Shelf Stable #3: Pomegranate Molasses BBQ Sauce

Sorry for the double post! There was a mishap with the last one.

And just like that, two months have passed in a kaleidoscope of sun, food, and florals. The onslaught of sun that Portland has received has not only brought out every flower from its dormant crevasse, but the little humans who inhabit the city, too. Weekends have burst at the seams, overflowing into Thursday afternoon patio hangs and Monday night brewery dates, all in efforts to soak up as much vitamin D as we possibly can. I wish I could say I was sorry for the absence, but honestly April and May have been so damn fun. 

So much has changed since my nostalgic little post about farming games and chocolate cake. For one, I am finally 33. For the last year, I’ve been the victim of a very specific lobotomy that only affected my ability to remember my age, thus I continued to accidentally lie that I was 33 only to be corrected by friends who had a much clearer memory. 

This time lapse has also brought the wonderful addition of my brother and his girlfriend, who are permanently trading the warm summer nights of Texas for the drizzly winters of Oregon. They’ve been staying with us for just over a month while they find their footing.

Over this time, I’ve rediscovered that my brother is an amazing home cook in his own right and now my favorite partner in the kitchen. Sorry, Andy. It’s probably because we have the same palette and we’ve had some trial by fire previously. We lived together in Austin from late 2019 to early 2021. Can anyone guess what happened during that time? We don’t have to have another conversation about the losses COVID caused, because in this instance it gave me a few gifts. 

It gave me the space and time to generously feed many of my current passions like gardening and cooking, with ample time to practice new techniques and experiment. It also gave Elijah and I a chance to bond in ways we hadn’t before. Some of my favorite memories of this time are us in the kitchen or the garden together. We tried our hands at planting herbs and tomatoes with almost no prior practice or research. We laughed when mint and oregano took over our herb beds. We prepared needlessly elaborate meals like the ragu from Samin’s SALT FAT ACID HEAT or the curried beef hand pies from Jubilee. Over the course of an evening, we talked in ways we simply hadn’t in years. 

Needless to say, their presence has been a welcome addition to our home, and it’s also meant our kitchen is working hard to produce large format meals that not only feed four people, but work well as a leftover in some capacity.

A welcome lasagna for my brother.

And so we’ve meandered the subject of today’s post, which is a philosophy I cook by when planning a weekly meal or when trying to incorporate a new ingredient into my pantry - make this, then this.

While I love cooking, like the rest of us, dinner can feel like the last leg of a marathon on a Monday night. I would often just throw items together to create a salad or pasta and call it a day, but never felt truly satisfied with the result, until I figured out how to parlay a component from my Sunday night meal into something that could set me up for Monday, like passing the baton from myself to myself. Leveraging a long and lazy Sunday to tackle a meal with a lot of inactive cooking time can set your week up for success. And if you get to hang in the sunshine with a book with the enchanting smell of grilled meat, then even better.

Sunday bbq with Andy.

Make this, then this (part one) means setting yourself up for success. Use your Sunday to grill boat loads of chicken thighs and drums. Enjoy those that evening, then allow them to become a star component in your dinner Monday night:

• A slimmed down version of Snoop’s BBQ chicken Cobb in Salad Freak

• A simple chicken salad on artisanal sourdough

• Sauteed with some cabbage and udon noodles

• In a ssam lettuce wrap with some rice and all of the pickled things you can scrounge in your fridge

This idea has also extended to new ingredients for me. Simply put, if you’re going to buy a special ingredient for a recipe you’re trying out, you might find that same ingredient languishing in your pantry a year later and wonder “why the heck did I do that.” This is how I felt about pomegranate molasses, which I religiously bought each winter to make my husband his favorite pie, the tart and sweet delight that is Claire Saffitz’s Pomegranate Cranberry Pie from Dessert Person. Each year it would sit on a shelf, untouched until December rolled around, until I found myself staring at an expiring bottle in the middle of the summer and needing something for a park hangout that evening, miraculously creating a bbq sauce for some pork sliders.

Make this, then this (part two) means that if you’re going to buy that new ingredient, line up two or three recipes to use that ingredient well over the next month or so. Not only does this allow you to teach yourself that ingredient’s versatility, but you won’t find an expired bottle almost unused down the road. 

Now, if you are piqued by the idea of pomegranate molasses bbq, see the recipe below along with one on a refreshing beverage so you have two uses for this new ingredient.

Pomegranate Molasses BBQ

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup ketchup

• ¼ cup brown sugar

• ¼ cup pomegranate molasses

• 1/8 cup soy sauce

• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

• 3 cloves of garlic, grated

• ½ teaspoon sumac

• ½ teaspoon cumin

• ½ teaspoon paprika

• 1 teaspoon cayenne

Steps:

• Combine all ingredients in a pot over medium heat

• Cook mixture until thickened and darkened by 3-4 shades, about 10 minutes.

• Remove from heat and allow to cool before using or bottling.

Pomegranate Lime Mule

I received this recipe from a dear friend after having it at a Persian Nowruz party this winter. Thanks for sharing, Asiya!

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon molasses

• 1 tablespoon lime juice

• 2 OZ Tequila

• Ginger Ale/Beer to top it off

• Mint for decor (don’t smash it because it releases oil)

Steps:

• Add the molasses, lime juice and tequila to a glass with ice.

• Stir, allowing the ice to melt and thin the molasses so the ingredients come together.

• Top with ginger ale. Add mint.