Tropical Fruit Barbecue Sauce
While I'm done adhering to Thanksgiving norms, I decided it would be a good idea to bring some symbols of the holiday into my meal last year which revolved around Tiki-style dishes. Barbecue turkey on Hawaiian rolls felt like a good way to do that and I had a previously tested recipe that I used as a starting point, but thought I could change things up to make the mini-sandwiches fit better into the meal. One way I did that was to use a tropical fruit-based barbecue sauce, which landed me with a whole new recipe I could share with y'all!
To get the flavor I was after, I knew I wanted to feature tropical fruit and citrus for a bright and fruity flavor. It was hard to pick exactly which fruits to use though—I didn't want any one to dominate, but also didn't want to go so crazy with ingredients at the same time. So I landed on sticking with four fruits with mango and pineapple bringing the tropical component, while oranges and limes would deliver the citrus. You can certainly change up the fruits to your taste though—I had things like guava, passion fruit, and papaya all in contention at the outset.
I built the rest of the sauce up around my standard barbecue recipe, but made some changes and additions to pair best with the fruits. So I began like I always do by sautéing some onions and then, when I would normally only add in garlic, I also tossed in a bit of ginger and cumin as well.
Ketchup still served as my primary base, but I used rice vinegar for a more subdued tang to allow the citrus to be more centered. I also swapped Worcestershire for tamarind to get in a savory and sour note that was better matched with the fruits. Since I used a fair amount of juice, this sauce took a little longer to thicken up than usual, but it was only about five minutes extra until the sauce was ready to be finished.
I gave it a whirl with my immersion blender, getting all those sweet onion bits, along with garlic and ginger, better incorporated and creating a smooth sauce. I taste tested at this point too and added a dash more sugar and felt I had overdone the peppers a bit, so scaled back the amounts in my final recipe, which you can always scale up if you prefer a spicier sauce.
On Thanksgiving day, I married the smoked meat with this extra fruity sauce and was pretty pleased with the results. It first and foremost tasted like American barbecue, with that tomato sweetness, good tang, and contrasting heat. The additional fruits left their mark though with an enhanced fruitiness that had a tropical bend to it Pineapple did have the most distinct flavor, but the fruits played well together on the whole. The supporting players melded quite well, with garlic, ginger, tamarind, cumin, chiles, and more all adding that required barbecue complexity while staying on brand in the final product. While I was happy with the recipe, and it tasted great with the smokey turkey, I was more excited as seeing this as starting point to experiment with other fruits and seasoning to see how something along the same lines will taste with some fruit subs and modified pairings.
