A while back I made a slow cooked brisket. Very tasty stuff. When I make the brisket, I usually put it on a bed of diced yellow onion to protect it from the bottom of the pan so that it does not dry out. The onions add some moisture to the situation as well that helps the brisket in its' long, slow process to become tender.
So what to do with the onions at the end of this once the prized meat is pulled from the pan to cool? Years ago I used to discard them and consider them a sort of culinary collateral damage.
This was before I worked as a sous chef at Roti in San Francisco. Our budget at Roti was such that we had to find ways to eek out as much as we could from everything that we used to make our food. It was there that I really started to look at everything I did to find more that could be done with it.
At Roti, I was responsible for the duck confit. I made about a gross of them every five days or so. It was very important for me to get the most uses as I could out of the duck fat as possible without sacrificing any quality.
It was then that I noticed a thin layer of gelatinous material at the bottom of each pan as I was removing the fat to melt and strain it for another go. This gelatin, which I dubbed "duck jello" was delicious, so I started to save it in a container in the walk-in to use in other preparations.
The duck jello opened my eyes. What else was there that looked like I should discard, but in reality was a gold mine if you will. I'll do a post on duck confit later because it is a wonderful proration both in how it is made and the final product which is very versatile.
Shortly after my discovery of the uses of duck jello, I noticed a prep cook about to toss the onions that had been under a piece of slow cooked meat and yelled "stop!" just before they were to go into the trash.
These onions were fantastic. When I grabbed a few pieces out of the pan and tasted them I realized I had found more gold. They had an intense smokey/sweet character to them. What better way to start a great Bar-B-Cue sauce!
That is exactly what happened tonight. I have held the onions in my refrigerator since I made that brisket intending to make a Bar-B-Cue sauce.
Let me be clear before we get going here, I have never measured the ingredients when making a sauce from one of these discover veins of gold, I have just played with my food until it was right.
Tonight I measured everything. You should see the scribble laden scrap of paper on which I kept track of the ingredients! Pretty funny actually.
Here is the recipe I made tonight:
6 oz by weight onions
1 C ketchup
1/5 C Dijon mustard
3 fl oz water
4 oz butter
2 T Chalula brand chipotle hot sauce
2 fl oz apple cider vinegar
1 T Worcestershire sauce
4 T brown sugar
I started with the onions in the pan and turned on the heat.
I added the ketchup and 2 T butter.
Next I added the cider vinegar and hot sauce.
At this time I tasted the sauce and realized it needed some sweet character for it to be right, so I added brown sugar. 2 Tablespoons at first and blended it with an immersion blender.
I simmered it for about five minutes. Tasted it again. Still not there.
My sauce was too thick. I added 2 T of water to loosen it up. Add the mustard and simmered for about five minutes.
I tasted it. Still missing something. More Butter.
I added the rest of the brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce and one more tablespoon of water.
At this point I consider the sauce done. If you like you could add a little lemon juice to it to add a little acid and give it a brighter flavor, but I chose not to do that. I can add some lemon when I use it if I want to or use it as it is.
To make this sauce, all you really need to do is put all of the ingredients (except the water) in a sauce pan and simmer it together. Add the water to achieve the consistency that you want. Remember BBQ sauce is supposed to be a little thick and sticky so that it adheres to the meat.
I think what I want to say here is that you want to play with your food on this one. There is no wrong or right way to make this sauce, make it your own to your taste.
Play!
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