schnucks or the Piggly Wiggly. At least, not in midtown. I checked.

I'm working on posting the results of the tasting, but wanted to get that mini-rant out on the Interweb.

Disappointed

About 10 minutes into cooking last night, I cut my thumb. E finished chopping the vegetables for me, and I managed to finish the ragu and the salsa. However, I wasn't too interested in making sauce. So, I got up this morning and got to work. Unfortunately, this batch sucks. After we get the results from today's tasting, I'll try to figure out what happened. Right now, I'm just pissed.

Salsa Tomate Asado

Ragu Tacchino

Cheating?

A few days ago after lunch, I stopped at Borders for a $2 cup of coffee to take back to work. $85 later, one of the items I left with was a cookbook titled Barbecue! Bible : Sauces, Rubs, and Marinades, Bastes, Butters, and Glazes. I skimmed it briefly today and didn't notice a recipe that cooked for longer than 45 minutes. I think shortening the cooking time for The Sauce is a step in the right direction. We'll find out tonight.

Also on tonight's cooking agenda: roasted tomato salsa, turkey ragu and guacamole. The guacamole has already been made and eaten.

Going Overboard

I just got back from the grocery where I picked up the following sauces: Commissary Mild, Neely's, Rendezvous, Stubb's Original, and the pièce de résistance – Schnuck's Multi-purpose Meat Sauce. Later today I'll stop by Tops, Central and the Three Little Pigs to bring our total to ten for the tasting including mine and RA's. We're gonna have a lot of leftover BBQ sauce.

Bar-B-Palooza 2007

I mentioned spending the upcoming weekend tasting and testing BBQ sauces from around the city, and Click (Daily) has graciously offered to host a gathering at her home on Sunday afternoon to do just that. In an equally gracious move, the Ashley's are bringing a pork shoulder and some of their own private label sauce. Who's bringing the beer?

Here's the plan. I pick up 5-10 sauces including mine and RA's. Each person rates as many of the sauces as they like in categories such as color, overall taste, sweetness, etc. Then they make a sandwich and drink a beer. I'll post the results – of both the testing and the beer drinking. Of course, now I have to come up with some sort of questionnaire for everyone to fill out. So much for doing any real work today. Ah, the things we do for scientific BBQ advancement.

Since I'm mostly looking to determine the balance of flavors in the best sauces and not really trying to identify a "winner," is there any reason to do blind tasting? Also, which ones should we test? Tops, Bar-B-Q Shop, Rendezvous, Neely's, Central, Commissary? Any preferences?

If you haven't already been invited, speak up, and I'll let you know if you are.

Friday Night Videos

As a newly diagnosed diabetic, is this what I'm reduced to?

Sauce Talk

After a lot of thought and quite a few taste tests of the last several variations of The Sauce, I've decided to alter my fundamental approach to sauce making in two ways.

I've become too preoccupied with sauce viscosity, and I think that's causing me to cook everything too long. The flavor is still good, but wrong. Overcooked is the only word I can think of to describe it. It's not fresh enough.

Also, there are still several flavors that I want to add, but I've run out of spice overhead. For the batch size that I'm making, I'll have to start working in eighths of a teaspoon to avoid over seasoning. That's a pain in the ass. Instead of measuring out each individual spice for each batch, I'm going to turn my mixture into a rub or adobo. Then I can add that mix by tablespoons to the the sauce. Brilliant! (Thanks, Sassy Molassy. Your recent order of Indian spice mixes from EthnicGrocer.com inspired this idea.)

Anyway, that's the new plan. Before I get started, I think I'll drive around town picking up sauce samples for a big taste comparison extravaganza. Anybody want to drop by this weekend and offer their opinions?

The Year of the Pig

The Saucier has been diagnosed with The Diabetes – a plague among us pudgy, Southern lovers of barbecue. As you can imagine, I've been a bit uninspired when it comes to writing or even thinking about BBQ sauce for the past week. Have no fear, faithful readers. This just means I'll have to reduce the frequency and quantity of my personal BBQ intake, but I can still cook up all the sauce I want. And, I want to cook up a lot of sauce.

This is after all the Year of the Pig. What? You didn't know? Well, Chinese New Year hits on Sunday the 18th, and 2007 is the Year of the Pig. To be more precise, 4705 is the Year of the Boar. In fact depending on which fortune teller you ask, it's the Year of the Golden Pig which happens only once every 60 years. Parents consider this an extremely lucky time to have a child, and I can't help but think it's an extremely lucky time to birth a new barbecue sauce.

