I tried making this because my family gave me a whole bunch of frozen tomatoes. The only thing you can really do with frozen tomatoes is stew them down, at which point you can make spaghetti sauce – which I already had a ton of in the freezer – or I figured you can take a crack at barbecue sauce. So I did that, and it came out pretty good, so I took another stab at it, but this time I tried to measure things out.
Also, while this is pretty much what I used, I would recommend you don’t just throw everything in to a pot. This is absolutely something you should taste while you’re making it so you can get it to where you want it.
Also, you’re going to want to peel the tomatoes first. By far the easiest way to do this is to freeze them first (thanks for the tip, Mom!). Then, run each tomato under warm water for 5-10 seconds. The skin will just slide right off. Most people will tell you to score the tomatoes, blanch them in boiling water, and peel them when they cool. That’s a pain in the ass, and honestly it doesn’t work nearly as well as this method.
Ingredients
About 7-8 pounds of tomatoes, stems and skins removed (remove the stems before you freeze them, if you want to go that route)
1 1/4 cups apple cider vinegar
2 cups brown sugar
4 ounces (1 package) unsweetened dark baking chocolate
1/2 cup of honey
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
1-2 heads of garlic, shelled and minced, or an equivalent amount of dried garlic
salt and cayenne pepper to taste (start with 1 -2 tablespoons of salt and go from there)
Directions
Not hard, just takes time.
Drop the peeled tomatoes in a (very) large pot with the salt, onions, and garlic. Start stewing on medium heat.
Check it occasionally, but it’s probably going to take 2-3 hours before it really starts to reduce. I personally like to do this on a saturday when I’m hung over and not going to go anywhere anyway.
Once the onions have mostly dissolved and you’re getting an actual sauce, you can start adding the vinegar, sugar, honey, and chocolate, BUT DON’T ADD IT ALL AT ONCE. This recipe is a little sour, which I personally like, but not everyone does. So add half of each of the ingredients and stir vigorously, because if you don’t, the sugar and chocolate may stick and sink to the bottom, where they burn. Each time you add sugar or chocolate, keep stirring until the chocolate and sugar is fully dissolved.
Although you can probably just add all of the honey at once, because if you don’t like honey we probably shouldn’t be friends.
Now taste it. Keep adding things until you have the sauce where you want it, and each time you do, stir it and let it sit for 10-15 minutes so the flavors blend, then taste it again and see what direction you want to go.
If you really trust me, well, first of all, you probably shouldn’t, and second of all, you can just dump everything in and stir vigorously until it’s well mixed. It should be a dark reddish brown when done.
eatbensmeat 