Recipes: Barbecue sauce

Brush this sweet-sour sauce over ribs or chicken wings before baking or barbecuing, for a marvellously messy treat

Ingredients

• 200ml cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp dry mustard powder
• 6 tbsp soft dark brown sugar
• 4 tbsp tomato ketchup
• 4 tbsp bourbon
• big pinch dried chilli flakes
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 4 garlic cloves , crushed

  

  1. Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and add a splash of water. Stir everything together and then simmer gently for 20 minutes. Cool.
  2. To use, brush over meat or chicken and barbecue or bake. If you are cooking something for longer than 20 minutes, then only brush over the sauce for the last 20 minutes, otherwise it may burn.

  Three variations

  Make it more Asian-tasting by omitting the ketchup and swapping brown sugar with honey, using mirin or sake instead of bourbon, and rice-wine vinegar rather than cider vinegar. You could also throw in some finely chopped spring onion and grated ginger. Make it stickier by using honey instead of sugar and adding 1 tbsp less vinegar. Make it smoky by adding 2 tbsp chipotle paste and dropping the dried chilli.