Failed Experiment: Eggplant Barbecue Sauce

I know, you read that heading and thought, “well obviously that failed, gross!” But here’s the thing, it was good, it just wasn’t barbecue sauce!
 

A few weeks ago, I had a surplus of zucchini (because who doesn’t in August) and I had already baked four loaves of zucchini bread. So I decided to toss my last zucchini into the blender with my other tomato sauce ingredients. As I simmered my tomato sauce, the zucchini really helped to thicken it and didn’t seem to change the flavor much.

When I had a spare, almost ready to expire, eggplant laying around (go figure…), my logic was; zucchini and eggplant go well together, they cook similarly, maybe it will work to put eggplant in barbecue sauce! I sent my husband a text message at this point; “This will either be genius or disgusting – eggplant barbecue sauce!” He did not respond :)

Experiment: Eggplant Barbecue Sauce

Question:

Can I use eggplant to thicken barbecue sauce?

Background Research:

I read various barbecue recipes because I have never made it completely from scratch. I found that a lot of them call for ketchup, which is what I have used as a base for some Tennessee Whiskey BBQ, but I didn’t want the thickness of ketchup for this – that’s what the eggplant was for! So I also read a handful of ketchup recipes to get some seasoning suggestions.

Hypothesis:

Adding eggplant to homemade barbecue sauce with thicken the sauce without significantly altering the flavor, resulting in a smooth, thick sauce to be used on various grilled foods, wraps and sandwiches.

Experiment:

Ingredients:

1 eggplant, peeled and cut in 1 inch cubes

1 green pepper, cut in 1 inch pieces

2 stalks celery, cut in 1 inch pieces

1 large carrot, cut in 1 inch pieces

1 medium onion, cut in 1 inch pieces

3-4 tomatoes, quartered

2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

Juice of 1/2 lemon

3 tbsp Worcestershire 

1 cup Tennessee Whiskey

1 cup apple cider vinegar

1 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp paprika

1 tbs garlic powder

1 tbsp onion powder

1 1/2 tbsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

I roughly chopped all of the vegetables. I started by heating a tablespoon of oil in a large pot and sweating my vegetables. I actually let them brown slightly, hoping to get a depth of flavor into the sauce. Next, I added the rest of the ingredients and brought it all to a simmer. After 30 minutes or so, I transferred the sauce to a blender and blended until smooth. Then I returned the sauce to the pan and continued simmering for about 90 minutes.

Analysis:

The sauce tasted good. It had a nice mix of sweet and tang to it. The consistency was thick, but pureed soup thick, not as smooth as a bottled barbecue sauce. I did not notice an eggplant flavor, however, my husband said he could taste it. My husband and I agreed that it tasted exactly like sloppy joes. And that is exactly what I made with it!

Conclusions:

When you make homemade barbecue sauce, don’t you want it to be like the most amazing sauce you have ever tried because you just spent like 2 hours and a piece of your soul trying to get it just right? Yeah, this sauce failed to become the barbecue sauce dreams are made of. Turned out to be a good way to get my kids to eat eggplant though! They were some good sloppy joes!