This barbecue sauce is so different than almost anything you’ve ever tasted. Who would ever – ever – think of making a barbecue sauce with watermelon? You need to like sweet BBQ sauce, however, to like this. It’s really very sweet. If that meets with your taste, you’ve just got to try this.
A couple of weeks ago I went to a cooking class with a different instructor. It was all about flank steak (pictured above). I really thought we were going to learn all about the meat itself – the chemistry of it, I suppose – the why of flank steak recipes. Flank steak is such a different cut of meat. Not that the instructor didn’t mention a couple of facts about flank steak – she did – but it was about 2 sentences and then she was off and running with a recipe. I expected at least one recipe (out of 5) that required a marinade, when in fact, not even one of them was marinated.
Now my understanding about flank steak is that, of course, it’s extremely lean. Probably the leanest beef cut in the animal.
Here in the photo at left you can definitely see the lengthwise striations (the grain) in the meat – an important point since those long meat strands contribute to the toughness of the meat. Your butcher will have removed the fat flap and silverskin, so all you really see is the very lean meat. In the photo at right you can see the very thin slices that are ideal for flank. The thinner the better. You always want to slice flank steak across the grain. And if you can do it on an angle, you’ll get a nicer (bigger) slice of meat, and it’s a more attractive portion for serving.
Flank steak used to be considered a poor man’s meat, since the cut was not as desirable as other steak types. And it still is a distant cousin of a Porterhouse, of filet mignon. Yet it’s not inexpensive today – over time it became more popular and therefore the cost of flank steak has risen considerably in the last 50 years. The problem with flank steak is that it’s a muscle meat – it is exercised with every step a steer makes. See the chart above – the flank is on the underbelly (see turquoise section just above the steer’s privates). Hence it has lots of connective tissue which is why it’s often a tough piece of meat.
There are two methods of tenderizing flank steak – with an enzyme (like papaya, pineapple, fig, kiwi and ginger) or with an acid (citrus juices, soy sauce, vinegar). Both methods work and they both have their pluses and minuses. One of the minuses is that enzymes mostly sit on the top of the meat and if you marinate meat for very long the exterior of the meat becomes mealy when cooked – because the enzymes don’t penetrate the meat, but stay over-concentrated on the surface. I’ve had that happen but never understood why. I learned more about flank steak in 10 minutes of reading my reference book On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
Now, back to the cooking class. I may not prepare a single one of the meat recipes from the class, although IF I decided to marinate the meat, all of the recipes would be improved. In all 5 recipes, the meat was too tough for me. And hard to eat in a classroom setting with just a regular knife. There were 3 sauces that went with the flank steak (one a salad dressing, and two sauces). It’s the sweet barbecue sauce that I’m going to share today. It was very good. Really, very, very good.
You need to love a sweet sauce, or you won’t like this at all. Since my DH is diabetic, I’ll need to use very little of this sauce on anything I might make. It contains a lot of ketchup, which also contributes to its sugar content. When I tasted the first bite of the finished sauce my mind immediately did a Proust-ian moment, the whole thing about our memories of food, like Proust’s madeleines. Anyway, my brain said watermelon rind pickles, a memory I dredged up from my childhood and long-lost relatives. There aren’t any watermelon rinds in this sauce, though – it must have been the proportion of acid to sugar that made me think pickles. But that gives you a clue as to whether you can taste the watermelon in this barbecue sauce? Yup, you sure can! I’m going to try a few of these recipes in coming weeks – using a marinade. I’ll let you know how they turn out, but meanwhile, the sauce is excellent and worth making. And if you ever have some leftover watermelon and everyone is tired of it – you now know what to do with it!
What I liked: the watermelon flavor that certainly came through. The sauce is reduced down (the watermelon provides a significant amount of fluid to the sauce, so it needs to be rendered down to a thicker consistency). It would be good on any meal – beef, pork or chicken. I wouldn’t do it on fish – not the right kind of sauce for fish. It should keep for weeks in the refrigerator.
What I didn’t like: really, nothing. It is sweet, though, so I’ve reduced the amount of honey added to the sauce as you’re cooking it.
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Watermelon Barbecue Sauce
Recipe By: Katherine Emmenegger, Great News Cooking School 2/2012
Serving Size: 8
NOTES: I reduced the amount of honey in this recipe – if you like the sweet, add another 2 tablespoons.
3 cups watermelon — seedless, diced, pureed in blender to make 2 cups puree
2 tablespoons honey
2 cups ketchup
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke flavoring
1. Add all ingredients to a heavy-duty saucepan.
2. Simmer for about 40 minutes, or until the sauce reaches a thick consistency (or to taste).
Per Serving: 99 Calories; trace Fat (3.7% calories from fat); 1g Protein; 25g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; trace Cholesterol; 720mg Sodium.
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