Complex barbecue flavours made easy

J.M. Hirsch, Contributor

A few years ago, I created a recipe for a killer barbecue sauce. It was exactly the way I like it - thick, rich, a lot savoury, a little sweet and bursting with cumin, smoked paprika and so many other delicious seasonings.

Like most home-made barbecue sauces, it's so much better than anything you can buy. And yet I almost never make it.

Admittedly, it's because I am lazy and generally short on time. Though barbecue sauce is hardly difficult to make - dump everything in a bowl and mix - gathering the many ingredients my recipe calls for too often is simply too much work.

So I usually just reach for a bottle of whatever brand is handy and make do with that.

That was until recently, when I reached into the cabinet and discovered we were out. Worse yet, we didn't have the ingredients to make my usual recipe.

I did, however, have a jar of Thai red curry paste, a Southeast Asian seasoning. Red curry paste is a delicious mash of red chilies, coriander roots and leaves, shrimp paste, lemon grass, garlic, shallots and galangal (a relative of ginger). It smells both tomatoey and exotically heady with spicy aromas. The flavour is warm, but not biting, with tastes of ginger and garlic.

That night, all I did was thin it with water until it had a barbecue sauce consistency, then tossed chicken in it and slapped it on the grill. It was crazy good. The next night, I tried it again. But this time I doctored it a bit, bringing it just a bit closer to traditional barbecue sauce. But I still didn't want to turn it into a grocery list of ingredients; I could just stick my original recipe if I was willing to do that.

So I mixed the curry paste with water, peanut butter and lime juice. That's it. It was incredible, tasting equal parts spicy barbecue sauce and peanut satay. I've since used the same sauce on beef, chicken and turkey. It would even be good mixed into ground beef or turkey.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Food Editor J.M. Hirsch is author of the cookbook 'High Flavor, Low Labor: Reinventing Weeknight Cooking'. Follow him to great eats on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JM_Hirsch or email him at jhirsch(at)ap.org.

Thai Peanut Barbecue Turkey Cutlets Burger.

If boneless, skinless chicken breasts are more your style, slice them thin and substitute for the turkey tenderloin in this recipe.

Start to finish: 30 minutes

Servings: 6

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 to 2 tsp hot sauce, to taste Zest and juice of 1 lime

12oz package shredded broccoli slaw mixture

Salt and ground black pepper

2 tbs Thai red curry paste

1 cup smooth peanut butter

1 1/2 pounds turkey tenderloin

6 hamburger buns or other sandwich rolls

Method

In a medium bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, hot sauce and lime zest (reserve the juice). Add the broccoli slaw and mix well. Season with salt and pepper, then set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the curry paste, peanut butter and lime juice. Mix in just enough water, 1 tablespoon at a time, to achieve a barbecue sauce consistency. The amount of water will vary depending on the thickness of the peanut butter you use. Set aside.

Cut the turkey tenderloin crosswise to form 6 round cutlets. Add the cutlets to the curry paste mixture, turning to coat well. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the grill to medium-high. Use an oil-soaked paper towel held with tongs to oil the grill grates.

Reduce the grill to medium and set the cutlets on the grill and cook for 6 minutes per side, or until they reach 165°F at the centre. Place each cutlet on a bun, then top with some of the broccoli slaw.