In general, I am not a chef. In my house, I do very little of the cooking, although I do enjoy it when I get the chance. The one thing that I have always loves to cook, and insist on cooking every time, is barbecued meat. I love barbecuing, grilling, roasting, smoking anything that involves placing a good cut of meat over high heat and open flames.
I have to confess that one of the things I like about this form of cooking is that it is so easy to get good results. As long as you have the rights barbeque sauce, you can not go wrong. Until recently, I never had to try a barbecue sauce recipe, because there was a locally made barbecue sauce called Memphis Minnie’s that was just simply spectacular. Unfortunately, it recently went under.
I tried cooking with other locally available barbecue sauce recipes, but it was just not the same. People who had praised my cooking in the past were much less lavish with their praise. I just could not get the same results. I looked everywhere for a barbecue sauce recipe that would duplicate the flavor of Memphis Minnie’s, but it was all in vain.
Finally, I figured out that I would have to invent my own barbecue sauce recipe. I had no idea how to go about doing this, and had to learn all kinds of new things. Preparing a barbecue sauce recipe is not as easy as you might think. You have to strike a delicate balance between preserving the flavor, and creating something that is delicious immediately after it is cooked. Almost any good barbecue sauce recipe, it turns out, has to be used within a week of being prepared. Otherwise, it will become stale.
The fact that I lost my favorite recipe for barbecue sauce turned out to be a blessing in disguise. You see, once I started experimenting with barbecue sauce recipes, I found out quickly that you can make something that is much more delicious than anything you can buy in the store. As long as you are able to use it up within the next couple days, you can make something that is spectacularly flavorful and much more healthy than any commercially available barbecue sauce recipe. Knowing this, I have decided to never buy barbecue sauce again. Why would I, when I can make something that tastes much better? I never got so many compliments before…
Barbecue Smoker Recipe Man asked:
It amazes me how many great chefs can cook fantastic dishes yet fail to be able to write recipes in a clear and concise way that makes for easy reading and understanding. Many could do with working in manufacturing industry for a number of weeks and learn the skill involved in preparing a bill of materials for a product because in this way they would get to understand how certain ingredients can be grouped together to make a “sub assembly” before the preparation into the final assembly.
Some top chefs have mastered this of course and they truly produce excellent food, freshly prepared and in a short space of time. It simply boils down to storing the food in it’s sub assembly state until you’re ready to serve then throw everything together and give it a blast.
I’m a barbecue and smoker enthusiast and I love to experiment with different marinades, rubs and mops as well as making some really tasty accompaniments for my BBQ parties. It wasn’t until last year that a friend suggest I should “bottle” my knowledge and share it but my confidence wasn’t too great because first of all I’m not a professional chef and second I’ve never written a recipe.
I guess everybody has to start somewhere and when I thought about my day job it in manufacturing and also how some recipes really annoy me I found the way forward. All it took then was to think about how I prepared the meal and write it down.
One thing that really frustrates me is when there’s no clear information about how long the recipe is going to take, admittedly it’s not that important for barbecue recipes because the BBQ cooking is part of the fun and if you’re into smoking most people already know the rule of thumb that it take a minimum of 60 minutes per pound of meat and a thermometer to measure the internal temperature of the food. What’s really annoying is when you get half way through a recipe and then see the words “put the mix to one side and marinate overnight”.
So aside from ensuring that the method clearly states how to put the ingredients together in a manner that ensures the final assembly is as easy as possible, it’s essential to state clearly in the opening summary whether that are any time constraints with the recipe. For another example just a quick note at the top of the page to state preparation time and cooking time will work wonders.
There is a protocol when writing ingredients that the largest constituents go first running down to the inevitable pinch of salt and pepper at the bottom. For me it doesn’t make sense because I like to see the ingredients together that get mixed together. For example if we’re doing a rub then I would prefer to see all the rub ingredients listed separately, this way it’s clear to read and I don’t forget anything. That’s my way, you may have yours but if together it brings more great recipes to the internet then hopefully we’re onto a winner.