Jack Daniel's Sauce (Sweet and Sour Glaze for Ribs and Meats)
This is the sauce that made the ribs at American chains famous: sweet and sour, thick and glossy, with brown sugar and pineapple juice reduced to a honey-like consistency, the salty base of soy sauce, a whole head of roasted garlic that adds body without the heat, and the whiskey, which provides the oak and vanilla aroma that distinguishes it from any barbecue sauce. It contains no tomato or ketchup: the caramel color comes from the sugar as it reduces. It is the homemade sauce requested for oven-baked BBQ pork ribs, and it works just as well brushed over pork shoulder (pork butt), chicken, or burgers in the final minutes of cooking. Ten minutes of prep, one hour in the oven for the garlic (while you do something else), and 45 minutes of reduction over low heat. Yields about 400 ml and lasts two weeks in the refrigerator.
Ingredients
- 1 whole head of garlic
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 250 ml pineapple juice (natural or packaged, no added sugar)
- 160 ml water
- 60 ml soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 250 g brown sugar (or muscovado)
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons white onion, finely minced
- 3 tablespoons Jack Daniel's whiskey (or bourbon)
- 1 tablespoon pineapple, finely minced (optional)
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Method
- 1
Roasted garlic: cut the top centimeter off the head of garlic so the cloves are exposed, drizzle with oil, wrap in aluminum foil, and place in a medium oven (180 °C) for about 50 minutes, until the cloves are soft and golden. Let it cool slightly and squeeze from the base: the cloves will come out like a paste. Mash them with a fork.
- 2
In a medium saucepan, combine the pineapple juice, water, soy sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, lemon juice, and onion. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves completely.
- 3
Add the roasted garlic paste, whiskey, minced pineapple, Worcestershire sauce, and cayenne. Mix and reduce heat to low.
- 4
Reduce uncovered for 40-50 minutes, stirring occasionally and more frequently toward the end, until the sauce thickens and coats the back of a spoon: while hot it is like a liquid honey and thickens significantly as it cools. The final minutes are delicate, as the sugar goes from glossy to burnt in an instant.
- 5
Remove from heat and let cool in the saucepan. Store in a sealed jar in the refrigerator: it lasts two weeks. Use it to brush ribs, pork shoulder, chicken, or burgers in the last 10 minutes of cooking (it will burn otherwise), or serve warm as a table sauce.
Pork, Oven-Roasted and Grilled
Pork is the most forgiving meat for a slow oven and the grill: the fat running through it melts as it cooks and keeps it juicy where other meats dry out. Here we gather ribs, pork shoulder, belly and pork flank — with their marinades, glazes and sauces — so that every cut comes out tender, golden and with that caramelized crust that is the whole point of making it at home.
