Elvis's sauce w/ pickling spice

[Steve Holat]

[Apologies for being a day late with this post.] A friend sent a postcard from Memphis. On the front is a dreamy pic of Young Elvis and a recipe for a basic bbq sauce with an interesting twist: pickling spice. On the back of the card is a trademark certifying it as an Elvis Presley Signature Product and the statement: "Authentic Recipe from Graceland," so it obviously has the necessary provenance.

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SPECIAL BARBECUE SAUCE

4 medium size cans tomato sauce
1 T soy sauce
1 T dried mustard
1 T chili powder
1/2 c vinegar
2 slices lemon
1 T brown sugar
2 T honey
1 T red pepper
1 T pickling spice

Mix all ingredients together and cook at low heat for 30 minutes.
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Simple and straight forward. My problem is that my jar of McCormick Pickling Spice has whole spices and large herbal pieces. So I'll grind the entire jar to get even distribution of the contents. I'm also going with white vinegar, light brown sugar and crushed red pepper - 1T seems like a lot of ground pepper. I'll stay true to the recipe so I can report back with an accurate assessment.

 

[K Kruger]

The spices in pickling spice are actually fairly standard barbecue spices - except, of course, they are used individually so are listed as such. They are, with just a few exceptions, the same spices used in standard ketchup. The mustard seed won't add anything, ground or not (mustard needs a liquid to activate its flavor; even if one is supplied its flavor will not sustain the heat of cooking unless the cooking is very brief), but the other common ingredients - coriander, allspice, cinnamon, bay, ginger, clove, chile, cardamom, black pepper, mace - will, and will boost the overall flavor profile of your mix in a very nice way.

To me, 1 T of ground crushed red pepper to 4 cans of tomato sauce isn't too much, but YMMV. No point in making something you don't like. Add half the red pepper and adjust from there, if you wish.

One thing I would suggest (and you can do this after the fact if you wish, or not): add some fat. Several of the flavor volatiles in this recipe are fat soluble, not water soluble. You will achieve a better 'spread' and depth of flavor if you give the fat soluble flavors something to solubilize in. Me, I would add a couple tablespoons of unsalted butter at the outset. Some of the flavor of the chile, much of the flavor of many of the pickling spice components, and nearly all of the flavor of the crushed red are fat soluble. Adding some fat will bring those flavors out to where they are 'meant to be', as it were. Just a thought.

Whatever you do, report back your thoughts on the results.