This is a sauce I made up to put onto pork chops, to avoid the same-old same-old syndrome. It's not quite perfect, but I'm relatively pleased. It's based loosely on a recipe from “Cooking With Fruit” that I originally found on the About.com cooking site (but which redirects to a fish recipe on TheSpruceEats now – this is why I keep copies of my own versions of recipes). Originally from July 2002.
Ingredients
about a cup chopped rhubarb (½ – ¾ lb)
¼ Cup water
2 tsp ground ginger
⅓ Cup apple cider vinegar
2 cups water
1 cup finely chopped sweet onion
1 green bell pepper, chopped finely
1 tsp ground cayenne pepper
2 tsp fish sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp lemon juice
4 oz. crushed pineapple
Directions
Put rhubarb, ¼ cup water, and ginger in a small saucepan, heat and simmer for 5 minutes
Set rhubarb aside
Bring 2 cups water and ⅓ cup vinegar to a boil in a saucepan
Add chopped onion and green pepper
Boil onion and green pepper for 2-3 minutes
Drain onion and green pepper, then add them to the rhubarb, mixing well
At this point, I started doing things to taste, trying to achive a reasonable balance of hot, sweet, sour and salty
Add cayenne (hot) to taste
Add fish sauce, and soy sauce (salty) to taste
Add lemon juice (sour) to taste
Add pineapple (sweet & sour) to taste
Preparation time: ½ hour
Smear this on pork chops you're going to barbecue or fry. You could also bake them in a casserole dish bathed in the sauce. When you're adding things to taste, you should try and remember that you're trying to get the four main flavors roughly in balance, so none of them predominates. Start by adding about half of each of the cayenne, fish & soy sauces, lemon and pineapple, and then adjust accordingly. Even with all the other stuff in this sauce, you can still tell there's rhubarb underneath it. You could also use strawberries, raspberries, or a number of other fruits, too. Heck, use whatever's in season.
When you bake a meatloaf and want to glaze the top (which we almost always do), this is the stuff. Came from an ancient and yellowed Betty Crocker Cookbook, but they did half this recipe, which is nothing like enough for a standard loaf-pan-sized meatloaf. We often do twice this recipe, but we’re not like the other children.
Ingredients
½ C ketchup
4 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp ground yellow mustard seeds
Directions
Grind mustard seeds
Combine ingredients and mix thoroughly
Paint onto top of meatloaf a couple times while it’s baking, and again as you slice and serve the meatloaf.
Made some enchilada sauce the other day, and my sweetie wanted to know what went into it, so here’s the #recipe before I forget.
Ingredients:
1 qt tomatoes, fresh or frozen
3-6 chiles, pulled off the ristra, stems & seeds removed
2 tsp Better Than Bouillon roasted chicken flavor
1 tsp onion powder
pinch salt
1 tsp smoked paprika or ½ tsp liquid smoke
Directions:
Throw everything into a blender, and blend until smooth.
Put into a pan, and simmer until it’s reduced down to about a pint (by half)
Enjoy
Edited to add: Our rule for the chiles is “about one chile per medium-large tomato.” That seems to work out to four-five per quart, but we need to make sure we’re not missing seeds at that rate.
