davepolaschek

This is a sauce I made up to put onto pork chops, to avoid the same-old same-old syndrome. It's not quite perfect, but I'm relatively pleased. It's based loosely on a recipe from “Cooking With Fruit” that I originally found on the About.com cooking site (but which redirects to a fish recipe on TheSpruceEats now – this is why I keep copies of my own versions of recipes). Originally from July 2002.

Ingredients

• about a cup chopped rhubarb (½ – ¾ lb)
• ¼ Cup water
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• ⅓ Cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup finely chopped sweet onion
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped finely
• 1 tsp ground cayenne pepper
• 2 tsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 4 oz. crushed pineapple

Directions

• Put rhubarb, ¼ cup water, and ginger in a small saucepan, heat and simmer for 5 minutes
• Set rhubarb aside
• Bring 2 cups water and ⅓ cup vinegar to a boil in a saucepan
• Add chopped onion and green pepper
• Boil onion and green pepper for 2-3 minutes
• Drain onion and green pepper, then add them to the rhubarb, mixing well
  At this point, I started doing things to taste, trying to achive a reasonable balance of hot, sweet, sour and salty
• Add cayenne (hot) to taste
• Add fish sauce, and soy sauce (salty) to taste
• Add lemon juice (sour) to taste
• Add pineapple (sweet & sour) to taste

Preparation time: ½ hour

Smear this on pork chops you're going to barbecue or fry. You could also bake them in a casserole dish bathed in the sauce. When you're adding things to taste, you should try and remember that you're trying to get the four main flavors roughly in balance, so none of them predominates. Start by adding about half of each of the cayenne, fish & soy sauces, lemon and pineapple, and then adjust accordingly. Even with all the other stuff in this sauce, you can still tell there's rhubarb underneath it. You could also use strawberries, raspberries, or a number of other fruits, too. Heck, use whatever's in season.

#recipe #sauce

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