Last night was the Pioneer Day celebration here in our neck of the woods, and I was asked to smoke some pork shoulder for the event. Now, anyone who has had my pork knows I'm pretty proud of it, so I took the challenge to do 45 lbs of it on my grill. But of course, that was too easy to do on it's own, so I decided to make a BBQ sauce to go with it. But, it couldn't be just any BBQ sauce. Oh, no. I had to come up with something new, because I'm apparently insane.
In this insanity, I remembered the bags of aging plums we had in the fridge that needed used (we had gone picking a week or so ago) and thought, "Those would probably make a pretty good BBQ base." So I started cutting up plums. And pitting them. Tons. Of. Plums. They were pretty small, so to get as much as I needed took a good 10 minutes.
But then the fun started. I pureed the plums down to a smooth mix, then started throwing in whatever I wanted. "Oh, look. We have some frozen chipotle peppers. In they go. How about some honey from my Christmas present? That smells good." And so it went. I blended it all together, poured it into a saucepan, and cooked it down until it was nice and thick and sticky.
And thus was born my new go to BBQ sauce. Not too sweet, with a nice acid kick and a slow burn on the back of the throat.
The only thing is, I didn't write anything down. Grr. I did my best to try and remember what I did, but I'm not sure what I got wrong, so if you make this, remember you might have to adjust as you go.
So, enjoy.
Plum bbq sauce
All quantities approximate
2 1/2 cups fresh plums, halved
1cup ketchup
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
Chipotle pepper canned in adobo (1/4 can)
1/4 cup molasses
1 cup unpacked brown sugar
2 tbs honey
1 tbs red pepper flakes
1 tbs (heaping) each onion/garlic powder
Salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder
Purée plums with chipotle peppers
Add in everything else and blend all ingredients until smooth
Transfer to sauce pan and cook until thick/desired consistency
Happy Eats!
Mint
