South Carolina Mustard BBQ Sauce

It's not really authentic. As far as I know, it originated with the mother of a woman I used to date in the seventies who lived in Savannah, Georgia. It was I who named it "Mid-Carolinas" and for no good reason either.

I like it better than any of the "authentic" sauces. Matters "gourmet" and "upscale" aside; face it, dijon is a lot more interesting than sunny yellow baseball mustard. As soon as I read "shallots" in your post, it seemed like a natural recommendation. You seem pretty happy about tweaking things, so add or substitute as the mood dictates.



Amount: Enough for one shoulder
Difficulty: Easy Peasy. Just mixing.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup dijon mustard
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tbs or more Worcestershire sauce (to taste)
1 tbs or more hot sauce (to taste)
1/4 cup + more tbs (real) maple syrup or honey (to taste)
1 tsp table salt (table salt is better for sauces, but you can use 1-1/2 to 2 tsp kosher salt)
2 tsp (about) freshly ground pepper -- just enough to show up and give the sauce some visual interest
2 cups cider vinegar
1 cup vegetable oil (corn oil is a good choice)

Technique:
In a bowl, whisk the mustard and mayonnaise to combine.

Add the hot sauce, syrup, salt and pepper, and whisk them in.

Whisk, a little at a time, the vinegar into the mustard/mayonnaise mix. The reason to do this bit by bit is to thin the mayonnaise and not break it.

Whisk the oil in, also a little at a time, or in a slow steady stream, in order to fortify the emulsion.

Add the vinegar a bit a time, whisking in order to prevent the mayonnaise from breaking up.

That's it.

BDL

Anodyne PS. This recipe is original with me. If you like it and want to share it with someone else, you have my permission on satisfaction of each of the following conditions: First, your sharing is not for gain; and second, you attribute the recipe to me, Boar D. Laze. I would consider it a kindness if you would also mention my eventually to be finished book, COOK FOOD GOOD: American Cooking and Technique for Beginners and Intermediates.

My tastes run more to eastshores initial idea, but I would include some sweetener of some sort to bring some balance to the vinegar and mustard.

It may help conceptualize the sauce if you think of the mayo as a part of a mayo/dijon combination, i.e., a milder dijon, rather than as an ingredient which lends a lot of its own identity.

To my mind the thing that makes this sauce really unusual is the use of the extra oil in order to make an emulsified vinaigrette rather than a true vinegar sauce.

I quite enjoy the sauce, and use it as my regular for pulled pork. It's not a good competiton sauce though; and if that's the style you want you should look for something more either more traditional, subtle or both.

Although, good comp pulled pork starts with the injection -- sauce is pretty much an afterthought. You could do worse than start with Chris Lilly's or a variation. My inject uses wine, and KCBS judges, not to mention true sons of the south don't like anything quite that unfamiliar.

Vinegar sauces are a dime a dozen on the net, if you like I can direct you to a good source for scores (if not hundreds) of barbecue sauces if you really want it. I don't have the link anymore, but would look it up eventually as part of rebuilding my net research tools. It will take me a few minutes to find it, but I'll be doing it anyway. Let's say you'll owe me a small one in return.

BDL

PS. This isn't the one I had in mind, but it's the first good one I could find on my out to a lunch meeting: PepperFool.com Barbecue Recipes...... BBQ Sauces, Chicken, Pork, Beef, Cooking BBQ, Barbe-Q, Hot Sauce, Barbecue Sauce, North Carolina, Texas, Ribs, Pulled Pork, Brisket, Authentic

My favorite mustard bbq recipe came from one of "big bob gibsons" books. Don't remember exact quantities but it was yellow mustard, honey, cider vinegar, and a little worchestershire. I think that was it but may be a little something else. No cooking. Just mix up and serve. Its tangy, sweet, and delicious. Also, gets better as it sits. A google search would probably turn up the recipe I'm guessing.

The 'traditional' SC mustard Q sauce is made w/yellow mustard, and I doubt most Southerners would even know what a shallot is. :)

While I applaud your desire to tweak the recipe a bit, please don't call your sauce 'Carolina Mustard Sauce'; if you're using dijon and shallots, you're creating something of your own. It will be delicious, I'm sure, just not 'the' Carolina sauce.

As a side dish suggestion, I really like blackeyed peas with smoked ham hocks.

mjb.

For a side dish -
I recon ya might could fix some 'slaw if you're doin a pig.

(Lived in Columbia, S.C.)

North Carolina style bbq is as simple as vinegar, yellow mustard, cayenne, and white pepper. Tweaking it is fine, but why add sugar? We've had a thread about this recently, about how Americans load all their foods up with sugar. I'm very happy without it and I like Carolina style bbq because it's not sticky sweet like mainstream BBQ sauces.

I also don't cook my sauce, just stir it together and pour it into my pulled pork butts.

As a side you can't go wrong with cole slaw... in fact you'll go wrong without it. I also expect there to be baked beans, corn bread, and crisp green salads to go with my bbq. Cinammon apples too, it's the season for 'em.

It's not loading up with sugar. It shouldn't be sweet, but it brings a balance to the sauce for most people. When pigs were fattier, the stronger acid flavor with out the sugar worked. With modern leaner animals, the vinegar is too strong and needs balance. If you just reduce the vinegar, then the mustard often tastes harsh.

All about balance.

Most American barbecue sauces are "sweet and sour" in character. The sweetness isn't meant to "bring out the flavor" but is an express and important component of the sauce's profile. In fact, most tomato based barbecue sauces are variations on two parts slightly sweet, mildly seasoned tomato sauce (like ketchup), one part vinegar, one part sugar, (almost always) a healthy dose of Worcestershire, and seasonings.

Vinegar sauces are on of several exceptions to the rule, and aren't sweet. The vinegar acts both as a moistner and as an astringent -- with its astringency balancing the unctious fattiness of the pork. You could add a tiny bit of sugar, I suppose as an accent -- but IMO the sweetness should come from other sources like the injection and/or rub.

The sauce recipe I posted is not a true vinegar sauce, and wasn't and isn't meant to be one either. Rather it's a more sour than sweet mustard based barbecue sauce, which makes a nodding reference to a Carolina type mustard sauce, and happens to be great with pulled pork, is all.

BDL

Yellow mustard, onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne powder, black pepper, kosher salt, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, turmeric, cilantro, rendered bacon fat(trust me here), and bay.

Get the vinegar and fat to a low roll (outside, your sense of smell will thank you) and slowly add the brown sugar until dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in mustard. once the consistency is where you want it, add the herbs/spices/salt one at a time and stir well(an immersion blender helps). Make adjustments for taste. Do this the day before and refrigerate. This will help to marry things nicely.

honestly, this sounds like a fantastic sauce.

another fun thing to mess with is tamarind juice made from straining the softened pulp (dried pulp soaked with warm water to loossen flesh from seeds and get a juuice).... anchovy extract or fish sauce is also fun. neeldess to say i think worcester sauce has in it both anchovy extract and tamarind.....

if u do this, put in less vinegar.



i like the omission of any sweet

boar d laze recipe looks great, but i have to give credit to your original post, it sounds fantastic. i think the shallot, mustard, worcestershire, cayenne etc combo sounds very appealing.


if i wanted to sweeten it, i would do so with honey