Bumping up spice/sauce blends

gdenby

Hi, all,

Not to be OT, but here's a post about cooking.

For those of you who dabble at rub and sauce making, have a look at an article at Serious Eats "How to Make From-Scratch Japanese Curry That's Better Than the Box." There's some good tips about how to boost rather "blah" spice and herb blends. Essentially, many commercial blends aim at something that is basic, and don't add much if any of the flavors that make the blend distinctive.

And standard, if tedious stuff like toast some whole spices before grinding.

Note, the fellow's total prep time is 1.5 hrs for a from scratch blend.

northGAcock

Did you intend to post a link?

vb4677

I was amazed to learn that here in KC, one of the more famous BBQ joints merely adds more black pepper to make their "Hot" BBQ sauce (which is one of my favorites).  I would've thought it was more chili powder, chipotle, etc, but nope - more black pepper...

Cool to learn how a few minor adjustments can make major impacts on flavor!

gdenby

northGAcock said:

Did you intend to post a link?

I wasn't certain the URL was settled, it had been moved to a different page than yesterday, but here is a link.

gdenby

vb4677 said:

I was amazed to learn that here in KC, one of the more famous BBQ joints merely adds more black pepper to make their "Hot" BBQ sauce (which is one of my favorites).  I would've thought it was more chili powder, chipotle, etc, but nope - more black pepper...

All black pepper tends to degrade rapidly after grinding and heating. For many years, I thought having a pepper grinder on hand was just something for restaurants. Then I was given a grinder, spent what I thought was a lot of money on some whole peppercorns, and tried it. Almost never use preground any more.

Have learned that for BBQ, its best to add the black pepper just before serving, sort of like saucing. The flavor and bite are much better.