Friday Night Videos

This commercial just freaked me out.

Friday Night Videos

Too much real work has led up to Friday Night Videos with no previous posts for the week. Shameful. Perhaps I can make up for it. It's not National Barbecue Month, but don't you wish it was?

Trois

Ladies and gentlemen, we have tang. I know I promised four iterations of The Sauce by the end of today, but I'm awfully pleased with my latest attempt. This version thickened perfectly, and I'm removing the corn starch option from the recipe. When cooked properly, The Sauce needs no artificial agents. I'm stopping here for the night. Before making another batch, I think I need to get some outside opinions.

I made some big changes this time around including the addition of ketchup and prepared mustard. I've avoided the Heinz until now because I've tasted way too many BBQ sauces that were essentially ketchup, Worcestershire, and not much else. In this case as an additive, I think I may have found what was missing. You'll also notice powdered lemon peel and a touch of cinnamon in the recipe.

Dry Ingredients
3/4 tsp Smoked Paprika
1/4 tsp Chipotle Chili Powder
1/4 tsp Powdered Lemon Peel
1/4 tsp Ground Cloves
1/8 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Ground Celery Seed
1/2 tsp Cumin
1/4 tsp Onion Powder
1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
1/2 tsp Dry Mustard
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper

Wet Ingredients
3 cups Beef Stock
16 oz Tomato Sauce
1/2 cup Ketchup
1/2 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
1/2 cup Red Wine Vinegar
1/2 cup Worcestershire Sauce
1 tbsp Prepared Mustard

Finishers
1/4 cup Brown Sugar
1 tbsp Honey
2 tbsp Molasses

Simmer tomato sauce about 45 minutes to thicken. Combine the wet ingredients and bring to a boil. Combine the dry ingredients. Add to the wet and simmer 1 hour. Add the finishers approximately 15 minutes before the end of cooking.

Deux

Well, that was a bust. I thought I could add some tang with a bit of orange juice. I should have used actual Tang instead. I cut back on the heat by removing the chipotle chili powder. In fact, I reduced the quantities of several of the spices. Mistake. I also added 1/4 tsp of ground cloves. They provided strong smell while cooking, but the flavor seemed to disappear in the final product. I might try allspice instead.

There is really nothing good to say about this batch. Moving on.

Un

As promised, I'm back to The Sauce – one batch down this Saturday morning. I'm not terribly happy with it, but E says it's the best so far. I tacked a half hour on to the cooking time which seemed to thicken things properly without burning. I'm sticking with the current level of heat for now, but I might eliminate the chipotle and go all paprika. The finish still isn't as smooth as I'd like, and there isn't enough tang. Mmmmmmm… astronauts. I'll add still more vinegar this time and perhaps cloves.

Part two on the way.

Friday Night Videos

Keeping with the Aqua Teen Hunger Force theme, here's an episode titled "Global Grilling." It includes both the Char-Nobyl nuclear-powered grill and the original, wooden George Washington grill. Fair warning. It's a cartoon, but it's not for the kiddies. It's kinda gross, too.

Some Common Sense Please

Some days this blog just writes itself. With all the attention being paid to the big Mooninite scare in Boston, this little gem might get overlooked. People, please. When you are standing in the airport security line, keep your mouth shut. Speak only when spoken to. Nothing you say can possibly be funny. Nothing.

Super Sauce

In the hopes of having an edible version of The Sauce available for Super Bowl Sunday, I'm making up for lost time. They call it rapid prototyping – at least 4 experiments by the end of Saturday. It's shameful that I haven't made a batch in over two months. After reviewing my notes, I'll return to tomato sauce and add even more vinegar. I'm adjusting the onion power and introducing celery seed.

Dry Ingredients
3/4 tsp Smoked Paprika
1/4 tsp Chipotle Chili Powder
1/4 tsp Ground Celery Seed
1/4 tsp Onion Powder
1/2 tsp Cumin
1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp Dry Mustard
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper

Wet Ingredients
3 cups Beef Stock
16 oz Tomato Sauce
1/2 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
1/2 cup Red Wine Vinegar
1/2 cup Worcestershire Sauce

Finishers
1/4 cup Brown Sugar
1 tbsp Honey
2 tbsp Molasses

Simmer tomato sauce about 45 minutes to thicken. Combine the wet ingredients and bring to a boil. Combine the dry ingredients. Add to the wet and simmer 1 hour. Add the finishers approximately 15 minutes before the end of cooking.

Add 2 spoonfuls of corn starch slurry at the very end to thicken, if needed.