Haskew Family BBQ Sauce Recipe

My brother Kyle, the master chef, made some amazing ribs for our July fourth feast. It's a Summerville/Haskew tradition to consume lots of pork in celebration of Independence Day. This year we managed to go overboard on the meat (no surprise there) and ended up with six slabs of ribs, three whole chickens, and one boston butt Dad slow roasted for pulled pork BBQ. Let's just say we've enjoyed some yummy leftovers these past few weeks.

This year, I figured it would be a good idea to actually document the process so I have Kyle's master cooking method and BBQ sauce recipe (passed down from my Big Mama but modified differently each year) on record. If this post (with pics) hasn't made you hungry already then beware, for it certainly will.

Kyle prepped the ribs the night before and left them in the fridge overnight.

On Friday he basted them in the sauce. He hand-dipped the chicken and used a small sauce mop to baste the ribs. Then he grilled them on Friday so all he had to do on Saturday was reheat them in the oven for an hour or so before we were ready to eat. One of the guys at his office told him this was the best way to BBQ so you don't have to cook as much the day of your event, and the ribs come out tender from both the time on the grill and the time warming in the oven.

They were so good and tender! The chicken was excellent too.

On to the sauce recipe. This is something Kyle and I used to help my grandmother make each year since we were little kids, and it's been fun to keep up the tradition and experiment with the basic ingredients over the years.

He began with a base starter BBQ sauce. This year he used Wicker's. Then we add the following (in various amounts to taste):

• Chili sauce
• Ketchup
  
• Worcestershire sauce
• Lemon juice
• Tabasco sauce
• Dry mustard
• Beer
• Dark cola (Coke or Dr. Pepper usually)
• Powered hot chili pepper
• Brown sugar
• Vinegar
• Onion (chopped)
• Garlic power
• Maple syrup
• Other random spices he found in my cabinet

We typically don't use maple syrup but ran out of brown sugar and needed a sweet substitute. I think he may have also added some honey. I think we still didn't get it quite sweet enough, because it came out a little spicier this year than usual, so it had a little kick but was still great.

(FYI: that's not grape Powerade. I think he thought I wouldn't have Worcestershire sauce so he brought some from home in a Powerade bottle. I don't know why he didn't just bring the bottle of Worcestershire. But, hey, I don't argue with the master chef.)

Adding the dry mustard to the pot.

The sauce was nice and dark after simmering on the stove for an hour or so.

The finished product was amazing! Hungry yet???