Awesome bbq sauce recipe

I made Michael Chiarello's balsamic vinegar bbq sauce tonight, and this stuff is the closest I've ever come to recreating the Best BBQ Sauce I've Ever Had (for those who are curious, it's the California Grill's tamarind bbq sauce, at the Contemporary Resort at Disney World). It's part of a larger recipe from At Home With Michael Chiarello, involving crepes and apple slaw... I went the "less work" route and just made the sauce and chicken.

I used strong coffee instead of espresso, and the only thing I might do differently in the future would be to cut back on the amount of orange zest. It ends up with a lot of orange flavor; not an unpleasant amount of orange, but definitely very present and identifiable.

So, for anyone looking for a slightly different and ridiculously easy bbq sauce:

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon garlic
3/4 cup ketchup
6 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup honey
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons brewed espresso
Grated zest of one orange

In a saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and saute until golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and let the garlic cool in the oil. Whisk in the ketchup, vinegar, honey, soy sauce, espresso, and orange zest, return to medium-low heat, and simmer gently for 15 minutes to blend the flavors. Makes about 1 2/3 cups.


There's also a slightly different version of the full recipe at FN's website. (The FN version uses a cooked rotisserie chicken, and the book version doesn't, and there are a couple of small measurement changes.)