The original clewis barbecue sauce

1 servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
1 pounds Hickory chips; commercially packaged or homemade by shaving a piece of hickory with a knife
4 teaspoons Fresh lemon juice
6 Celery stalks; chopped
6 Heads garlic; chopped
4 Baseball sized yellow onions; finely chopped
1 Green bell pepper; seeded and chopped
1 cup Firmly packed brown sugar
¼ cup Distilled white vinegar or cider vinegar
4 quarts Tomato puree
6 Bay leaves
3 teaspoons Salt
1¼ cup Mustard
1 cup Pork drippings or lard
4 teaspoons Cayenne pepper
3 cups Water

Directions

I was drifting through "Soul and Spice" 1995 copyright by Heidi Cusic (ISBN 0-8118-0419-4), and ran across this 'Q sauce...kinda interesting, thought Belly might know somethin' about it, 'cause he's down in that neck-of-the-woods and is probably about the same vintage? This is the barbecue sauce from Benny Clewis's family in Palistine, Texas.

Originally it was "used to barbecue goats and later was passed on for beef and pork." Then, Benny's grandfather bottled the sauce in old Town Hall soda-water bottles and sold it in Dallas in the 1940s. The hickory flavoring comes from cooking all the ingredients together with real hickory chips.

Makes about 2 gallons:

In a large, heavy pot or dutch oven, combine all of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until thickened and flavors are blended, about 1-½ hours.

Set a colander over a bowl and strain the sauce. After straining the sauce you won't have quite 2 gallons. To make it 2 gallons, just run hot water over the remainder in the colander, which will be the herbs and spices. The run-off is used to build up the barbecue sauce to make 2 gallons.

Note: I've made this without the lard; it loses the sheen and that extra dimension of flavor, but otherwise is still a great sauce.

Posted to bbq-digest by Dan Sawyer <dan813@...> on Apr 04, 1999, converted by MM_Buster v2.0l.

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