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Recipes for Southern barbecue sauce

Dr. Barbecue's Carolina Mustard Sauce

Charles Kovacik may be the world's first barbecue cartographer. When the Michigan native moved south a few years back, he was amazed by how strongly people in different parts of the Carolinas identify with different sauces. Charles is a geography professor at the University of South Carolina, so naturally he launched an academic inquiry. He and colleague John Winberry ate at more than a hundred barbecue joints and devised a map of South Carolina sauce regions that makes the state look like the former Yugoslavia. In the process, Dr. K shed some of his professional objectivity. At a 1994 academic conference in North Carolina, he delivered a paper called "South Carolina: Epicenter of Southern Barbecue." "I get a lot of North Carolina hecklers," he says. The tribal sauce around Columbia has a mustard base. The professor got this recipe from his church, where they cook whole hogs at fund-raisers. "I suppose the sauce will work on less than a whole hog," he says, "but it just isn't right!"

Makes about 1 3/4 cups

3/4 cup yellow mustard

3/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons butter or margarine

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 1/4 teaspoons ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce

In a medium saucepan, combine ingredients, stirring to blend.

Over low heat, simmer 30 minutes.
Let stand at room temperature 1 hour before using.

Refrigerate unused sauce up to several weeks.

Uses: As a baste or table sauce with pork or chicken. Slap it on hot dogs, too.

Avery Island Barbecue Sauce

One of the most common instructions is barbecue recipes is "a couple of dashes of Tabasco sauce." Yet the place it comes from, southern Louisiana, doesn't have much of a barbecue tradition (barbecued crawfish anyone?). We adapted this recipe from the McIlhenney family, which has been making Tabasco on Avery Island since the 1860s. It employs the Holy Trinity of Cajun cooking -- celery, onions, bell peppers -- as well as Creole mustard and, of course, Tabasco.

Makes about 5 cups

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

1 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup diced celery with leaves

1/4 cup diced green bell pepper

1 tablespoon minced fresh garlic

2 cans (14 1/2 ounces each) tomatoes, undrained

1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 lemon slices

1 bay leaf

2 tablespoons Creole mustard

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

2 to 4 tablespoons Tabasco sauce

salt and pepper to taste

In a large saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion, celery, bell pepper and garlic, and saute 6 to 7 minutes, stirring frequently, until tender.

Stir in remaining ingredients, breaking up tomatoes with wooden spoon.

Bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until sauce is thickened.

Remove and discard lemon slices and bay leaf. Process in a food processor or blender until smooth. Serve warm.

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