I’m a big fan of sauce.
Rarely is a meal or snack complete without a healthy dash of ketchup, mayonnaise, hollandaise, wholegrain mustard, gravy, crabapple jelly, jus, or whatever other liquid I can allow gravity to bring to my plate.
Back in my young days tomato ketchup was a meal in itself, drinking it straight from the bottle. Those wild times are well beyond me now, I am only found on occasion just gently sip on a glass of the stuff whilst discussing philosophy late at night.
So, how about actually making my own one, rather than buying all these pre-made pre-tested solutions.
Here are my chosen ingredients. One particular ingredient to mention is the 35 spice mix that I bartered for back in Marrakech. I have opted for a Memphis BBQ style sauce but with my own twist. I believe that a sweet, tangy vinegar base is what I’m looking for. So, with a lot of guidance from this recipe, here is what I did:
- Fried up the onion and garlic in the butter
- Then added everything else
- Simmered for 20 minutes
- Seasoned and took off heat
- Added a little crème fraiche to lighten it once cool
- Finished!
All went well to be honest. It was real simple to do. Amazingly so. Cannot believe I have never tried it before.
Now taste-wise, it was a slightly different matter. I’m not really one for measuring things too much. So it was just by guess of colour that I was making a good condiment.
Sadly, it didn’t quite work out perfectly. May have loaded way too much mustard into the concoction. The smell alone blew my mum out of the kitchen – but this is not necessarily a bad thing.
However, upon tasting, I realised that the mustard was completely overbearing. Devastated I thought I had wasted a ton of good quality ingredients in creating this brown murky sludge. Nonetheless, I placed it all in an empty vinegar bottle, put it in the fridge and let it await the real taste.
The Saturday morning breakfast always deserves a fine sauce with it. Testing it out and I was amazed. The taste had completely mellowed out and combined really well with the overscrambled eggs. Awesome, Al Sauce is a success!!
Even if it ends up me who gets to enjoy it Al Sauce will complement many a meal and snack over the coming months. Cannot guarantee I will be drinking straight from the bottle though…
