Smokey barbeque sauce

Well howdy partners! Stitchybritt back here to show y'all how to make-up some super smokin' barbeque style sauce.  It's really quite easy, just involves a lot of chopping and smoking up your kitchen a bit.  Are you ready?  Let's go!

You are going to need:
1kg of tomatoes
1 red capsicum
1 onion
2 chillies
3 garlic cloves
worstershire sauce
vinegar
brown sugar
tea (yes, tea!)
a selection of spices (my mix has cinnamon, peppercorns, star anise, chilli flakes, fennel seeds - but you can use whatever is your cupboard really)


Ok, so the first thing you need to do is to get some kitchen foil and make a little bowl shape, like this:

You're going to put a few tablespoons of tea leaves and about a tablespoon of each of your spices in the little foil bowl (it's not an exact science) and put this in the bottom of your saucepan.  Straight onto the bottom - no oil or anything else.  This is going to be where the smokey goodness comes from.

Next, roughly chop your onion and capsicum into large chunks and put them in a steamer basket in the saucepan on top of your smokey mix.  Throw the chillies and the garlic cloves in there too.  Now - put the lid and the heat on!  It shouldn't take long before the spices start smoking your vegetables.  You probably want to smoke them for about 10-15 mins.

This is probably a good time to open your windows, or you might smoke out your kitchen!

As this is going on you can start to dice your tomatoes, and pop them aside until a little later.

Now that your veggies are totally smoked you need to chop them very finely (see I told you - lots of chopping).  You don't need your spicey smokey mix anymore so this can go in the bin.  Take your finely chopped veggies and give them a bit of a fry in a little oil.

Next, add your diced tomatoes.  Cook them until the sauce is looking all pulpy.  It's smelling good, isn't it?

Next add a good slosh of worstershire sauce and an even bigger slosh of vinegar (about half a cup?).  Also stir in 3 tablespoons of brown sugar.  Obviously, these measurements (if you can call them that) are estimates; your sauce will still end up good with a little more or a little less of these ingredients.  Let the whole lot simmer for around 25 mins.  Then you're ready to bottle it up!

Fill your hot sterilized jars with your sauce and screw the lids on.  And there you have it!  Smokey barbeque sauce!

Of course you might want to put some cute 'hats' on them to pretty them up, and I'm thinking of making some cowboy themed labels.  Yee-har!

This sauce is best kept in the fridge.  If you live in a colder climate it should be fine to be kept out until you give it as a gift, but if you're about to encounter some 30+ degree days (like here in Sydney) I recommend keeping your jars in the fridge until they're ready to give.

Enjoy!


Stitchybritt xx