Johnny Harris's Barbecue Sauce

[BARDSLJR]

Hi, y'all, it's been a long time, but I have been busy cooking and growing stuff. I just want to post about Johnny Harris's barbecue sauce, which I discovered many years when we visited Savannah and Johnny Harris's restaurant was still open. Went there on a local recommendation for barbecue, and while the barbecue itself was, I guess, okay, but the sauce was, I thought, really remarkable. When we got home back to Shreveport (our home at the time) I started trying to replicate it, and never could get close. The internet was just starting to blossom with online discussion groups, and I joined a barbecue forum, and got around to a discussion of barbecue sauce and I. mentioned Johnny Harris's and failed attempts to replicate it. A nice woman on the forum gave a "cheater recipe" for it that came pretty close, and it became the base for my experimenting to make something closer to my own making. Over the years, I would experiment and tweak the recipe, gradually evolving it. It still didn't taste exactly like Johnny Harris's, which I was buying through mail order (the restaurant has closed in 2016, I think, but the name and recipe for the sauce was sold to a 3rd party, and the sauce is still produced and marketed over the internet, along with several other sauces (they do a great job on the shipping end, BTW.) Then, a couple of months ago the Johnny Harris Cookbook came out, and much to my surprise, they published the barbecue sauce recipe: sauce recipes are usually closely guarded secrets. It is not much like anything I would have expected. So here's my recipe, below, and I attached a photo of the recipe from the Johnny Harris's cookbook.

 

Johnny Harris- Style Barbecue Sauce

 

2 tbsp chili powder

2 tbsp fine ground black pepper

2 tsp white sugar

½ tsp salt

 

4 cups catsup

1 cup yellow mustard

1/4th  cup Worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup real cider vinegar (may experiment with other vinegars, like champagne vinegar or sherry vinegar)

¼ to ½ cup packed brown sugar (prefer dark) (May substitute honey, and add dark molasses. Should be to your taste.

2 tbsp butter

3 Tbsps fresh lemon juice

 

Directions:

Combine catsup in mustard in large pot. Warm on low heat. Stir in all ingredients except butter and lemon juice and mix thoroughly. Cook on low and stir frequently until well blended- 15 minutes.

 

Remove from heat. Cool for 15 minutes. Add butter, stir until thoroughly blended. Add lemon juice to taste.

 

Best if heated before using. Do not boil.

 

This is the base recipe, and it is good for all meats- beef, chicken, pork, etc. I also usually use both honey and dark molasses (as above) for the sweetener. Taste at the end and add more honey or sugar or salt if needed. You could add cayenne pepper or hot sauce if you wanted it hotter- most of the heat in the recipe comes from the black pepper. I have also added several shots of espresso sometimes; tried dark chocolate once to good result; tried adding (separately orange marmalade or raspberry jam to give it a more fruit base.) You can also experiment using different vinegars (like champagne or Spanish sherry), but this is usually a lot more expensive for very subtle difference. You could also try adding a little cinnamon, Chinese five-spice, or both (not more than a teaspoon.)

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[Tyrus]

Always looking for an original sauce, something authentic, tasty and different. This I'll try Bardsljr, although, "the best if heated before using" does throw me off a little. Can't say I've ever heated any BBQ sauce before, could you elaborate. I'm thinking when serving with food is your meaning. What's the general shelf life in the frig?

[BARDSLJR]

I think on the Johnny Harris's bottle it says "best if heated before using, and I think that is true. I put some in a sauce pan and heat it on low for a few minutes. Boiling would not help it any.Shelf life in the refrigerator, like a lot of barbecue sauces, is pretty long because of the proportion of vinegar in the mix. Different stroke for different folks- to each his own- but I think this is so good I could eat it on white bread. They also make a mustard-based sauce which I would only use on chicken, and I find it cooks off quickly, so I would apply that right at the end of a cook, or right after i take the meat off the grill. There's another mustard-based sauce from Lillie's of Charleston, though, "Hab Mussy", that has quite a kick and a little heat, so that one is work exploring, too.