I made a lovely grilled dry rubbed pork tenderloin. H loved it but I kept wishing for something moist and saucy.
Anyone?
For all such food, I strongly recommend amazingribs.com.
Other than that, I swear by the basic BBQ sauce in Steve Raichlen’s The Barbecue Bible, page 460, with the following alterations: leave out the molasses and the pineapple juice. (I prefer a less sweet sauce.)
I make a couple of different homemade barbecue sauces. I don’t have a recipe handy , but try pinterest for some ideas
Ok, this recipe was originally from Publix, and I love it so much!
It’s basically a dry rub with a sauce topping:
I use the barbecue seasoning from McCormick, and I rub it on the pork the day before and let it sit in the fridge.
Then I mix 1 bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch With Bacon" salad dressing with 1/4 cup of Tabasco chipotle sauce (it is not very spicy, you can up it or drop it depending on your tastes).
I pour it over the pork for the last ten minutes of cooking, or I brush it on the ribs in the last ten minutes on the grill. I don’t cook with a lot of pork anymore, and this works well with chicken and turkey, also. It’s so good, the kids ask me to make it a lot.
Once you learn how to make sauces — and it is not the easiest thing in cooking – you find you can make any combination of flavors into something you like. It’s fun to do and tastes better than anything that comes out of a jar.
Keep a good balance of fats – “fat = flavor” – with seasonings and acid. Use those drippings.
You can learn to make the “mother sauces” of french cooking and go from there:
Béchamel: Roux + Dairy (traditionally milk or cream)
Velouté: Roux + White Stock (traditionally chicken, but also vegetable or fish)
Espagnole: Roux + Brown Stock (traditionally veal or beef)
Tomato: Roux + Tomatoes (or, go the Italian route by skipping the roux and simply reducing tomatoes over medium-low heat until thick)
Hollandaise: Egg Yolks + Clarified Melted Butter + Acid (like lemon juice or white wine)
But I don’t usually bother with those (although never underestimate a good roux!)
I like to start with the drippings, reduce them slowly, add seasonings and maybe an acid or other juice (Pomegranete? Cranberry? Soy? Balsamic? and of course WINE!) reduce more, mount with butter, and then – and please don’t tell anyone – thicken with a cornstarch slurry. That will get you eliminated from a cooking contest but no one will know at your house and your sauces and gravies will be rich as Croesus!
Be prepared for some to not come out so well as you learn. My wife still talks about the the “black sauce” incident from 2009.
Have fun!
(apologies to trained chefs)
You may want to consider a salsa rather than a sauce. I like to make a mango salsa and spoon over pork/chicken/fish
Another vote for fruity salsa! Peaches are really good this time of the year.
Good ideas. Thanks!
I think it is the texture of the rub that I do not love.
I like the idea of #3 for this particular rub. A chipotle flavor would works this is super savory.
Love chutney for pork and sometimes fish.
I make a great cheater aioli. Mayo, horseradish, Dijon mustard, garlic. Can add pesto. Takes about 3 minutes to make and stores well.