Smoky Boreal Barbecue Sauce

Directions

• Step 1 Prepare and light charcoal grill and let burn down to a medium/low heat.
• Step 2 Fire bell peppers while waiting for the charcoal to burn down. Place the peppers directly on the cherry red coals until the skin is fully blackened, flipping periodically to char the entire pepper. Once blackened, place in a pot with a lid to sweat which makes them easier to peel. When the peppers have cooled, peel off the black charred skin and rinse with water to remove as much char as possible from the flesh. Set aside.
• Step 3 Slice tomatoes lengthways in half, remove stem and white core. Sprinkle with sea salt.
• Step 4 Scatter a handful of wood chips on burned low charcoal – this will give you aromatic and flavourful smoke for about 15 minutes. (You can use hard fruit woods, maple, hickory or alder. Most of the time I use alder as it’s grows everywhere I cook, but you can purchase wood chips anywhere charcoal is sold and experiment with the different flavours they impart.)
• Step 5 Place the tomatoes, skin side down on the grill and close the lid. Smoke the tomatoes for 15-20 minutes or until the skins come off easily. This is the most important step, decide when the tomatoes have the amount of smoke flavour you’re looking for as this will become the base of your sauce. Remove from grill and once cool enough, slip skins, remove seeds and place in a large heavy bottomed pot.
• Step 6 Over medium high heat, bring tomatoes, peppers, onions, jalapeños and garlic to a boil. Turn heat down and let simmer for about 30 minutes uncovered until vegetables are soft, breaking down and all juices released.
• Step 7 Put the mixture through a food mill and discard any leftover seeds and skins. Or, in batches, pulse in a food processor until smooth. Depending on how many seeds are left in the mixture (or if you are bothered by seeds), push through a sieve trying to retain as much of the pulp and leaving only bits of seeds and skins behind.
• Step 8 You’ll be left with 16 -19 cups of delicious smokey tomato sauce. Pour back into the large pot, add juniper berries, Labrador tea and chili and simmer for 1-2 hours until reduced by half. Use a wooden spoon handle to measure the depth of the tomato mixture, take off the heat when tomato mixture reaches half that height on the wooden spoon handle. The juniper, Labrador and hot chilli will have to be removed before jarring and canning, so you may want to tie them into cheese cloth for easy removal, or just make sure you spoon them out.
• Step 9 Add vinegar, bourbon, brown sugar, salt and pepper.
• Step 10 Bring sauce back up to a boil for 30 minutes or until desired consistency for jarring.
• Step 11 Ladle hot sauce into hot sterilized 250ml canning jars, leaving a 1.5 cm headspace. Wipe jar rims with clean damp paper towel, place snap lids and adjust screw bands to hand tight.
• Step 12 Process filled jars in a boiling water bath canner for 20 minutes (start timing when water returns to boiling). Remove jars from canner with jar lifter, cool on wire racks. Do not move until completely cooled. You should start to hear the immensely satisfying sound of the the jars popping and sealing right away, but it can take unto 12 hours. Will keep for 6 months to a year if stored in a cool dark place, and the flavour will continue to develop for about a month after sealing. Use any jars that don’t seal right away and keep refrigerated after opening.
• Step 13 Made to be enjoyed with wild meat, but really, it tastes good on pretty much anything.