The grilling season of summer may be over, but tailgating is just “kicking off”. That’s a good enough reason for me to try out a new barbecue sauce.
Working with the Foodbuzz Tastemaker’s program, I received a sample of KC Masterpiece Southern Style Barbecue Sauce for a taste test and headed straight to the grill.
I decided to cook some chicken thighs and apply a three step combo with the sauce: first marinating them for about 10 hours, then basting them over the coals, and finally dressing them with the sauce after cooking.
Marinating
Upon opening the sauce, I was surprised to see it was so thin, with just a touch of thickness to it. This was perfect for marinating, though. I dumped about half of the bottle into a gallon sized Ziploc bag along with a pound of thawed chicken thighs. I didn’t add any other seasonings to make sure the full flavor of the sauce came through.
Basting
Trying to be as authentic as I could with a Southern style barbecue, I cooked the chicken over low, indirect heat for about two hours. Your cooking time might vary but just know that indirect heat is best to keep from burning marinated meats. I basted the chicken with the sauce a few times during the cooking process, making sure all surfaces were covered nicely.
Dressing
Maybe soaking is a better term to use for this step but dressing sounds right to me. Immediately after getting the thighs off the grill, I place them in a ceramic bowl and doused them with the last of the sauce. This was the final step in flavoring with the new sauce.
Tasting!
Plating for dinner, I ended up with a sort of California-Carolina fusion. The arugula salad with balsamic dressing seemed perfect for LA while the potato salad was the perfect match for a plate of barbecue.
Tasting the chicken, I noticed the vinegary-ness of the sauce right away. It did have a bit of heat to it, but ti was far from spicy. The label mentions “the heat of red and black pepper” but only lists “spices” under ingredients. Much more prevalent was the tang of the tomato based and a bit of sweetness from the molasses.
With so many styles of barbecue having roots in the South, I wondered how and why KC Masterpiece decided to classify this sauce as Southern. If I had to give it a proper home, I would definitely say it was the cousin of a Carolina sauce. If I had chopped my chicken and served it on buns along with this sauce, I’d say it was a Carolina sauce for sure.
In the end I’d say this Southern Style sauce is a nice addition to the KC Masterpiece line. It has plenty of merit as a marinade with its thin texture but also works for basting while the meats are cooking and for dressing when the meat comes off the grill.
I’ve got the sauce covered; now all we need to do is find a tail gate party and get some barbecuing started. Go team!