Recipe of the Week: Sweet Mustard Barbecue Sauce

Today Jake started his official inservice for school, so yesterday we decided to grill for dinner. I had a pork tenderloin in mind but needed a marinade or rub to enhance the meal. I had been whittling down my collection of magazines that day also and cut out a barbecue sauce that paired perfectly (so it said) with pork that we decided to try.

Sweet Mustard Barbecue Sauce

Makes about 2 cups

1 cup cider vinegar

2/3 cup prepared mustard

1/2 cup sugar

2 Tbsp. chili powder

1 tsp. white pepper sauce.

1 tsp. black pepper

1/4 tsp. ground red pepper

1/2 tsp. hot sauce

2 Tbsp. butter or margarine

1/2 tsp. soy sauce

STIR together first 8 ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat; bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in butter and soy sauce.

From My Experience:

I had to make some changes because I ran out of regular mustard. I decided to squirt some ketchup to the mix in it's place because I know that is commonly used to make barbecue, however then I found some spicy brown mustard and put a spoonful of that in too. Total my mustard combination equaled 2/3 to 1 cup. Then I switched the black and white pepper for my ground peppercorn medley. Who really has white pepper by itself? Instead of ground red pepper, I added Spicy Montreal Steak Seasoning because I really like the stuff! As I was stirring and heating up my mix, I was very unsure of the outcome. The smell was a very strong tangy scent, and you could see little ribbons of yellow mustard revealing the difficulty I was having getting the sauce to mix together plus it wasn't as thick as I remember barbecue sauce to be. Nevertheless, I forged on in the process. After adding the final ingredients, I put the raw pork loin in a ziploc bag and then filled it with the sauce. We marinated it for a while, then Jake used the sauce to occasionally baste the pork as he grilled it. He cooked it on the grill using charcoal and mesquite chips for 3 hours with indirect heat (smoking) at 300 to 350 degrees. He was in the grilling mood as you can tell. When he brought it inside, I was still skeptical but it was absolutely yummy! It had a definite mustard taste but it was spicy and sweet as well. I ate way more than I intended because I "sampled" quite a few pieces while he was slicing the loins.

We paired the pork loin with wheat rolls and asparagus that Jake had grilled in a foil packet for the last 10 minutes of cooking. On the asparagus, I sprinkled more of the Spicy Montreal Steak Seasoning (love the stuff!) and the juice of one lemon. It too was very tasty.

I will definitely make this delicious barbecue sauce again to use as a marinade. Although it thickened after cooling, it wasn't enough to make it a dipping sauce. Maybe I'll try it on chicken next time...