The Quest for Sauce, Part 1
I am a changed man.
I’ve been imbued with a sacred sense of mission, a crusading impulse to grasp at glory and exercise my ambitions. With a clear sense of my own shortcomings, I want to emulate the sentiment of French gastronome Brillat-Savarin, who wrote: “The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery a star.” I couldn’t agree more, and I’ve had a vision.
I have begun a Quest for Sauce.
While a sauce may not qualify as a new “dish”, it is at least as important as discovering a new planet or a moon. So I will invent my own awesome grilling sauce, with an aroma that sings and a flavor that explodes. Something good enough to warrant the epitaph: “At least he made the sauce.”
These are the ground rules, people. One: it cannot resemble the typical American barbecue sauce. I love American style barbecue, all the regional favorites, but I don’t think I could add much to that genre. Two: the sauce must be very spicy— heady, even— and utilize fruit. Three: it should enhance the meat or vegetable’s flavor, not overwhelm it.
Let me tell you how I came to this awesome task, this spicy inspiration, this Quest for Sauce.
My friend Kristin recently confessed how bored with life she felt. Working in her family’s payroll business for the last twenty years and raising her wonderful children have been rewarding, but her talents and creativity demand new challenges. She wants to go into business herself.
As I’ve said before, Kristin is a great cook, so I suggested that she prepare and package food products, like a sauce, chutney, salsa, or tapenade. She said that it was already one of her more intriguing ideas. But what to make? I wondered what products were most in demand. What kind of product would I go out of the way to buy myself?
I certainly wish Kristin luck with whatever her enterprise might be. I’m especially thankful that her idea has reawakened ambitions of my own. With all humility and gratitude, I want to invent my own awesome grilling sauce. I don’t plan on making a business of it, but I want to create something distinctive, mix my impulses with discipline. I plan on perfecting the recipe’s taste until next summer, when i will package it for friends and family. I premiered the the first prototype at a housewarming party for some good friends.
I began with a rub adapted from a Steven Raichlen recipe, a much more interesting mixture than the typical barbecue:
2 tbl brown sugar, 2tbl hot paprika, and 1 tbl each of coarse salt, black pepper, garlic powder, cinnamon, and 1/2 tbl cardamom.
The rub was great, but the sauce was the experiment here. I want it to be spicy, sweet, fruity and tart without being too salty. My first run was not bad. I began with a recipe for peach, rum, and chili sauce. It turned out excellent, but my adaption was not hot, sweet, or punchy enough. At least it was an excuse to get a bottle of Myer’s rum, that dark elixir.
I was the first to season my buddy’s brand new grill. Another flaw of my sauce was its runniness, so I must admit that I seasoned it quite well. And the patio. And probably a few other things. I was in the heat of the moment. Cooking is like sex, you can’t be afraid to make a bit of a mess if you have to. If you’re worrying about a mess, you’re not giving the sex the attention it deserves. Or in this case, the cooking. So I got a little excited…
Clearly, a thicker, more clingy sauce would have cooked onto the chicken better. But no one complained, not even the new homeowner when he hosed my delicious sauce off his concrete patio.
The chicken was quite good, but I will return in the next installment of the Quest for Sauce.