The First BBQ of the Year

back in mid March, we had some great weather, at least for Toronto...been enjoying my walks to and from work without the nasty bitter cold wind from the lake...this weather was giving me the itch to grill...a good friend had been pushing me to create a BBQ sauce and, since i was not working at my part-time job on Sunday, i decided to try and create a sauce...so i grabbed my Weber cookbook looking for spice rubs and BBQ sauces...having found one, i went to the store looking for substitute items that contained less sodium and fat that was in the recipe...one item i found was a reduced sodium and no fat ketchup...the other item is liquid smoke; i love a smoky BBQ sauce and wanted to know the liquid smoke's nutritional  value; you can read about it here.

fear not, this sauce was wonderfully flavorful and not runny or too thick...it made for a beautiful sauce that covered the meat, in this case chicken, nicely...it's low in fat and sodium with wonderful flavour:

2 cups of the low sodium ketchup (see link above)
2 tbsp Olive Oil
2 tbsp Tomato paste
1 shallot diced
4 garlic cloves minced (this may seem like a lot of garlic, but it adds wonderful flavour)
1/4 cup of liquid smoke
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp Brown Sugar or 1/4 cup of Molasses
3 tbsp Smoked Paprika
1 tbsp Cumin
1 tbsp Allspice
1 tsp Thyme
1 tbsp Onion Powder

1.  in a 3 quart sauce pan, saute the shallots in the olive oil for appr. 5 minutes or until translucent...then add garlic cooking until fragrant.

2.  add all of the dry spices, sauteing for appr. 2 minutes...then add the tomato paste, stirring to incorporate the paste into the ingredients in the pan.

3.  stir in the ketchup, liquid smoke and Worcestershire sauce, simmer for 1 minute...add in the brown sugar or if using, molasses.

4.  slowly simmer over a low heat, the longer the better as the ingredients will make a wonderful BBQ sauce the longer it simmers.

5.  after a few hours, use on ribs, chicken, steaks you are cooking on the grill.

if you make this sauce, please let me know how it comes out...i had to really think about quantities as i rarely do when creating a dish...thanks all.