Ketchup is next up, which gives a little redness to look and thickens it up ever so slightly. First is dark brown sugar, adding a nice molasses sweetness that balances out some tartness and also deepens the overall color of the sauce. With the breadth of comments that post elicited, I've been able to piece together and refine a sauce that I finally feel confident enough is in proper shape to present to the finest smoked swine and the interweb masses at large.įrom my original post, where the recipe called for only four ingredients- cider vinegar, crushed red pepper, ground black pepper, and salt-I've added only three additional. Little did I know that the evolution of the sauce had come such a long way from that dated recipe, and Serious Eaters let me know it in no uncertain terms.
Captured within those pages was an original recipe for North Carolina vinegar sauce, which I made during my next pulled pork cook, and with just a little cut down on the salt, it tasted pretty good to me.
My instant enthusiasm led me to the purchase of Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue, a tome of all things North Carolina barbecue. There I learned, without a doubt, just how well dressed up vinegar could enhance the flavor of barbecued pork. While visiting two of my most favorite people in world in Eastern North Carolina, it was a given we'd be hitting up some local joints like Allen & Son and Ed Mitchell's The Pit.
Two years ago I went through a truly transcendent experience, one involving the introduction of vinegar to pork.