BBQ sauce
2 little cans of tomato paste
molasses
apple cider vinegar
largley diced medium onion
oil for cooking
seasonings to taste:
salt
garlic powder
ground red iepper (optional)
Spike
pepper and whatever else you want to throw in
Liquid Smoke
First, heat a pan on medium high heat. When its heated, cook onions in oil until they are carmalized (light to dark brown). If they turn black, don't worry, they'll still taste ok.
Once you get that going, put the cans of tomato paste in a small pot. Add molasses and apple cider vinegar. (A LITTLE , or rather large, HINT: Molasses makes a BBQ sauce sweet. Apple cider vinegar makes BBQ sauce tangy. SO, depending on how you like your BBQ sauce- for example, I prefer mine a little more sweet and tangy than some people, you might want to add more or less of both depending on taste.) Stir this for a while, and your onions should be done. Stir onions in along with all your other spices.
A NOTE ON SEASONING: BBQ sauce absorbs a lot of flavor, and the mixture of tomato past, molasses and apple cider vinegar are pretty overpowering. To compensate, add a lot of spices. It might seem like you're adding too much, but you're not. Add some more. And for the best results until you get it down, taste periodically.
Liquid Smoke: THIS IS NECESSARY. otherwise, your BBQ sauce will taste like wierd katchup. Add a good amount depending on how smokey you want your BBQ sauce to be. You can also use more of this in place of salt.
Salt: use a lot of it and if you screw up and make it too tangy or sweet the salt will cover it up. Garlic Powder: use a good amount of this. Usually how I judge it is I add until I think I added too much, then i put more in (the same applies for salt, actually). Ground Red Pepper: if you like spicy BBQ add a good amount of it, but if you don't it tastes fine without it, though I might call you a wimp.
Spike: I always use this stuff. If you don't have spike, you're not a vegan cook. With that said, use a good amount of this, too.
Pepper: duh. to taste.
Whatever else: See, one of the coolest things about BBQ sauce is that it can have a million different tastes. KC Masterpiece won't cut it and all of the good sauces have honey BBQ sauce Experiment, make your own, and have fun.
Soundtrack: Youth of Today: Were Not In This Alone LP
SO HOW'D IT GO?
A pretty good recipe without the SPIKE. It's interesting that you think someone cannot be a vegan cook without it.
I looked for it when I went to Whole Foods. They don't carry it, so I had to look it up online.
The first ingredient listed in spike is salt. Plenty of vegans cook without salt, including myself. Another ingredient is hydrolyzed vegetable protein. Although it didn't sound good, I wasn't sure what it was, so I went to wikipedia.
yucky stuff.
Hydrolyzed vegetable protein, or HVP, is produced by boiling cereals or legumes, such as soy, corn, or wheat, in hydrochloric acid and then neutralizing the solution with sodium hydroxide. The acid hydrolyzes, or breaks down, the protein in vegetables into their component amino acids. The resulting brown powder contains, among other amino acids, glutamic acid, which consumers are more familiar with in the form of its sodium salt, monosodium glutamate, or MSG. It is used as a flavor enhancer in many processed foods.
Yes, you can be a vegan cook without using this garbage.
Spike is a brand of seasoning salt.
It's really good and you don't have to be vegan to enjoy it! One of my best friend's has used it for over 20 years in cooking mostly meat products. It's pretty tasty stuff especially on veggies!
So...what is this elusive 'Spike'? And if I can't be a vegan cook without it, can I still be a vegan chef? CAN I STILL POSSIBLY EXIST?!
I think that's a second for the less-arrogance motion.