Every recipe these dials make
Scripts are off, so here they all are at their opening settings.
Vinegar and pepper sauce
Thin, clear, sharp. Nothing to thicken it and nothing to hide behind.
- 54 ¾ tablespoons cider vinegar
- 1 ⅔ teaspoons salt
- 1 ⅛ tablespoons ground black pepper
- 1 ⅛ tablespoons crushed red pepper
- 4 ¼ tablespoons molasses
- Stir everything together cold until the salt is gone.
- Let it stand an hour at least, overnight if you can, so the pepper opens up.
- Shake before it goes near the meat; it separates and is meant to.
scaled down from its ¾ gallon of vinegar; the proportions are the recipe's own
Lexington dip sauce
The eastern sauce with ketchup and a little sugar stirred in. Still thin enough to pour.
- 35 ¼ tablespoons cider vinegar
- 14 ⅛ tablespoons water
- 10 ¼ tablespoons ketchup
- 1 ¾ tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
- 2 ⅔ teaspoons crushed red pepper
- Warm the vinegar and water enough to take the sugar and salt into solution.
- Whisk in the ketchup, then the peppers, off the heat.
- Let it sit until it is cool and the colour has evened out.
No free-to-use Lexington recipe exists — every pit keeps its own. These proportions follow the order the record gives: vinegar, ketchup or tomato, water, salt, pepper, a little sugar. They come out well short of the 3.5 g of sugar a tablespoon of the average bottled dip carries, which is the point: the shelf is sweeter than the pit.
Light tomato sauce
Vinegar and pepper reddened with ketchup — thin, not sticky.
- 39 ⅔ tablespoons cider vinegar
- 12 ¾ tablespoons water
- 7 ⅓ tablespoons ketchup
- 1 ⅛ tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 1 tablespoons crushed red pepper
- 1 ½ teaspoons ground black pepper
- Stir the sugar and salt into the vinegar and water until they go.
- Whisk in the ketchup and the pepper.
- Stand it an hour before you use it.
Composed the same way as the dip, with less ketchup. Like the dip, it lands under the bottles — the two light-tomato bottles on file measure about 2 g of sugar a tablespoon.
Mustard sauce
Yellow mustard, vinegar, sugar, pepper. The German counties' sauce.
- 33 ¼ tablespoons prepared yellow mustard
- 19 ¼ tablespoons cider vinegar
- 3 ½ tablespoons brown sugar
- 4 ½ tablespoons water
- 1 ⅓ teaspoons salt
- 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon cayenne
- Whisk the mustard and vinegar smooth before anything else goes in.
- Add the sugar, salt and pepper and warm it gently, without boiling, until the sugar is gone.
- Cool it. It thickens a little as it goes.
Mrs. Hill's 1867 basting sauce — butter, a large spoonful of mustard, red and black pepper, salt, and vinegar 'until the sauce has a strong acid taste' — is the documented ancestor, not the modern Midlands bottle. The mustard-forward proportions here are this project's own; the butter is left out, because the modern sauce is a dressing rather than a baste. It comes out far drier than the bottles, which measure about 5.3 g of sugar a tablespoon.
Heavy tomato sauce
Tomato, brown sugar or molasses, vinegar, cooked down until it clings.
- 35 ¾ tablespoons ketchup
- 12 ¾ tablespoons cider vinegar
- 6 ⅓ tablespoons water
- 3 ½ tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 ¼ tablespoons molasses
- 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons ground black pepper
- ¾ teaspoon cayenne
- Put everything in a pan together and bring it to the barest simmer.
- Hold it there twenty minutes, stirring, until it coats the back of a spoon.
- Cool it before bottling; it thickens again cold.
The Wikibooks sauce nearest this one is Kansas City's, a different animal, and is not used here. These proportions keep the label order the Upstate bottles print. Even cooked down it sits under their measured 5 g a tablespoon; turn the sweetness up if you want the shelf's version.
Pepper vinegar sauce
The bottle beside the sauce, not instead of it.
- 62 ¾ tablespoons cider or white vinegar
- 12 ⅛ tablespoons ripe hot peppers, stemmed and halved
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- Halve the pods and put them in the vinegar.
- Boil three pints away to a quart, as Randolph has it, then strain.
- Bottle it. It keeps, and it gets hotter for a week or two.
Mary Randolph's 1824 receipt, verbatim in the proportions she gives: a dozen ripe pods, three pints of vinegar boiled away to one quart. The pods are strained out, so the finished quart is vinegar.
