Every cuisine has a combination of flavors that makes it uniquely itself. In Mediterranean food, it’s olive oil and lemon juice. In French food, it’s a combination of alcohol plus stock plus butterfat. In Vietnamese cuisine, it might be fish sauce plus lime plus garlic plus chiles.
In American food, it’s the combination of sugar plus vinegar plus tomato plus chiles plus a whole bunch of other things. American cuisine, which is one of the busiest hybrid cuisines there is, isn’t distinguished by “clean” flavors — that is, by a small handful ingredients in perfect balance.
American recipes are made with a lot of ingredients. Coca-Cola has at least 15 ingredients in it. This recipe for a steak sauce has eight ingredients: canned tomatoes, onion, garlic, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, ketchup and thyme.
Yet, if you add all the ingredients in the prepared products, including the anchovies, tamarind and molasses in the Worcestershire sauce, the spices and corn syrup in the ketchup and vinegar and chiles in the hot sauce, you probably end up with more than 25 ingredients. This means that American food acts on your palate in a completely different way than, say, a piece of grilled branzino with olive oil, lemon and thyme.
Years ago, when I worked with she explained that her food acts by targeting all areas of the palate — sweet, salty, sour and bitter — not to mention umami and spicy. A dish that acts on all these taste sensors at once, she believed, produces an explosive, exciting flavor sensation.
This steak sauce is sweet, tangy, spicy, salty and gets a good umami kick from the Worcestershire. served with a side of buttermilk-dipped fried onion rings.
Steak Sauce
Serve as a glaze with a grilled rib-eye or New York steak or with a hamburger. Makes about 6 cups sauce.
Ingredients
3 28-ounce cans peeled tomatoes
2 yellow onions, roughly chopped
12 cloves garlic
2 cups brown sugar
2 cups Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce, plus a little more
2 tablespoons hot sauce
2 cups ketchup
6 sprigs fresh thyme
Directions
Place all ingredients except thyme in a heavy-bottomed pot. Simmer over very low heat for about 2 hours, stirring ocassionally, until very thick. Blend the sauce until smooth and pass through a fine strainer. Return to a clean pot and simmer over low heat until it thickly coats the back of a spoon. Add the thyme and infuse for 5 minutes.
Remove the thyme and adjust the seasoning with additional Worcestershire sauce, if necessary. The sauce should be tangy, spicy and sweet. Cool and refrigerate. The steak sauce should last a month.