Salt, and that is all
What most whole-hog pits put on the meat. The flavour comes later, at the block.
- Salt the cut surfaces, not the skin.
- Put it on the pit.
- Season for real at the block, with vinegar sauce.
The whole-hog record has it: the meat is not basted before the flip, and a dry rub is something only some cooks use. The rate here — about half a teaspoon of salt to the pound — is this project's rule of thumb.
Salt and black pepper
The next step out, and as far as a lot of pits go.
- 1 ½ tablespoons salt
- 2 ¼ teaspoons coarse black pepper
- Mix the two and put them on the cut surfaces.
- On the pit.
- Dress at the block.
Two ingredients, in a two-to-one ratio by volume. The ratio and the rate are this project's.
Ed Mitchell's four
Salt, black pepper, red pepper, onion powder — the list a named Wilson pitmaster works from.
- 1 ⅓ tablespoons salt
- 1 ⅔ teaspoons ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
- 1 ½ teaspoons onion powder
His article gives the ingredients and no amounts: 'His rub comprises salt, black pepper, red pepper, and onion powder.' The four are his; the proportions and the rate are this project's.
A full modern rub
Sweet, red, and a long way from an eastern pit — the kind of rub a competition cook carries.
- 2 ½ tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 ¾ teaspoons salt
- 1 ¾ teaspoons garlic powder
- 2 ½ tablespoons paprika
- 1 ¾ teaspoons chipotle powder
- 1 ⅓ teaspoons cayenne pepper
- 1 ⅓ teaspoons dried rosemary
- 1 ¾ teaspoons chili powder
- 1 ¾ teaspoons dehydrated lemon peel
- Mix it all in a jar; it keeps.
- Put it on a few hours ahead, or the night before.
- Cook, then dress at the block if you are eating it the Carolina way.
The recipe's own proportions, held exactly and scaled to the meat. It is not a Carolina recipe and does not claim to be.
White slaw
Mayonnaise, sugar, vinegar. Cut fine so it mixes with the meat on the bun.
- 8 cups cabbage, chopped fine
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ½ cup grated carrot (optional)
- Chop the cabbage fine — finer than feels right.
- Whisk the dressing until the sugar dissolves.
- Fold it through and chill it two hours. It weeps; drain or stir.
Composed from the record's cited description — mayonnaise or whipped dressing, sugar, vinegar, salt, pepper, sometimes carrot or onion. Wikibooks' coleslaw skips the sugar that defines this one, so its proportions are not borrowed here.
Red slaw
Cabbage stained with the pit's own dip. No mayonnaise anywhere near it.
- 8 cups cabbage, chopped fine
- 4 tablespoons cider vinegar
- 4 tablespoons ketchup
- 1 ¾ tablespoons sugar
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ⅔ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ⅓ teaspoon crushed red pepper
- Mince the cabbage.
- Stir the dressing cold until the sugar goes.
- Turn it through until the cabbage takes the colour, then chill it.
Composed from the record's cited description: vinegar, ketchup, sugar, salt, black pepper, or a ladle of the house dip. Build the dip on the sauce tab and spoon that over instead — the pits do.
Yellow slaw
Takes mustard into the dressing, and turns the colour of the sauce belt around it.
- 8 cups cabbage, chopped fine
- ⅓ cup mayonnaise
- 2 ¾ tablespoons prepared yellow mustard
- 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
- 1 ⅔ tablespoons sugar
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- Chop the cabbage fine.
- Whisk mustard into the mayonnaise first, then the rest.
- Fold and chill.
The white-slaw record notes only that a yellow slaw takes mustard in the dressing. Proportions here are this project's own.
A boiled dressing, 1879
Eggs, vinegar and butter cooked to a custard, poured over cold cabbage. Predates the mayonnaise jar.
- 8 cups cabbage, chopped fine
- 1 cup cider vinegar
- 2 eggs, well beaten
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon dry mustard
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ⅓ teaspoon ground black pepper
- Mix butter, salt, pepper, sugar and mustard; add the eggs last.
- Boil the vinegar and pour it on, stirring the whole time.
- Return it to the pan, boil a few minutes, cool it, and pour it over the cabbage.
Marion Cabell Tyree's receipt, in its own quantities: a cup of vinegar, two eggs well beaten, a teaspoonful each of salt and mustard, a tablespoonful each of sugar and butter, a little black pepper. It dresses about a head of cabbage.